Northeast Lawmakers Say Congress Failed to Deliver Home-Heating Funds

ABC News
Lawmakers: Congress Failed on Heating Funds
Northeast Lawmakers Say Congress Failed to Deliver Home-Heating Funds
By ANDREW MIGA
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Millions of low-income families will face a bleak winter because Congress failed to deliver home-heating funds, Northeast lawmakers warned Thursday.

"It was the wrong choice for the American people in this cold holiday season," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who led a Senate fight for fuel assistance.

Home-heat advocates had been hopeful as late as Wednesday night that the Senate would approve two spending bills providing $4.1 billion in fuel assistance. But $2 billion in energy aid was stripped from a defense appropriations bill along with a GOP-backed provision to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

That left just $2.1 billion for this winter's Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, slightly below last year's funding.

"It looked like Congress was going to do the right thing, but it never happened," said Mark Wolfe of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, which represents state agencies that distribute heat aid.

In a separate budget-cutting bill Wednesday, the Senate approved $1 billion to help families heat their homes next winter. That money is stalled in the House.

All told, the Senate on Wednesday passed $3 billion in heat assistance for this winter and next.

"The Republican budget left America's neediest families out in the cold this winter," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said. "The priorities for working Americans were trumped by profits for oil company executives."

Senators, however, will have another chance to boost heating aid.

The Senate is expected to vote next month on $2 billion in supplemental funding for heating assistance.

Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Thursday they won a pledge for the vote from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Last summer, Kennedy said, Congress authorized $5.1 billion heating aid in the sweeping Energy Policy Act but then failed to follow through on the spending blueprint.

As the Arctic drilling fight flared in the Senate, home-heating aid was used as a sweetener by the GOP to win votes, Reed said. "It was a casualty of that battle," he said.

Noting record energy costs, Wolfe said many local heat aid agencies will run out of funds soon because of a flood of applicants.

Northern state lawmakers will try to boost funding for heating assistance when Congress returns from its holiday recess, Reed said.

About 5 million households nationwide receive the funds.

Read More...

Summary only...

Kennedy Seeks Alito Docs on Princeton Case

ABC News
Kennedy Seeks Alito Docs on Princeton Case
Kennedy Seeks Documents on Alito's Involvement With Conservative Group
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward Kennedy is pressing for documents on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's involvement with a conservative group that argued Princeton University lowered its admission standards to accept women and minorities.

In a letter on Thursday, Kennedy, D-Mass., asked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to make a formal request for files in the private papers of a founder and leader of Concerned Alumni of Princeton.

"In view of CAP's troubling opposition to equal educational opportunity for women, minorities and the disabled, it is important for the committee to learn more about Judge Alito's involvement in this organization," Kennedy wrote.

Alito said last month that he did not recall any involvement with the group, which two decades ago sparked controversy by saying school officials had lowered the Ivy League university's admission standards to allow enrollment of women and minorities.

"A document I recently reviewed reflects that I was a member of the group in the 1980s. Apart from that document, I have no recollection of being a member, of attending meetings or otherwise participating in the activities of the group," Alito wrote the Senate.

Alito's recollections differ from what he wrote when he was seeking appointment to the Reagan administration. In a 1985 job application letter, he wrote that he was currently a member of "the Concerned Alumni of Princeton University, a conservative alumni group."

Alito graduated from Princeton in 1972, the same year the group was founded. Among the organization's leaders was William A. Rusher, who was publisher of the National Review. The Library of Congress has Rusher's papers from 1940-89.

In his letter, Kennedy said the Congressional Research Service has tried to get access to files in Rusher's papers that may relate to the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. Rusher has refused, citing his right to know who is seeking the material and how it will be used.

Kennedy argued that a formal request from Specter would result in greater cooperation.

The Massachusetts senator questioned why the information Alito disclosed in his 1985 job application never came up during his 1987 nomination as U.S. attorney for New Jersey and his 1990 nomination for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read More...

Summary only...

Surveillance, New York Style

The New York Times
Surveillance, New York Style

It's a sad day when a police force generally known for its professionalism is caught using underhanded tactics to spy on and even distort political protests and mass rallies. Yet that is precisely what an archive of videotapes shows New York City police officers or people working with them doing at seven public gatherings since August 2004. The sorry tale was laid out by Jim Dwyer in yesterday's Times in an article based on civilian and police videotapes gathered by a forensic analyst critical of the tactics.

The most disturbing instance of improper behavior occurred last year during the Republican National Convention when a sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police set off a bruising confrontation with demonstrators.

The man, who had vivid blond hair, was holding a sign at a march of poor people when the police suddenly moved to arrest him. Onlookers shouted at the police to let him go, and officers in riot gear responded by pushing against the crowd. Protesters were put on the ground, and at least two were arrested. Meanwhile, the blond-haired man spoke quietly with the police and was quickly led away. The same man was videotaped at an arrest scene a day earlier calling out words that seemed intended to rile the bystanders.

This was a deliberate effort to incite violence that would in turn justify a tough police response.

Another disturbing incident occurred last year when a police helicopter, attempting to track bicycle riders at night through the Lower East Side, recorded nearly four minutes of a couple's intimate moments on the secluded terrace of a Second Avenue penthouse. The night-vision camera did not catch the couple's most personal moments, but the invasion of privacy proved deeply upsetting and brought a formal complaint from one of the victims. It was a sobering reminder for those who generally favor surveillance, as the penthouse owner does, that covert spying often sweeps up innocent victims.

The questionable police tactics may have been fostered by a national mood that favored tough antiterrorism measures after Sept. 11, 2001, even if that meant an erosion of civil liberties. The same impulse to overreach that led the Bush administration to intercept Americans' international communications without warrants, and that emboldened the F.B.I. to spy on groups like Greenpeace and Catholic Worker members, was surely at work in New York when the police spied on people protesting the Iraq war, bicyclists riding in a mass rally and even mourners at a street vigil.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's record on free speech is already pretty poor. Unless he wants to make a disregard for New Yorkers' rights part of his legacy, he should make sure that the police understand what civil liberties mean in a democracy.

Read More...

Summary only...

Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency

The New York Times
Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency

George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his vice president that this was a joke.

Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr. Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind closed doors with oil executives to abrogating longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions and spy on American citizens.

It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming about for decades. Most Americans looked at wrenching events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the Iran-contra debacle and worried that the presidency had become too powerful, secretive and dismissive. Mr. Cheney looked at the same events and fretted that the presidency was not powerful enough, and too vulnerable to inspection and calls for accountability.

The president "needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy," Mr. Cheney said this week as he tried to stifle the outcry over a domestic spying program that Mr. Bush authorized after the 9/11 attacks.

Before 9/11, Mr. Cheney was trying to undermine the institutional and legal structure of multilateral foreign policy: he championed the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow in order to build an antimissile shield that doesn't work but makes military contactors rich. Early in his tenure, Mr. Cheney, who quit as chief executive of Halliburton to run with Mr. Bush in 2000, gathered his energy industry cronies at secret meetings in Washington to rewrite energy policy to their specifications. Mr. Cheney offered the usual excuses about the need to get candid advice on important matters, and the courts, sadly, bought it. But the task force was not an exercise in diverse views. Mr. Cheney gathered people who agreed with him, and allowed them to write national policy for an industry in which he had recently amassed a fortune.

The effort to expand presidential power accelerated after 9/11, taking advantage of a national consensus that the president should have additional powers to use judiciously against terrorists.

Mr. Cheney started agitating for an attack on Iraq immediately, pushing the intelligence community to come up with evidence about a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda that never existed. His team was central to writing the legal briefs justifying the abuse and torture of prisoners, the idea that the president can designate people to be "unlawful enemy combatants" and detain them indefinitely, and a secret program allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without warrants. And when Senator John McCain introduced a measure to reinstate the rule of law at American military prisons, Mr. Cheney not only led the effort to stop the amendment, but also tried to revise it to actually legalize torture at C.I.A. prisons.

There are finally signs that the democratic system is trying to rein in the imperial presidency. Republicans in the Senate and House forced Mr. Bush to back the McCain amendment, and Mr. Cheney's plan to legalize torture by intelligence agents was rebuffed. Congress also agreed to extend the Patriot Act for five weeks rather than doing the administration's bidding and rushing to make it permanent.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court refused to allow the administration to transfer Jose Padilla, an American citizen who has been held by the military for more than three years on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks, from military to civilian custody. After winning the same court's approval in September to hold Mr. Padilla as an unlawful combatant, the administration abruptly reversed course in November and charged him with civil crimes unrelated to his arrest. That decision was an obvious attempt to avoid having the Supreme Court review the legality of the detention powers that Mr. Bush gave himself, and the appeals judges refused to go along.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have insisted that the secret eavesdropping program is legal, but The Washington Post reported yesterday that the court created to supervise this sort of activity is not so sure. It said the presiding judge was arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges and that several judges on the court wanted to know why the administration believed eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants was legal when the law specifically requires such warrants.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are tenacious. They still control both houses of Congress and are determined to pack the judiciary with like-minded ideologues. Still, the recent developments are encouraging, especially since the court ruling on Mr. Padilla was written by a staunch conservative considered by President Bush for the Supreme Court.

Read More...

