NK Eide

Juxtapost 64

 

"...'I’m pretty sure that the new president, whoever it is, will not show up and work on George Bush’s domestic achievement on Day 1,' she told a group of civic leaders and educators, promising to do 'everything in my power' to improve the law before the White House changes hands. For Ms. Spellings, a longtime and exceedingly loyal member of the Bush inner circle, it was a startling, if tacit, admission that the president’s education legacy is in danger. No Child Left Behind — the signature domestic achievement, beyond tax cuts, of the entire Bush presidency — has changed the lives of millions of American students, parents, teachers and school administrators. Yet its future is in grave doubt. Adopted by Congress on a wave of bipartisan unity that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the law imposed unprecedented testing requirements and tough expectations on the nation’s nearly 99,000 public schools. But despite rising test scores, there is no hard-and-fast evidence, most experts say, that it is actually improving student achievement..."

Juxtapost 63

"...This search for cash comes as national party committees, like the D.N.C., are barred from soliciting or spending soft money, the unrestricted donations to political parties. But there is one major exception to these limits: the unlimited contributions from corporations and unions for the party’s convention. Even more, donations for the conventions, unlike other campaign contributions, are fully tax-deductible to corporations as a business expense. To many critics, this is the last soft-money loophole in campaign finance, one that neither Mr. Obama, nor his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, who was a sponsor of the legislation banning soft money, has spoken out against. And the convention fund-raising could test the commitment these two candidates have to erasing the influence of big money in politics..."

Juxtapost 62

"...A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received. The audit also found a sometimes stunning lack of accountability in the way the United States military spent some $1.8 billion in seized or frozen Iraqi assets, which in the early phases of the conflict were often doled out in stacks or pallets of cash..."

Juxtapost 61

"...Last fall, Blackwater Worldwide was in deep peril. Guards for the security company were involved in a shooting in September that left at least 17 Iraqis dead at a Baghdad intersection. Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and led to a criminal investigation by the F.B.I., a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile Congressional hearings. But after an intense public and private lobbying campaign, Blackwater appears to be back to business as usual..."