Big Board to Acquire Leading Electronic Trading System

The New York Times
April 21, 2005
Big Board to Acquire Leading Electronic Trading System
By JENNY ANDERSON

The New York Stock Exchange, whose shouting traders and frenzied activity have become a global symbol of capitalism, announced yesterday that it would acquire a leading electronic trading system in a deal that allows the exchange to become a public company but casts doubts on its 213-year-old system of auction trading.

The exchange will merge operations with Archipelago, one of the biggest electronic trading operators, to form the NYSE Group. The deal will give the holders of the exchange's 1,366 seats $400 million in cash and 70 percent of the shares of the combined publicly traded company.

More important, it will enable the New York Stock Exchange to expand its ability to handle trades electronically, staving off challenges from its traditional rival Nasdaq and global competitors like Euronext and Deutsche Börse.

"This transaction, transforming the New York Stock Exchange into a public, for-profit entity, is an essential step to maintain our global competitiveness and leadership," said John A. Thain, the chief executive of the exchange, who will run the new entity. "We believe that our new combined company will be a world-class competitor in every respect."

The merger is the most significant acknowledgement yet that the Big Board's traditional market, driven by human traders, may not be able to survive in an era increasingly dominated by instantaneous trades.

On the storied trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, hundreds of men and women in blue and green jackets spend their days monitoring screens, handling multiple calls and yelling at each other in an effort to get the best prices for buyers and sellers of stock.

Defenders of the system say their human judgment is critical; critics say the system is overrun with conflicts and rife with a history of misdeeds. After a three-year investigation, seven firms on the floor paid more than $240 million in fines for trading violations. Last week, 15 traders were indicted on related charges.

Electronic exchanges, on the other hand, match trades in complete anonymity.

The deal answers the calls of members, investors and, indirectly, regulators, who have demanded that the New York exchange - the last major one in the world to have floor-based trading - become faster and more electronic, more diversified and public.

Mr. Thain hopes to create an exchange that can use its stock to do deals and offer trading in different financial instruments to attract big investors. While small individual investors are generally unaware of how or where their stocks are traded, the big institutions that manage trillions of dollars through mutual funds and pension funds, have long complained that New York was too slow and too conflicted.

"We will offer our customers choice," Mr. Thain said. The choice will be to trade N.Y.S.E.-listed stocks, which the exchange trades today, as well as Nasdaq stocks, bonds and derivatives.

Many members of the exchange have resisted moving to greater automation, fearing for their jobs and their wealth, which for many is tied up in the price of a seat. Seat prices have fluctuated as sentiment about the exchange's future has wavered. In August 1999, a seat sold for $2.7 million, falling in January 2005 to $975,000. The most recent sale was back up to $1.6 million.

With the move to make the exchange a public entity, Mr. Thain escapes the exchange's long infighting among customers, seat owners and members of the exchange. By converting to for-profit status, the NYSE Group will have to answer only to its shareholders.

The deal is "a home run," said Frank Christensen, a 40-year member who is a principal at Kelly Christensen, a trading firm that operates on the floor. "It brings the connectivity we need to maintain our position globally."

But looming over the deal is an unanswered question: Is it the beginning of the end of open-outcry trading or the salvation of a seemingly outdated system? While Mr. Thain contends that the deal complements his "hybrid" proposal of floor and electronic trading, others wonder whether the exchange in Lower Manhattan, where everyone from presidents to Sarah Jessica Parker have visited to ring the opening bell, will eventually be silent.

"It is the end of the floor, in spite of what John Thain says," said Junius W. Peake, a professor of finance at the University of Northern Colorado. "It's a life preserver."

The chief executive of Archipelago, Gerald D. Putnam Jr., who at times has been critical of a floor-based system as expensive and inefficient, defended yesterday's deal. "If the customers see value, they will continue to trade there," he said in an interview. "If they don't, they won't. Having us in the mix adds choice."

The exchange's acquisition of Archipelago comes as the Nasdaq Stock Market, the largest electronic marketplace, and a consortium of private investors are nearing a deal to buy Instinet, the institutional brokerage and electronic trading network controlled by the Reuters Group. Archipelago, too, had been looking at both Instinet and Nasdaq. The two deals would mean that in just days, the four major competitors will be down to two longtime rivals: the Big Board and Nasdaq.

The transaction requires approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission. If approved, the deal will close at the end of the year or early next year.

Markets like the exchange and Nasdaq fight to be the place where investors trade. They make money from listing stocks, from executing trades and from distributing market data. As the cost of trading stocks has fallen, exchanges have become more dependent on volume and have looked more aggressively to consolidate. The competition has led to a ferocious game of musical chairs in which every player fears being left out.

In recent years, the New York exchange has been roiled by controversy over the compensation package of Richard A. Grasso, its former chairman, as well as by investigations into improper trading by some specialists on the floor. Competitors have sought to profit from the exchange's scandals and setbacks. They have reiterated that the floor-based system of humans searching for buyers and sellers, rather than having a machine anonymously match the parties, was riddled with conflicts, errors and corruption.

And yet the business of trading stocks has become less profitable and more challenging for everyone. At the same time, competition from global players from Tokyo to Frankfurt is putting pressure on all American marketplaces to broaden their scope.