Summary only...

Judge dismisses Pope from sexual abuse case

Reuters
Judge dismisses Pope from sexual abuse case

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed Pope Benedict from a civil lawsuit lodged against him and other Roman Catholic church officials that accused them of covering up sexual abuse of a minor by a seminary student.

In a written ruling, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal agreed with a motion filed by the Vatican that Pope Benedict enjoyed "head-of-state immunity" in the case.

Three unnamed plaintiffs in the case have said church officials ignored their pleas to investigate Juan Carlos Patino-Arango, who they accused of sexual abuse, and that the clergy helped him leave the country.

The church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly called the Holy Office of the Vatican, headed by Pope Benedict when he was a cardinal, played a central role in the conspiracy to conceal the abuse that occurred in 1995 and 1996, the plaintiffs said.

The Church has been hit by numerous lawsuits since the 2002 scandal in the United States when it was discovered that priests accused of molesting children were moved from parish to parish to hide the abuse.

Read More...

Summary only...

Democrats post wins as Congress adjourns

Reuters
Democrats post wins as Congress adjourns

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-led U.S. Congress on Thursday sent President George W. Bush its last legislation for the year after Democrats scored unexpected victories on spending, anti-terrorism legislation and the environment.

On a day of chaotic wrangling between parties and the two houses of Congress, the U.S. Senate gave final passage to a five-week extension of the USA Patriot Act that buys Democrats time to press for more civil-liberties safeguards in the counterterrorism law.

It acted after the House of Representatives scaled back a six-month extension initially passed by the Senate.

The extension was a defeat for Bush, who had fought for a permanent renewal but ran into an outcry over revelations that he had authorized eavesdropping on Americans suspected of links to terrorism without a court order.

The House also gave final passage to a $453.3 billion defense-spending bill that includes $50 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and sent the measure to Bush. Democrats had forced the Senate's Republican majority to strip from the measure a provision opening up an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

In addition, a nearly yearlong battle to cut spending was further delayed when Democrats forced the House put off a vote until next year on a nearly $40 billion spending-cut package Republicans had hoped would showcase a commitment to reducing deficits as they push for lower taxes.

Despite the last-minute Democratic gains, Republicans touted successes in upgrading roads and mass transit, expanding trade, revamping bankruptcy laws, enacting a comprehensive energy policy and confirming John Roberts to head the U.S. Supreme Court as the 17th chief justice.

Bush said he would sign the extension to the Patriot Act.

"It appears to me that the Congress understands we got to keep the Patriot Act in place, that we're still under threat, there's still an enemy that wants to harm us," Bush said.

The act was passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks and key provisions were due to expire at the end of this month. It expanded federal authority to conduct secret searches, obtain private records, intercept telephone calls and take other actions in the effort to track down suspected terrorists.

PATRIOT ACT EXTENSION

House and Senate Republican leaders negotiated a compromise that would have permanently renewed the law, but that was blocked in the Senate by Democrats joined by a handful of Republicans.

After some last-minute wrangling between the House and Senate, lawmakers agreed to extend the act until February 3 and all sides declared victory.

"We kept Senate Democrats from killing the Patriot Act," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Democrats took a different view.

"We always said that we would accept a short-term extension to give negotiators time to get the final bill right," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said. "We will use the extension to seek a Patriot Act that gives the government the tools it needs to fight the terrorists, while still protecting the rights of innocent Americans."

Bush, who has been battling sinking approval ratings, has seen his clout in Congress diminished by recent scandals affecting top Republicans, as well as the eavesdropping revelation.

The spending-cut measure had been narrowly approved by the House and Senate, but Senate Democrats forced small changes that meant the House will have to take it up again next year.

The delay means the spending cuts, which affect some anti-poverty programs, might be considered as congressional Republicans try to push through tax cuts for investors and prepare for November 2006 congressional elections.

After adjourning for the year, Congress returns in January and the Senate plans confirmation hearings on Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, has said he would also like to hold a hearing on the eavesdropping disclosure.

The Senate may also take up immigration legislation in February. The House approved a bill last week that focuses mostly on border controls and punishing businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

The Senate is likely to include some kind of temporary-worker program that many conservative House Republicans say would amount to giving amnesty to illegal immigrants.

(additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan)

Read More...

Summary only...

Scandals cast light on congressional lobbying

Reuters
Scandals cast light on congressional lobbying

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As a U.S. lawmaker steps down for taking bribes and others face a separate corruption probe, the relationship between money and power in Washington is coming under increased scrutiny.

California Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham faces 10 years in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes to help secure Defense Department contracts.

The Justice Department also is seeking to prove that other lawmakers accepted campaign contributions, lavish trips and other gifts from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff in return for favorable treatment for his clients.

Abramoff's expected cooperation in the probe could spell trouble for Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, also a Republican, who have ties to the lobbyist.

The investigation has highlighted the close relationship between the 535 members of Congress and the 27,000 registered lobbyists who shower them with sports tickets and other perks.

"It does seem like there's been a terrible gray area, a lot of money floating around Washington, and a lot of things that are borderline acceptable," said Penn State political science professor Frank Baumgartner. "It would not surprise me if a number of people end up implicated in this."

Lobbying firms took in $2.14 billion in 2004, up from $1.47 billion in 1999, according to the PoliticalMoneyLine Web site.

General Electric Co. alone paid $17.24 million to 17 different lobbying firms last year. "We think it's wise to ensure that our employees, retirees and investors are well-represented when there are issues that are discussed that affect them," company spokesman Gary Sheffer said.

Many lobbyists are former lawmakers or their aides, who can exchange contacts for hefty paychecks after leaving office.

Forty-three percent of the 198 lawmakers who have left for the private sector since 1998 have become lobbyists, according to the public-interest group Public Citizen.

When Louisiana Republican Billy Tauzin stepped down as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2004, he took a job heading a drug-industry trade group that reportedly pays him $2.5 million per year.

Top staffers now expect starting lobbyist salaries of $300,000, according to the Washington Post.

That sets up a conflict of interest, because lawmakers and staffers may be reluctant to push policies that hurt their future job prospects as lobbyists, Baumgartner said.

Lawmakers' relatives, including a son of Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert and four sons of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, often work as lobbyists.

Bonds between lobbyists and lawmakers have been tightened in recent years by a Republican effort to fill top lobbying jobs with congressional staffers and other party loyalists who can raise money and help Republicans stay in power.

With weak ethics oversight in Congress, it is no surprise that something like the Abramoff scandal would arise, said Mike Surrusco, director of ethics campaigns for the nonprofit group Common Cause.

Lawmakers have moved to clean up their act as Congress enters an election year. Several have returned campaign contributions from Abramoff clients; others have proposed tougher lobbying rules.

The House Ethics Committee plans to end its partisan gridlock and take up several reforms next year, said a senior Republican aide familiar with the issue.

"The Republicans need to demonstrate that there's a functioning ethics process in the House, and the Democrats ... they'd like to get some scalps on the wall," the aide said.

Read More...

Summary only...

Evolution named 2005's top scientific breakthrough

Reuters
Evolution named 2005's top scientific breakthrough

By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two days after a U.S. judge struck down the teaching of intelligent design theory in a Pennsylvania public school, the journal Science on Thursday proclaimed evolution the breakthrough of 2005.

Wide-ranging research published this year, including a study that showed a mere 4 percent difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, built on Charles Darwin's landmark 1859 work "The Origin of Species" and the idea of natural selection, the journal's editors wrote.

"Amid this outpouring of results, 2005 stands out as a banner year for uncovering the intricacies of how evolution actually proceeds," they wrote. "Ironically, also this year, some segments of American society fought to dilute the teaching of even the basic facts of evolution."

The journal's editor in chief, Don Kennedy, acknowledged this was a reference to the rise of the theory of intelligent design, which holds that some aspects of nature are so complex that they must be the work of an unnamed creator rather than the result of random natural selection, as Darwin argued.

Opponents, including many scientists, argue it is a thinly disguised version of creationism -- a belief that the world was created by God as described in the Book of Genesis -- which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled may not be taught in public schools.

"I think what arouses the ire of scientists (about intelligent design) is ... the notion that it belongs in the same universe as scientific analysis," Kennedy said in a telephone interview.

"It's a hypothesis that's not testable, and one of the important recognition factors for science and scientific ideas is the notion of testability, that you can go out and do an experiment and learn from it and change your idea," said Kennedy. "That's just not possible with a notion that's as much a belief in spirituality as intelligent design is."

Intelligent design theory came under review in two U.S. states this year, with a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Tuesday banning the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in the Dover Area School District.

In Kansas, the state Board of Education approved public school standards that cast doubt on evolutionary theory.

Kennedy said Science picked evolution as the year's biggest breakthrough in part because it was a "hot topic," but stressed there was a wealth of research that justified the choice.

Other breakthroughs in the journal's Top 10 include research in planetary exploration, the molecular biology of flowers, the violent ways of neutron stars, the relationship between genetics and abnormal human behavior, the new field of cosmochemistry, a protein that controls the flow of potassium ions to cells, fresh evidence of global warming, an engineering approach to molecular biology and superconductivity.

Areas to watch for in 2006, according to Science, include the avian flu, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and the possible sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker, long presumed extinct but rediscovered in 2004.

Read More...

Summary only...

Toussaint to Bloomberg: You are Shaming NYC

[You will want to read the entire article, to see the hypocrisy of Bloombergs statements. It is presented in full below:]

twulocal100.org
Toussaint to Bloomberg: You are Shaming NYC

Dec. 21- Yesterday you used your position as Mayor of New York to call us "thuggish"and "selfish." How dare you?

Our children turn on the TV to see the Mayor denouncing their parents as "morally reprehensible." Have you no shame?

As you know better than most, this strike was forced on us by the MTA. You know this because you share much of the blame. It is your provocative rhetoric about what givebacks we transit workers must accept for the next generation of transit -- our children and new immigrants -- that has pushed our members beyond the limits of their patience.

You all but demanded this confrontation, and now you act angry and surprised. You owe all New Yorkers an apology for poisoning the atmosphere around difficult labor negotiations.

You call us “irresponsible.” New York City and New York State have slashed their subsidies for mass transit. Mayors and Governors have created a seemingly permanent Structural Deficit for transit which much be filled by costly borrowing. Wall Street has profited, but Main Street has suffered. But you knew that already from your previous career. Now that the debt-servicing bill has come due, the MTA demands that we pay the price: worse health care and worse pensions.

But what about our conducting an "illegal" strike? What about the law? You are all over the media with high-minded talk about "illegal" behavior, castigating criminals and screaming that no one is above the law. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds. You must hope everyone has forgotten your biography: "Bloomberg on Bloomberg." You boast on Page 59 on how you started your rise to great wealth, great enough to enable you to buy the Mayor's office twice. You set up your office "...all without permission, violating every fire law, building code and union regulation on the books."

I guess illegality is in the eye of the beholder. A confessed lawbreaker has the gall to lecture 34,000 hard working people whose only crime is standing up for their families and for dignity and respect on one of the toughest, most dangerous jobs in New York.

Stop using transit workers as a punching bag to undo decades of pension gains for city workers. Stop demonizing transit workers in the eyes of the public.

Stop bullying and start acting like the Mayor you promised to be.

Read More...

Summary only...

Mayor's 'Thuggish' Comment Rankles Some

Yahoo! News
Mayor's 'Thuggish' Comment Rankles Some

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer

The war of words over the transit strike took an ugly turn after Mayor Michael Bloomberg described union heads as "thuggish," a remark some said was racist in the context of a predominantly black union.

During his first briefing on the strike Tuesday at City Hall, Bloomberg complained that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City and disgraced the noble concept of public service."

A group of City Council members and black leaders said Wednesday that Bloomberg's comment was racist because it was directed at leaders of a union that is less than 30 percent white.

"We resent the idea that you would characterize a predominantly black and Latino union as a bunch of thugs," said City Councilman Charles Barron.

Ed Skyler, the mayor's spokesman, replied: "It's despicable to inject race into this situation."

Bloomberg has no official role in the labor negotiations, since city subways and buses are managed by the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But he is responsible for keeping New York running during the shutdown of the nation's largest transit system.

The Rev. Herbert Daughtry, an influential black minister, said the mayor, governor and MTA leaders were risking comparisons to Eugene "Bull" Connor. The Birmingham, Ala., segregationist police commissioner turned fire hoses and police dogs on black civil rights marchers in 1963.

Daughtry said Bloomberg was using as his "bully club" the state law prohibiting strikes by public employees.

"Be cautious how you use the law to beat people into submission," Daughtry said.

In the past, Barron and Daughtry have used the word "thug" to describe white attackers involved in bias crimes. Barron stressed that the context of the predominantly black union is what made Bloomberg's comment racially insensitive.

Transport Workers Union President Roger Toussaint stopped short of joining the accusations of racism, but said Wednesday that the "thuggish" remark showed the mayor's "lack of respect" for his members.

"We wake up at three and four in the morning to move trains in this town," Toussaint said. "That's not the behavior of thugs and selfish people."

Read More...

Summary only...

Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen Executive Power

washingtonpost.com
Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen Executive Power

By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers

The clash over the secret domestic spying program is one slice of a broader struggle over the power of the presidency that has animated the Bush administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney came to office convinced that the authority of the presidency had eroded and have spent the past five years trying to reclaim it.

From shielding energy policy deliberations to setting up military tribunals without court involvement, Bush, with Cheney's encouragement, has taken what scholars call a more expansive view of his role than any commander in chief in decades. With few exceptions, Congress and the courts have largely stayed out of the way, deferential to the argument that a president needs free rein, especially in wartime.

But the disclosure of Bush's eavesdropping program has revived the issue, and Congress appears to be growing restive about surrendering so much of its authority. Democrats and even key Republicans maintain Bush went too far -- and may have even violated the law -- by authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens' overseas telephone calls in search of terrorist plots without obtaining warrants from a secret intelligence court.

The vice president entered the fray yesterday, rejecting the criticism and expounding on the philosophy that has driven so many of the administration's actions. "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it -- and to some extent that we have an obligation as the administration to pass on the offices we hold to our successors in as good of shape as we found them," Cheney said. In wartime, he said, the president "needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired."

Speaking with reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force Two to Oman, Cheney said the period after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War proved to be "the nadir of the modern presidency in terms of authority and legitimacy" and harmed the chief executive's ability to lead in a complicated, dangerous era. "But I do think that to some extent now we've been able to restore the legitimate authority of the presidency."

For Cheney, the post-Watergate era was the formative experience shaping his understanding of executive power. As a young White House chief of staff for President Gerald R. Ford, he saw the Oval Office at its weakest point as Congress and the courts asserted themselves. But scholars such as Andrew Rudalevige, author of "The New Imperial Presidency," say the presidency had recovered long before Cheney returned to the White House in 2001. The War Powers Act, the legislative veto, the independent counsel statute and other legacies of the 1970s had all been discarded in one form or another.

"He's living in a time warp," said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and Reagan administration official. "The great irony is Bush inherited the strongest presidency of anyone since Franklin Roosevelt, and Cheney acts as if he's still under the constraints of 1973 or 1974."

Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) said: "The vice president may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last 30 years."

The tug over executive power traces back to the early years of the republic, and presidents have traditionally moved to expand their reach during times of war. John Adams, fearing a hostile France, presided over the imprisonment of Republican critics under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson jailed Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who had run against him for president, for protesting the entry into World War I. Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II. And Ronald Reagan circumvented a Cold War congressional ban on providing aid to contra rebels in Nicaragua.

The Bush administration rejects comparisons to such events and says its assertions of authority in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have been carefully tailored to meet the needs of a 21st-century war against a nebulous foe. At his news conference Monday, Bush bristled at the notion that he sought "unchecked power" and said he had consulted with Congress extensively.

Yet Bush supporters believe that other branches should take a subsidiary role to the president in safeguarding national security. "The Constitution's intent when we're under attack from outside is to place maximum power in the president," said William P. Barr, who was attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, "and the other branches, and especially the courts, don't act as a check on the president's authority against the enemy."

Even before the NSA surveillance program, the Bush administration has asserted its war-making authority in detaining indefinitely U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, denying prisoners access to lawyers or courts, rejecting in some cases the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, expanding its interrogation techniques to include harsher treatment and establishing secret terrorist prisons in foreign countries.

"The problem is, where do you stop rebalancing the power and go too far in the other direction?" asked David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "I think in some instances [Bush] has gone too far."

Taken alone, the expansion of executive wartime power may seem an obvious outflow of confronting the new threat of global terrorism. But when coupled with the huge expansion of the federal government in general under Bush -- the budget has grown by 33 percent and his administration has broadened the federal role in education and the scope of Medicare -- a growing number of conservatives are expressing concern about the size and reach of government on his watch.

Many conservatives in Congress came to office in the 1980s and 1990s with visions of shrinking government and protecting individual freedoms. The Sept. 11 attacks, however, prompted Republicans to shift their priorities and emphasize fighting terrorism. With both houses of Congress in Republican hands, lawmakers generally have been willing to yield to Bush's views on the balance of power.

"Defending the country is preeminently an executive function," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). "He is the commander in chief, and you have to move with speed and dispatch."

At the same time, some believe, Congress has abrogated its duty to provide a check on the White House. Rarely has the Republican Congress used its subpoena power to investigate Bush policies or programs or to force administration officials to explain them. Even when lawmakers are inclined to challenge the White House, they are restricted by secrecy rules in cases such as the NSA program, which was known to only a handful of key members briefed by the administration.

"When you have unified party government, the oversight tends to be very timid," said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. "It's not just the president pushing for more power. . . . The Congress has not done its job of careful evaluation of giving the president more power post-9/11."

Thurber and others think that may be changing. Led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Congress just forced Bush to accept a ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, and a handful of Republican senators have joined Democrats to block the renewal of the USA Patriot Act until more civil liberties protections are built into the law. "Congress needs to do some introspection about whether oversight is serious or basically political," Cole said

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) is one of several Republicans lobbying Bush to use the debate over NSA to work with Congress on striking the right balance of power on security issues. "The question is: Should the administration and Congress sit down and talk about where presidential authority begins and ends and congressional blessing begins and ends?" he said. "I think yes."

Read More...

Summary only...

The Religious Right's Phony 'War on Christmas': Mything in Action

au.org
The Religious Right's Phony 'War on Christmas': Mything in Action

Religious Right leaders and their allies in the right-wing news media claim there is a “war on Christmas.” To prove their charge, they have rolled out a series of allegations involving bias against Christmas by government officials and public schools. Researchers at Americans United for Separation of Church and State looked into the most common examples of supposed hostility toward Christmas and found them largely baseless.

Religious Right claim: The Saginaw, Mich., Township schools oppose red and green clothes and prohibit singing Christmas songs.

Response: Superintendent Jerry Seese says no such policies exist and pointed out that the school’s color is green.

Religious Right claim: Watchung, N.J. they have begun referring to their Christmas tree as a “Mitten Tree” and have replaced ALL references to Christmas with “Holiday.”

Response: Mayor Albert Ellis said the “Tree of Lights” (not a mitten tree) is sponsored by the local rescue squad as a fundraiser. The tree is placed in the town green and people can buy a light in honor of or in memory of someone. The town has been doing it for 15 years and no one has ever raised an issue. The town also negotiated a holiday display policy with the two local churches and developed a policy so private citizens can erect holiday displays. There is no conflict in the community over this.

Religious Right claim: A Plano, Texas, school told the students they could not wear red and green because they were Christmas colors.

Response: A spokeswoman for the district said this is not true and never has been true. She expressed frustration that this story continues to circulate and said she does not know its origin. The school debunks the claim on its website and instructed its attorney to write to Bill O’Reilly, requesting a correction.

Religious Right claim: Ridgeway, Wisc., elementary school’s “winter program” has changed the name of “Silent Night” to “Cold in the Night.” Sung to the tune of “Silent Night,” the lyrics now read: “Cold in the night, no one in sight, winter winds whirl and bite, how I wish I were happy and warm, safe with my family out of the storm.”

Response: The school is not located in “Ridgeway” Wisconsin but is named Ridgeway Elementary School in the town of Dodgeville, Wisc. This school has several times over the past 18 years presented a play titled “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift.” The play, copyrighted in 1988, is about a scraggly Christmas tree that worries it will not find a home for Christmas; it uses several Christmas carols with different lyrics to make it easier for children to learn the words. “Silent Night” was not rewritten by the school because of its religious content. Diane Messer, administrator of the Dodgeville School District, said, “Somebody totally misunderstood and had the belief that one of our teachers took it upon herself to rewrite the words to ‘Silent Night.’ This program is well within our district’s policy which allows us the use of both religious and secular content in our curriculum and in our productions and performances.” The school has posted an item on its Web site calling the entire story “a fraud.” (See www.dsd.k12.wi.us and click on “News & Information.”)

Religious Right claim: The Glendale-River Hills School District in Wisconsin has expressly prohibited any song close to the Christmas holiday from having any religious “motive or theme.” While banning Christian Christmas songs, the district permits secular holiday songs as well as songs celebrating Hanukkah

Response: The district says this is not true. It has posted a notice on its website reading, “Recently, there have been a number of reports in the media that the upcoming Holiday Program at the Parkway School doesn’t include songs or music recognizing the Christian religious tradition. This is simply not the case.” The school also posted the holiday program on its site. Songs being sung include “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “I Saw Three Ships.”

Religious Right claim: The Raleigh, N.C., town council has recently voted to erect a Christmas display on public property (which includes a Nativity scene, snowmen, reindeer and a menorah). Apparently the ACLU has contacted the city attorney to let him know they’d fight it.

Response: This display was erected by a private religious group, not the city. North Carolina ACLU Executive Director Jennifer Rudinger says her group never threatened to sue and does not oppose this type of balanced display.

Religious Right claim: A kindergarten room-mother in Niskayuna, N.Y., was informed that the Christmas party was changed to a “Holiday” party and that no one was to send in any treats that had any religious connotation attached. No Christmas-shaped cookies, no angels. She was directed to “think snowman.”

Response: Superintendent Kevin Baughman says this is not true. He said the district is diverse and that it recognizes several holidays.

Religious Right claim: Christmas concert has songs in which the words are changed to avoid referring to Christmas and even replaces the word Christmas with "xmas" in Mine Hill, N.J.

Response: The school’s spokeswoman says this is not true.

Religious Right claim: The Jackson County, Ga., school district has prohibited teachers from wearing "any pins, angels, crosses, clothing" that contain any religious connotation or affiliation, referring to any party as a "Christmas" party, or displaying a Bible in their rooms.

Response: The district has no such policy. The superintendent sent a message to principals reminding them not to include religious material in class unless it was tied to a lesson plan. One principal misunderstood and told teachers to stop wearing religious jewelry. The district quickly clarified the policy.

Read More...

Summary only...

Untold--Or Undertold--Stories

huffingtonpost.com
Untold--Or Undertold--Stories
Harry Shearer

My colleague Michelle tipped me to this list. These lists, of undercovered stories, have become a year-end staple, but I hadn't seen one from this source before. And one really does merit more attention: It involves our "ally", Pakistan. Why the quotes? At the time we invaded Iraq, one country in the most troubled part of the world really did (a) have weapons of mass destruction, (b) a history of armed conflict with its neighbor, and (c) a known record of supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, including supporters high in the country's intelligence apparatus--and that country was Pakistan.

So, this passage stands out:

...reports that terrorist camps are reopening in Pakistan received only scant attention in 2005. In July, the Herald, a Pakistani magazine, reported that previously abandoned terrorist training camps were open for business in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. Islamabad denied that the camp in question existed, though the Herald’s reporter received a guided tour of a “fully rehabilitated” camp in Mansehra that was complete with office space, four residential halls, a volleyball court, and, of course, young men carrying AK-47s. Although there’s no sign that the camps have Islamabad’s backing, one militant told the Herald that they operated in a “regime of controlled freedom.”

Don't all human beings yearn to live in a regime of controlled freedom? Sorry, I was thinking of something else.

Read More...

Summary only...

Strict construction v. inherent powers

huffingtonpost.com
Strict construction v. inherent powers
Robert Schlesinger

Conservatives' ultimate goal for the judiciary branch of the government is a bench full of strict constructionists. Conservatives loudly decry judges who peer into the Constitution and find new rights, laws, etc.

We now know that the Bush administration -- which lays claim to the title of conservative, though many honest cons that I know either shudder or chuckle at the notion -- has been spying on U.S. citizens at home in apparent contravention of publicly-known law.

How are they able to do this? At least in part because , according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, the president has "inherent authority under the Constitution" to institute the program.

Does anyone else see any tension between decrying jurists who find new powers/rights/etc in the Constitution and chief executives (or their lawyers) who do so?

Read More...

Summary only...

Senators seek spying probe

Reuters
Senators seek spying probe

By Adam Entous and Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic and Republican calls mounted on Tuesday for U.S. congressional hearings into President George W. Bush's assertion that he can order warrantless spying on Americans with suspected terrorist ties.

Vice President Dick Cheney predicted a backlash against critics of the administration's anti-terrorism policies. He also dismissed charges that Bush overstepped his constitutional bounds when he implemented the recently disclosed eavesdropping shortly after the September 11 attacks.

Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine joined Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Dianne Feinstein of California and Ron Wyden of Oregon in calling for a joint investigation by the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees into whether the government eavesdropped "without appropriate legal authority."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he would prefer separate hearings by the Judiciary Committee, which has already promised one, and Intelligence Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, was noncommittal, saying he first wanted to further explore the matter.

"I have been in discussion with the various chairmen and will continue that discussion," Frist said. "And then decisions will be made as to whether or not (there will be) hearings, and where such hearings would be carried out."

Bush, Cheney and other senior administration officials have defended the policy of authorizing -- without court orders -- eavesdropping on international phone calls and e-mails by Americans suspected of links to terrorism.

They argue it was legal and provided the agility -- beyond a 1978 law allowing court-warranted eavesdropping -- to help defend the country after the September 11 attacks.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called the administration's policy an abuse of power.

"Americans need a president who will keep them safe and enforce the law, we don't need a big brother. Americans know we don't have to sacrifice our basic liberties in order to fight the terrorists," Dean said in a videotaped statement.

The administration has also contended it was authorized to order the eavesdropping under a congressional resolution to respond with all necessary force.

"I have grave doubts as to its applicability," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, adding Bush's order "raises very fundamental questions ... about privacy and the Bill of Rights."

Fellow Republican Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah, however, said, "I have no doubt that hearings will show that the president was within his rights."

The White House brushed aside calls for hearings. "This is still a highly classified program and there are details that it's important not be disclosed," spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The White House also sought to play down the impact on civil liberties, arguing the program was narrow in scope and that key congressional leaders were "briefed in the appropriate way" about it.

Senior Democrats said those briefings left out key details and that Congress was prevented from exercising its oversight authority because the information was classified.

'HELL OF A THREAT

Cheney, speaking to reporters during an overseas trip, defended the eavesdropping program as necessary to combat "a hell of a threat."

"And I don't think that there is anything improper or inappropriate in that and my guess is that the vast majority of the American people support that," he said.

The senators calling for a joint investigation by the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees requested detailed information.

"It is critical that Congress determine, as quickly as possible, exactly what collection activities were authorized, what were actually undertaken, how many names and numbers were involved over what period, and what was the asserted legal authority for such activities," they wrote in a letter to the Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats on the two panels.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Muscat, Oman, Patricia Wilson in Washington)

Read More...

Summary only...

High-court nominee asked about Bush spy program

Reuters
High-court nominee asked about Bush spy program

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key Republican senator asked Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito on Monday about President George W. Bush's domestic spying order and whether war gives the president a blank check when it comes to civil liberties.

In a letter to Alito, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, who will preside at Alito's Senate confirmation hearing next month, also asked what approach he would use to assess Bush's authority.

"Historically, the court has shied away from checking executive power while a military conflict was going on," Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, wrote the 55-year-old conservative in preparation for the hearing set to begin January 9.

"Pursuant to your jurisprudential framework and understanding of the separation of powers, do you believe the court's reluctance to decide these issues is justified?" Specter added.

With lawmakers in both parties raising questions, Specter has promised a separate hearing on Bush's recently disclosed order to permit eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, without court approval, on Americans with suspected terrorist ties.

WHAT O'CONNOR SAID

Specter noted that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in a separate matter, recently said, "war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."

"Do you agree?" Specter asked Alito, who if confirmed by the full Senate would replace the retiring O'Connor on the high court.

Specter added: "In light of Justice O'Connor's statement, what jurisprudential theory would you invoke to evaluate the limits on the president's authority to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens without going through the court system?"

Bush has maintained the U.S. Constitution provided him the authority to permit the eavesdropping to defend the nation.

The administration also argued Bush obtained such authority in the congressional resolution passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks to respond with "all necessary and appropriate force."

Specter wrote Alito: "What jurisprudential approach would you use to determine whether this resolution gives the president the power to issue an executive order permitting the National Security Agency to conduct domestic surveillance on international communications without first obtaining a search warrant?"

Specter also asked Alito under what "jurisprudential theory" would he determine Bush's power to have taken such action as commander in chief.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, also wrote Alito on Monday, saying he planned to ask him about Bush's eavesdropping order at his confirmation hearing.

Read More...

Summary only...

Judge bans teaching intelligent design

Reuters
Judge bans teaching intelligent design
(Note: The judge is a Republican appointed by Bush.)
By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A judge on Tuesday barred the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution at a Pennsylvania school, saying in a scathing rebuke to the school board that it violated a constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

U.S. District Judge John Jones dealt a blow to Christian conservatives, who have been pressing for the teaching of creationism in schools and who played a significant role in the re-election of President George W. Bush.

"Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in a public school classroom," Jones wrote in a 139-page opinion in the case, brought against the Dover School District.

Jones condemned the "breathtaking inanity" of the policy of the board, all but one of whom have now been ousted by local voters.

"Any asserted secular purposes by the board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective," he said.

Intelligent design holds that some aspects of nature are so complex that they must have been the work of an unnamed creator rather than the result of random natural selection, as argued by Charles Darwin in his 1859 theory of evolution.

Opponents argue it is a thinly disguised version of creationism -- a belief that the world was created by God as described in the Book of Genesis -- which the Supreme Court has ruled may not be taught in public schools.

Jones said the students and teachers of Dover High School "deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

The school district was sued by a group of 11 parents who claimed teaching intelligent design was unconstitutional and unscientific and had no place in high school biology class.

In his ruling, the judge suggested the parents file a claim for damages and legal fees against the school district.

'VICTORY FOR SCIENCE'

Christy Rehm, one of the plaintiffs, said: "This is a victory for education, a victory for science and a victory for science education."

Richard Thompson, head of the Thomas More Law Center which represented the defendants, said in a statement: "The founders of this country would be astonished at the thought that this simple curriculum change (was) in violation of the constitution that they drafted."

Asked about the ruling, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president has said he believed such decisions should be made by local school districts.

"The president has also said that he believes students ought to be exposed to different theories and ideas so that they can fully understand what the debate is about," he said.

The six-week Harrisburg trial, one of the highest-profile court cases on evolution since the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," was closely watched by Christian conservatives in other states who are planning similar initiatives.

The Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State called the court decision "a significant blow to religious right-led efforts to sneak fundamentalist dogma into public schools under the guise of science."

Richard Katskee, assistant legal director of the group, called the decision "a cautionary tale" for other school districts that might be considering similar initiatives.

Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think-tank that champions intelligent design theory, criticized the ruling.

"The judge thinks intelligent design is a supernatural explanation, but it clearly is not. So the entire decision is predicated on a false perception of intelligent design," Luskin said.

"This is by no means the end of this issue, legally speaking," said Luskin, adding that the court only has jurisdiction over part of Pennsylvania.

Eugenie Scott, head of the National Center for Science Education, called the ruling, "a major victory for science education," but said she expected challenges against evolution to continue.

In October 2004, Dover became the first U.S. school district to include intelligent design in science curriculum.

Ninth-grade biology students were presented with a four-paragraph statement saying that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and that there are "gaps" in the theory. The statement invited students to consider other explanations of the origins of life, including intelligent design.

Read More...

Summary only...

In Iran, Arming for Armageddon

Washington Post
In Iran, Arming for Armageddon
By Charles Krauthammer

Lest you get carried away with [Friday's] good news from
Iraq, consider what's happening next door in Iran. The
wild pronouncements of the new Iranian president,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have gotten sporadic press ever
since he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. He
subsequently amended himself to say that Israel should
simply be extirpated from the Middle East map and
moved to some German or Austrian province. Perhaps
near the site of an old extermination camp?

Except that there were no such camps, indeed no
Holocaust at all, says Ahmadinejad. Nothing but
"myth," a "legend" that was "fabricated . . . under
the name 'Massacre of the Jews.' " This brought the
usual reaction from European and American officials,
who, with Churchillian rage and power, called these
statements unacceptable. That something serious might
accrue to Iran for this -- say, expulsion from the
United Nations for violating its most basic principle
by advocating the outright eradication of a member
state -- is, of course, out of the question.

To be sure, Holocaust denial and calls for Israel's
destruction are commonplace in the Middle East. They
can be seen every day on Hezbollah TV, in Syrian
media, in Egyptian editorials appearing in
semiofficial newspapers. But none of these aspiring
mass murderers are on the verge of acquiring nuclear
weapons that could do in one afternoon what it took
Hitler six years to do: destroy an entire Jewish
civilization and extinguish 6 million souls.

Everyone knows where Iran's nuclear weapons will be
aimed. Everyone knows they will be put on Shahab
rockets, which have been modified so that they can
reach Israel. And everyone knows that if the button is
ever pushed, it will be the end of Israel.

But it gets worse. The president of a country about to
go nuclear is a confirmed believer in the coming
apocalypse. Like Judaism and Christianity, Shiite
Islam has its own version of the messianic return --
the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. The more devout
believers in Iran pray at the Jamkaran mosque, which
houses a well from which, some believe, he will
emerge.

When Ahmadinejad unexpectedly won the presidential
elections, he immediately gave $17 million of
government funds to the shrine. Last month Ahmadinejad
said publicly that the main mission of the Islamic
Revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of
the Twelfth Imam.

And as in some versions of fundamentalist
Christianity, the second coming will be accompanied by
the usual trials and tribulations, death and
destruction. Iranian journalist Hossein Bastani
reported Ahmadinejad saying in official meetings that
the hidden imam will reappear in two years.

So a Holocaust-denying, virulently anti-Semitic,
aspiring genocidist, on the verge of acquiring weapons
of the apocalypse, believes that the end is not only
near but nearer than the next American presidential
election. (Pity the Democrats. They cannot catch a
break.) This kind of man would have, to put it gently,
less inhibition about starting Armageddon than a
normal person. Indeed, with millennial bliss pending,
he would have positive incentive to, as they say in
Jewish eschatology, hasten the end.

To be sure, there are such madmen among the other
monotheisms. The Temple Mount Faithful in Israel would
like the al-Aqsa mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount
destroyed to make way for the third Jewish Temple and
the messianic era. The difference with Iran, however,
is that there are all of about 50 of these nuts in
Israel, and none of them is president.

The closest we've come to a messianically inclined
leader in America was a secretary of the interior who
24 years ago, when asked about his stewardship of the
environment, told Congress: "I do not know how many
future generations we can count on before the Lord
returns; whatever it is we have to manage with a skill
to leave the resources needed for future generations."
But James Watt's domain was the forest, and his weapon
of choice was the chainsaw. He was not in charge of
nuclear weapons to be placed on missiles that are
paraded through the streets with, literally, Israel's
name on them. (They are adorned with banners reading
"Israel must be wiped off the map.") It gets worse.
After his U.N. speech in September, Ahmadinejad was
caught on videotape telling a cleric that during the
speech an aura, a halo, appeared around his head right
on the podium of the General Assembly. "I felt the
atmosphere suddenly change. And for those 27 or 28
minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink. . . .
It seemed as if a hand was holding them there, and it
opened their eyes to receive the message from the
Islamic Republic."

Negotiations to deny this certifiable lunatic
genocidal weapons have been going nowhere. Everyone
knows they will go nowhere. And no one will do
anything about it.

Read More...

Summary only...

Shocking The Conscience Of America: Bush And Cheney Call For The Right To Torture And Are Decisively and Correctly Rebuffed by the House

writ.news.findlaw.com
Shocking The Conscience Of America: Bush And Cheney Call For The Right To Torture And Are Decisively and Correctly Rebuffed by the House
By JOHN W. DEAN

If the events I am about to describe were taking place in a movie, or novel, I would lose my ability to suspend disbelief: Who could conceive of an American President and Vice President demanding that Congress give them authority to torture anyone, under any circumstances?

Yet that is exactly what happened. Until Congress -- finally -- showed some institutional pride and told Bush and Cheney that it would not tolerate torture.

To place this activity in context, I have been trying to think of a similar "un-American" low point in the American presidency. Possible candidates might include John Adams's approval of the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, or Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War.

But neither of these moments strikes me as sufficiently shameful. Indeed, not even Franklin Roosevelt's horrific internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II is, in my view, as low a point as President Bush and Vice President Cheney's call for the unrestricted, unreviewable power to torture. It seems the precedent for Bush and Cheney's thinking resides in the Dark Ages, or Stalin's Russia.

The Bush/Cheney presidency has been pushing the nation toward an atrocity unmatched in the annals of American infamy and ignominy. Thankfully, a few wiser men and women in Washington have saved us from the national disgrace Bush and Cheney insisted upon imposing on the nation.

If you have not been following this shameful saga, here is a brief recounting of the key events. A sensible resolution appears to be at hand.

McCain's Torture Amendments

In October and November of 2005, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) offered amendments to the Defense Department's authorization bill and its appropriations bill. Apparently, McCain sought to avoid having his amendments defeated based upon a parliamentary technicality. And he succeeded, attaching the amendments to both pieces of legislation.

The first McCain-sponsored amendment is titled "Uniform Standards for the Interrogation of Persons Under the Detention of the Department of Defense." It simply states that persons "in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense" can only be interrogated pursuant to the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation. (The new edition is about to be released; let us hope it does not contain unwelcome surprises for Senator McCain, and that the Army has proceeded, here, in good faith, rather than trying to undermine the Senator's legislation.)

The second McCain-sponsored amendment is titled "Prohibition On Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Person Under Custody or Control of the United States Government." This provision requires individuals in the custody of, or under the physical control of, the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, not be subjected "to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."

When officials in the White House leaned of these amendments, they tried to block them. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist tried, but failed, to procedurally prevent Senator McCain from offering the amendments. Then the White House threatened that President Bush, who has not vetoed a single piece of legislation since assuming office, would veto any legislation that contained McCain's amendments, even if it meant shutting off funds for the Department of Defense (a move that would have posed no small threat to national security).

Senator McCain, joined by former military judge and current Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), called the bluff of the White House, and pushed forward. The U.S. Senate voted 90 to 9 in favor of McCain's amendments. (Senator Corzine (D-NJ), who was running for governor, was absent). The nine Senators who, with their votes, refused to prohibit torture deserve mention, for notwithstanding mealy rationalizations, their votes should haunt their political careers: Senators Allard (R-CL), Bond (R-MO), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Cornyn (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), and Stevens (R-AK).

The Reasons For, and Importance of, The McCain Amendments

Bush has repeatedly said, "We do not torture." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly claimed the United States does not engage in "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." And CIA director Porter Goss says his agency "does not do torture. Torture does not work."

Why, then, was it necessary to clarify the law? Because no one believes the Bush Administration on this issue. Recall the torture memos, in which the White House was defining away torture. As The Economist commented, the words of these officials count "for little when the administration has argued, first, that during time of war, the president can make just about anything legal, and, second, that the UN Convention Against Torture does not apply to interrogations of foreign terrorist suspects outside the United States."

Senator McCain's agenda has been clear. His first amendment is based on the military's experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq: As he explained, "We placed extraordinary pressure of [American troops] to extract intelligence from detainees, but then threw out the rules that our soldiers had trained on and replaced them with a confusing and constantly changing array of standards. We demanded intelligence without ever clearly telling our troops what was permitted and what was forbidden. And when things went wrong, we blamed them, and we punished them. I believe we have to do better than that."

McCain's second amendment offers nothing new - yet is, paradoxically, extremely important nonetheless. The amendment restates what is, in fact, the law under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United States in 1948; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a signatory; and the Convention Against Torture, negotiated by the Reagan Administration.

When ratifying the Convention Against Torture, the Senate imposed a reservation: that the implementing laws should define "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" as prohibited by the U.S. Constitution's Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Supreme Court has held that such treatment must "shock the conscience" to be beyond the pale. Strikes me that Bush and Cheney have shocked America's conscience.

In addition, in 2004, Congress passed a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Authorization bill, reaffirming that detainees in U.S. custody could not be subject to torture or cruel treatment as those terms have been previously defined by the U.S. Government. "But since last year's DOD bill," Senator McCain informed his colleagues, "a strange legal determination was made that the prohibition in the Convention Against Torture against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment does not legally apply to foreigners held outside the United States." Or as the Senator put it more bluntly, "They can apparently be treated inhumanely."

The Bush/Cheney Administration's reading of the law is malarkey. Judge Abe Sofaer, who negotiated the torture convention, wrote an OpEd explaining that there was never any intention to limit the torture convention to American soil. And this is another reason why McCain's amendments are needed: The Washington Post's report of an international network of CIA-run secret prisons raises the fear that the U.S. may, based on this distortion of the law, be torturing its prisoners whenever it finds it expedient to do so.

Common sense tells the world if Bush and Cheney did not want to engage in torture, they would not have been pulling out all the stops to block these amendments.

Stated Reasons For Opposition To McCain's Amendments

The Administration's public explanation for its opposition to McCain's amendments, as made by those willing to carry sewage for them, bordered on pathetic. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) claimed during the Senate debate on the amendments that they would have a reverse impact, resulting in more torture.

Stevens reached this conclusion by claiming that the international teams that pursue terrorists, being aware of restrictions on Americans, would not give the United States custody of terrorists that they found. This contention is so full of holes that it is barely necessary to refute it.

Not all groups that sniff out terrorists are international. To the contrary, that is the exception to the rule. And typically, Americans command these undertakings, so the idea that prisoners accused of terrorism would be somehow taken away from America and tortured - against America's will -- by other nations is absurd.

In fact, the current practice is exactly the opposite: Through what is called "rendition," America now allows its own suspects to be turned over to countries that torture more shamelessly, and that do not honor the kind of rights the U.S. Constitution guarantees.

McCain's second amendment, by prohibiting torture of anyone, anywhere, who "in the custody of, or under the physical control of, the United States Government" ought to preclude rendition - and surely is intended to do so. (But clever lawyers may try to evade it with sophistry: If the U.S. truly transfers custody of a prisoner to another sovereign, is he still under the U.S.'s physical control? What if another country captures a U.S. suspect, and tortures him before turning him over?)

Reports indicated that Dick Cheney's favorite argument - the one he makes in trip after trip to closed door meetings on Capitol Hill to get authority, at minimum, for the CIA to be able to torture -- is the old "ticking bomb" argument. So frequently has this specious argument been employed to justify torture, it deserves to be shot down with more than a passing reference.

The "Ticking Bomb" Argument For Torture

The argument goes like this: A nuclear bomb has been planted in the heart of a major American city, and authorities have in custody a person who knows where it is located. To save possibly millions of lives, would it not be justified to torture this individual to get the information? Is not this lesser evil justified?

Of course it is. And this argument is a wonderful means to comfort those who have moral problems with torture. The beauty of this argument is that once you concede there are circumstances were torture might be justified, morally and legally (through what criminal law calls the defense of necessity: that an act is justified to save lives), you are on the other side of the line. You've joined the torture crowd.

Those who've invoked the argument range from Alan Dershowitz, to the Israeli Supreme Court, to the Schlesinger Report on Abu Ghraib, to the Robb/Silberman Pre-Iraq War Intelligence Report.

Most recently, and eloquently, the argument was set forth in the pages of The Weekly Standard, by Charles Krauthammer. His powerful essay, "The Truth about Torture: It's time to be honest about doing terrible things," received wide circulation on the internet.

With all these great minds, and moral authorities, relying on this argument, it is with some trepidation that I point out that it is phony. I do so for a number of very real reasons.

Fallacies In The "Ticking Bomb" Argument -- The Clock Does Not Work

It is a rhetorical device. It is seductively simplistic, and compellingly logical. It is also pure fantasy. The conditions of ticking bomb scenarios are seldom real.

No one has more effectively probed the fallacies of this argument than Georgetown University School of Law professor David Luban. Writing in the Washington Post, in a piece entitled "Torture, American-Style," Luban explains why, while it makes good television melodrama, this scenario does not produce critical thinking.

Professor Luban surgically dissects this argument at greater length in the October 2005 Virginia Law Review. His essay "Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb" is very much worth the read. Citing moral philosopher Bernard Williams, Luban writes that "there are certain situations so monstrous that the idea that the processes of moral rationality could yield an answer in them is insane," and "to spend time thinking what one would decide if one were in such a situation is also insane, if not merely frivolous."

Indeed, shouldn't the President, the Vice President, and those members of the Senate and House embracing the power to torture without justification, without court oversight, and without limits, look, instead, at what they are doing to us as a society? As professor Luban notes, "McCain has said that ultimately the debate is over who we are. We will never figure that out until we stop talking about ticking bombs, and stop playing games with words."

Which brings us to the present situation.

Resolution Of The McCain Amendments

The House of Representatives, as far as the Republican leadership was concerned, was not willing to accept the McCain Amendments. No surprise there. Last year, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert tried to slip a provision into a law authorizing the CIA to torture. But he got caught, and the effort died.

The House GOP leaders wanted to avoid letting this matter come to a recorded vote in the House. How many members would dare to vote for torture? Even though public opinion polls are all over the lot, as Maggie Gallagher found, when Gallup asked more specific questions, Americans recoiled.

For example, Gallup asked, "Would you be willing, or not willing, to have the U.S. Government torture known terrorists if they know details about future terrorist attacks in the U.S.?" Fifty-nine percent were not willing.

The poll asked if the following activities were right or wrong: forcing prisoners to remain naked and chained in uncomfortable positions in cold rooms for several hours: (79 percent said this was wrong); having female interrogator make physical contact with Muslim men during religious observances that prohibit such contact (85 percent said this was wrong); threatening to transfer a prisoner to a country known to use torture: (62 percent said this was wrong); threatening prisoners with dogs (69 percent said this was wrong); using the technique of waterboarding, which simulates drowning (82 percent said this was wrong). The only 50/50 split came on sleep deprivation.

Senator McCain has been in negotiations with the House, and with the White House. Then Congressman John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) forced the issue in the House, calling for a motion to instruct the House conferee to accept the language of the McCain Amendments. "No circumstance whatsoever justifies torture. No emergencies, no state of war, no level of political instability," Murtha, a heavily decorated and much respected veteran, said.

Only one lonely voice dared to speak on the House floor against this motion. Congressman C.W. Bill Young of Florida opposed the McCain amendments because he did not believe terrorists should have the protection of our Constitution. The argument was absurd. They already have that protection, and McCain's amendments do not change the existing law. Young's contention went nowhere. The vote sent a clear message to Bush and Cheney. The motion carried by 308 yeas and 122 nays. Those are 122 members of the House who have shamed themselves.

The Congress has given the Bush/Cheney White House no choice: Back down. Both the Senate and the House have told the President, if you veto, we will cram this down your throat. As Mr. Murtha put it: "No torture and no exceptions."

Since Dick Cheney is so keen on torture, maybe he will give the nation a demonstration of waterboarding, which he does not seem to believe is cruel, inhumane, or degrading. No doubt he could be given a ticking clock to keep with him under water as well.

===

The following is courtesy of Bob Moss:

Following are the members of the House who shamed their country by voting against instructing their conferees to agree to Senator McCain's amendment to the Defense spending bill banning torture and cruel and inhuman treatment.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll630.xml
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 630
(Republicans in roman; Democrats in italic; Independents underlined)

H R 2863 YEA-AND-NAY 14-Dec-2005 6:49 PM

QUESTION: On Motion to Instruct Conferees
BILL TITLE: Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes

Yeas Nays PRES[ENT] N[ot] V[oting]

Republican 107 121 2
Democratic 200 1 1
Independent 1
TOTALS 308 122 3

. . . .

---- NAYS 122 ---

[first name, state and district appended from http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml]

Aderholt [, Robert, Alabama, 4th]
Akin [, Todd, Missouri, 2nd]
Baker [, Richard, Louisiana, 6th]
Barrett (SC) [ J.Gresham, South Carolina, 3rd]
Barton (TX) [, Joe, Texas, 6th]
Bilirakis [, Michael, Florida, 9th]
Bishop (UT) [, Rob, Utah, 1st]
Blackburn [, Marsha, Tennessee, 7th]
Blunt [, Roy, Missouri, 7th]
Boehner [, John A., Ohio, 8th]
Bonilla [, Henry, Texas, 23rd]
Bonner [, Jo, Alabama, 1st]
Bono [, Mary, California, 45th]
Brady (TX) [, Kevin, Texas, 8th]
Brown (SC) [, Henry, South Carolina, 1st]
Burgess [, Michael, Texas, 26th]
Burton (IN) [, Dan, Indiana, 5th]
Buyer [, Steve, Indiana, 4th]
Calvert [, Ken, California, 44th]
Campbell (CA) [, John, California, 48th]
Cannon [, Chris, Utah, 3rd]
Cantor [, Eric, Virginia, 7th]
Carter [, John, Texas, 31st]
Chabot [, Steve, Ohio, 1st]
Coble [, Howard, North Carolina, 6th]
Cole (OK) [, Tom, Oklahoma, 4th]
Conaway [, K. Michael, Texas, 11th]
Crenshaw [, Ander, Florida, 4th]
Cubin [, Barbara, Wyoming, At Large]
Culberson [, John, Texas, 7th]
Deal (GA) [, Nathan, Georgia, 10th]
DeLay [, Tom, Texas, 22nd]
Doolittle [, John, California, 4th]
Drake [, Thelma D., Virginia, 2nd]
Dreier [, David, California, 26th]
Everett [, Terry, Alabama, 2nd]
Feeney [, Tom, Florida, 24th]
Fossella [, Vito, New York, 13th]
Foxx [, Virginia, North Carolina, 5th]
Franks (AZ) [, Trent, Arizona, 2nd]
Frelinghuysen [, Rodney, New Jersey, 11th]
Gallegly [, Elton, California, 24th]
Garrett (NJ) [, Scott, New Jersey, 5th]
Gillmor [, Paul, Ohio, 5th]
Gingrey [, Phil, Georgia, 11th]
Gohmert [, Louie, Texas, 1st]
Goode [ Jr., Virgil H., Virginia, 5th]
Granger [, Kay, Texas, 12th]
Graves [Graves, Sam, Missouri, 6th]
Hall [, Ralph M., Texas, 4th]
Hart [, Melissa, Pennsylvania, 4th]
Hastings (WA) [, Doc, Washington, 4th]
Hayes [, Robin, North Carolina, 8th]
Hayworth [, J.D., Arizona, 5th]
Hefley [, Joel, Colorado, 5th]
Hensarling [, Jeb, Texas, 5th]
Herger [Herger, Wally, California, 2nd]
Hobson [, David, Ohio, 7th]
Hoekstra [, Pete, Michigan, 2nd]
Hostettler [, John N., Indiana, 8th]
Hunter [, Duncan, California, 52nd]
Istook [ Jr., Ernest J., Oklahoma, 5th]
Jindal [, Bobby, Louisiana, 1st]
Johnson, Sam [Texas, 3rd]
King (IA) [, Steve, Iowa, 5th]
King (NY) [, Pete, New York, 3rd]
Kingston [, Jack, Georgia, 1st]
LaHood [, Ray, Illinois, 18th]
Lewis (CA) [, Jerry, California, 41st]
Lewis (KY) [, Ron, Kentucky, 2nd]
Linder [, John, Georgia, 7th]
Lucas [, Frank, Oklahoma, 3rd]
Lungren, Daniel E. [California, 3rd]
Marchant [, Kenny, Texas, 24th]
Marshall [, Jim, Georgia, 3rd]
McHenry [, Patrick T., North Carolina, 10th]
McKeon [, Buck, California, 25th]
Mica [, John, Florida, 7th]
Miller (FL) [, Jeff, Florida, 1st]
Miller, Gary [, Gary, California, 42nd]
Musgrave [, Marilyn, Colorado, 4th]
Myrick [, Sue, North Carolina, 9th]
Neugebauer [, Randy, Texas, 19th]
Ney [, Robert W., Ohio, 18th]
Norwood [, Charlie, Georgia, 9th]
Nunes [, Devin, California, 21st]
Oxley [, Michael G., Ohio, 4th]
Pearce [, Steve, New Mexico, 2nd]
Pence [, Mike, Indiana, 6th]
Peterson (PA) [, John E., Pennsylvania, 5th]
Poe [, Ted, Texas, 2nd]
Price (GA) [, Tom, Georgia, 6th]
Putnam [, Adam, Florida, 12th]
Radanovich [, George P., California, 19th]
Rehberg [, Dennis, Montana, At Large]
Renzi [, Rick, Arizona, 1st]
Rogers (AL) [, Mike, Alabama, 3rd]
Rogers (KY) [, Harold, Kentucky, 5th]
Rogers (MI) [, Mike, Michigan, 8th]
Rohrabacher [, Dana, California, 46th]
Royce [, Ed, California, 40th]
Ryun (KS) [, Jim, Kansas, 2nd]
Schmidt [, Jean, Ohio, 2nd]
Sessions [, Pete, Texas, 32nd]
Shadegg [, John, Arizona, 3rd]
Shuster [, Bill, Pennsylvania, 9th]
Simpson [, Mike, Idaho, 2nd]
Smith (TX) [, Lamar, Texas, 21st]
Souder [, Mark E., Indiana, 3rd]
Stearns [, Cliff, Florida, 6th]
Sullivan [, John, Oklahoma, 1st]
Taylor (NC) [, Charles H., North Carolina, 11th]
Terry [, Lee, Nebraska, 2nd]
Thornberry [, Mac, Texas, 13th]
Tiahrt [, Todd, Kansas, 4th]
Turner [, Michael, Ohio, 3rd]
Weldon (FL) [, Dave, Florida, 15th]
Westmoreland [, Lynn A., Georgia, 8th]
Wicker [, Roger, Mississippi, 1st]
Wilson (SC) [, Joe, South Carolina, 2nd]
Young (AK) [, Don, Alaska, At Large]
Young (FL) [, C.W. Bill, Florida, 10th]

---- NOT VOTING 3 ---

Costa [, Jim, California, 20th]
Diaz-Balart, M. [, Mario, Florida, 25th]
Hyde [, Henry, Illinois, 6th]

Read More...

Summary only...

You are on the list

Read More...

Summary only...

Wishing you a happy

Read More...

Summary only...

Budget vs Middle Class

Read More...

Summary only...

Stop Whining

Read More...

Summary only...

It might help if you got out a bit

Read More...

Summary only...

Compassionate Conservatism At Work

Read More...

Summary only...

Battles rage in US over celebrating holidays

Reuters
Battles rage in US over celebrating holidays

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ebenezer Scrooge would enjoy Christmas in America this year.

Drowning out the sounds of sleigh bells ringing and children singing are the sounds of arguing. At issue is how to greet people, how to decorate main street and how to sell gifts -- all without offending someone.

Religious conservatives are threatening lawsuits and boycotts to insist that store clerks and advertisements say "Merry Christmas." Countering are those who argue they are being inclusive and inoffensive with the secular "Happy Holidays."

In the middle seem to be most Americans, who not only aren't offended but find the whole spat rather ridiculous.

"You'd think there might be some Christmas spirit around Christmas time around the issue of Christmas," said Paul Cantor, a popular culture expert and professor at the University of Virginia. "It's one time you really wish people really could live and let live."

Alas, that's not what this Christmas is all about.

Sparks flew when U.S. President George W. Bush sent out cards referring to the "holiday season," a leading Republican declared the decorated tree on the Capitol lawn a "Christmas Tree" and not a "Holiday Tree" and the logger who cut down the tree for the Boston Common was so upset when officials called it a "Holiday Tree" that he said he'd rather see it fed into a wood chipper.

"HANGING OF THE GREENS"

Conservative groups have marshaled the forces of lawyers volunteering to help anyone fighting for Christmas displays and launched boycotts of retailers whose advertisements fail to say "Merry Christmas."

A school system in Texas found itself in court after teachers asked children to bring white -- rather than red and green -- napkins to a party, while Annapolis, Maryland raised hackles by calling its evergreen boughs and ribbons on public buildings the "Hanging of the Greens" rather than "Christmas decorations."

Fanning the flames are conservative talk show personalities bemoaning the secularization of Christmas. Fox News anchor John Gibson chimed in with a book "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse than You Thought."

"'Happy Holidays' and 'Season's Greetings' are not a substitute for 'Merry Christmas,'" said Manuel Zamorano, head of the Sacramento, California-based Committee to Save Merry Christmas, which organizes store boycotts over holiday advertising.

"Christmas is the holiday and 'Merry Christmas' is what we want to hear," he said. "It's political correctness gone amok."

BLAME POLITICS

Bah humbug, said radio talk show host Bill Press, author of "How the Republicans Stole Christmas."

"People have been saying 'Happy Holidays' for a hundred years at least," he said. "This is nothing new. It just celebrates the diversity of America."

He blames politics.

"It is all by design," he said. "The more people are talking about who's saying 'Happy Holidays' and who's saying 'Merry Christmas,' the less people are talking about Karl Rove, torture, Tom DeLay, the war in Iraq and other hot issues.

"And the more they stir up their evangelical Christian base over this issue, the more likely they are to get out and vote Republican in 2006," he said.

The debate has become comic grist.

"Every time you say 'Happy Holidays,' an angel gets AIDS," warned television comedian Jon Stewart.

The satirical newspaper The Onion wrote a spoof about a judge who declared Christmas unconstitutional, with a photograph purporting to be workers dismantling the famed tree at Rockefeller Center to comply with the judge's ruling.

Making the rounds on the Internet is a series of mock memos from a fake company inviting employees to a Christmas Party, complete with open bar, gift exchange and tree lighting.

By the last of the memos, the increasingly beleaguered company is forced to apologize to its Jewish employees, the office alcoholics, Muslims, dieters, pregnant women, gays and lesbians, union members, management, cross-dressers, diabetics and vegetarians. In the end, the party is canceled.

RETAILERS IN THE MIDDLE

Stuck in the middle of the debate are retailers, whose seasonal selling campaigns seem to raise particular wrath.

"When someone says 'Happy Holidays,' they're saying something very nice to you. There's no ill intent behind any of this," said Dan Butler of the National Retail Federation. "When you're dealing with the public you'll get positive comments and negative comments about everything in the world."

Perhaps, added Peter Steinfels of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, there isn't a war on Christmas after all but a more sensitive religious right.

Conservatives are using the super-fast Internet and e-mail to publicize what they see as extreme examples of "super politically correct conduct," he said. "It gives the impression that there's a great deal of political correctness ... when in fact it may not really be so different from the way it's always been."

Read More...

Summary only...

US Congress 'most corrupt in history'

Reuters
Sen. Reid calls US Congress 'most corrupt in history'

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called the Republican-led Congress "the most corrupt in history" on Sunday, and distanced himself from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, at the center of an escalating probe.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Jack Abramoff directed illegal payoffs to lawmakers, including Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, who was forced to step down as House Republican leader in September after indicted in his home state of Texas on unrelated charges.

"Don't lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal," Reid told Fox News Sunday, saying he never received any money from Abramoff.

Reid, like many members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, has received campaign contributions from Abramoff clients. Some lawmakers have returned those donations, but Reid gave no indication he would do so.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has been examining stock sales by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, and last month Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican, resigned from the House after pleading guilty of taking more than $2.4 million in bribes involving defense contracts.

Democrats have accused Republicans of "a culture of corruption," and plan to make it an issue in next year's congressional elections.

"America can do better than what we've done," said Reid. "The most corrupt Congress in the history of the country. We have such significant problems with what's going on in this country."

Most of the federal investigative focus is now on Abramoff, whose lobbying activities, particularly on behalf of Indian tribal clients, are also being examined by Congress.

Appearing on Fox TV, Reid said, "Abramoff gave me no money. His firm gave me no money. He may have worked (at) a firm where people have given me money."

A Reid aide later explained that the senator received money from a political action committee affiliated with a firm where Abramoff had worked, but Abramoff did not contribute to it.

"I feel totally at ease that I haven't done anything that is even close to being wrong," Reid said.

Read More...

Summary only...

Rice defends Bush decision on eavesdropping in US

Reuters
Rice defends Bush decision on eavesdropping in US
By Jackie Frank

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday President George W. Bush's secret order to allow spying on people in the United States was legal and necessary to prevent terrorism, but lawmakers from both parties called for Congress to investigate.

Rice, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," said disclosure of the eavesdropping could jeopardize terrorism investigations.

"The more we get the exposure of these very sensitive programs, the more it undermines our ability to follow terrorists, to know about their activities," she said.

Rice said Bush used his authority so "people could not communicate inside the United States about terrorist activity with people outside the United States, leaving us vulnerable to terrorist attack."

After initially refusing to comment on a New York Times report on the covert program, Bush said on Saturday that after the September 11 attacks, he had authorized the National Security Agency "to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."

Rice reiterated Bush's statement that the wiretapping of telephone conversations and other communications was legal and did not violate the U.S. Constitution.

A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without court approval.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Rice said the program was carefully controlled, with a limited scope focusing only on those believed to have links to al Qaeda terrorists.

LAWMAKERS CONCERNED

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid disputed Bush's contention that members of Congress had been informed.

Reid was one of several lawmakers of both parties who have backed a planned hearing on the issue by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican. Many lawmakers have questioned whether domestic spying violates the U.S. Constitution.

"Congress has not been involved in setting up this program. This is totally a program of the president and the vice president of the United States," Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on Fox. He said he was briefed on it only a few months ago, long after the program was reported to have been started.

Specter said he wanted to know what legal authority the White House had used. "Let's not jump to too many conclusions. Let's look at it analytically. Let's have oversight hearings. And let's find out exactly what went on," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina echoed the call for an investigation and said he knew of no legal basis for the White House to circumvent existing laws. "It is about winning the war, adhering to the values that we're fighting for. And you can't set those values aside in the name of expediency," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said, "I take him (Bush) at his word" that the order was critical to saving lives and consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution."

"The president, I think, has the right to do this, and yet, I don't know why he didn't go" through court procedures, McCain told ABC's "This Week."

"I know that the leaders of Congress were consulted, and that's a very important part of this equation," McCain said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said she was advised of Bush's decision "shortly after he made it" and had been given several updates.

But Pelosi said in a statement on Saturday night, "The Bush administration considered these briefings to be notification, not a request for approval. As is my practice whenever I am notified about intelligence activities, I expressed my strong concerns during these briefings."

On Saturday, the president said he had reauthorised the eavesdropping program 30 times since September 11 and intends to continue it "for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups."

Read More...

Summary only...