"As we look to the future and the challenge of competing globally in a high-speed electronically connected world, it is clear that we must do more," Mr. Thain said.

The deal should put to rest concern that Mr. Thain was slow to act. His deal with Mr. Putnam answers many criticisms of the exchange: that it is not public, that it has no currency to do deals, that it offers investors only stocks not derivatives, a wildly popular new instrument and that it does not offer investors choice.

The New York Stock Exchange will own 70 percent of the new entity. It will pay each member $300,000 for a seat and issue stock for the remaining 70 percent of th company. Mr. Thain will remain chief executive while Mr. Putnam becomes co-president with the exchange's other two co-presidents. Three independent Archipelago directors will join the exchange's board and a separate board, made up of independent members, will regulate the entity.

Based in Chicago, Archipelago became a publicly traded company in August. Since then, it has made a number of transactions, including a deal for the Pacific Exchange. In terms of volume, it ranks behind the Big Board and Nasdaq, trading about a half billion shares a day.

The Big Board is the dominant player among markets, with 80 percent market share trading stocks which are listed on the exchange. But it has no presence trading Nasdaq-listed stocks, nor does it compete in the lucrative arena of trading increasingly popular investments like exchange-traded funds, options and other derivatives.

The challenges, however, are significant. Merging two fundamentally different models will be painful and it is unclear what success, if any, the Big Board will have integrating its own plan for further automation.

And the dark cloud hanging over the already tremendous hurdle of integration is simply whether the humans will be needed as part of the combined system.

"The floor really does add value," Mr. Thain said on a conference call, pointing out that a few hundred stocks which trade huge volumes and are highly accessible trade better electronically while less popular stocks tend to benefit from a system where individuals create demand for stocks.

Traders filed out of the exchange wearily yesterday, most ducking questions. "The world is changing and so are we," said one specialist.

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"LET'S STOP THE "FREE TRADE" NUTBALLS"

jimhightower.com

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

"LET'S STOP THE "FREE TRADE" NUTBALLS"

Where are all those "free-trade" ideologues now that their theories have turned out to be bunkum, devastating American working families?

"Trust us," they shouted, as they shoved NAFTA, the WTO, and other globs of globaloney down our throats, promising us an economic paradise if only all quotas and tariffs were eliminated, letting the magic of the global free market create a bonanza of new export jobs for us. But their schemes turn out to be scams, and America's chief export under their laissez-faire ideology turns out to be our middle-class jobs.

One of their brainflares was to eliminate all of the world's quotas on clothing, which took effect in January. This has been disastrous for folks in the real world, which the theorists apparently never visited. In only three months, their policy has resulted in the closing of 17 American textile and clothing factories and the loss of 17,000 American jobs.

This is because––duh––if you just throw open the doors to our market and say, "y'all come," such retailers as Wal-Mart, Nike, and Gap are going to get all of their stuff made in low-wage hell holes in China. Since January, imports of Chinese-made knit shirts, trousers, and underwear (products that were still mostly being made in America) were up by as much as 2000 percent! Shouldn't America at least make its own undies?

The honcho of Warnaco, one of the biggest clothing makers in the world, bluntly says: "We will always go to the least expensive place. There will be a shift to China over time." Experts expect that 70 percent of U.S. clothing will soon come from China and that the 665,000 remaining textile and clothing jobs in America will vanish in the next few years.

Yet the theorists want to feed us even more of their globaloney in the form of a new Central American trade scam called CAFTA. To start taking policy back from these ideological nutballs, call Global Trade Watch: 202-546-4996.

Sources:
"Stream of Chinese Textile Imports Is Becoming a Flood." The New York Times, April 4, 2005.
"U.S. Begins Steps to Limit Import Surge From China." The New York Times, April 5, 2005.

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Congress OKs Bill to Strip Movie Smut

ABC News

Congress OKs Bill to Strip Movie Smut

Congress Approves Bill to Support DVD Technology to Allow Parents to Eliminate Smut From Movies

By TED BRIDIS
The Associated Press

Apr. 19, 2005 - Fledgling technology that helps parents prevent children from watching movie scenes depicting sex, violence or foul language won new legal protections Tuesday under a bill Congress is sending to President Bush.

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act would assure manufacturers of DVD players and other devices using such technology they would not be violating copyrights of the Hollywood producers of movies.

The House passed it Tuesday on a voice vote. The Senate passed it in February.

The bill also would make it a federal crime to use video cameras to record films in movie theaters, and it would set tough penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release.

Moviegoers caught using video cameras in theaters would face up to three years in prison for a first offense and up to six years for later arrests.

The bill's most controversial provision focused on new filtering technology that lets parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movies that contain foul language, violence or nudity.

The author of the provision, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, compared a parent's freedom to skip violent movie scenes to skipping offensive passages in a book. That section of the bill was rewritten to ban filtering companies from selling copies of the edited movies.

"It lets parents decide for themselves what children see and hear on television," Smith said. "Raising children may be the toughest job in the world. Parents need all the help they can get."

Some lawmakers said they objected to the filtering provision but voted to approve the bill because of the crackdown on copyright infringement in other parts of the legislation.

"The intent of the movie-filtering technology is to sanitize movies to protect children," said Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif. "While I support family-friendly entertainment, I believe this method is not only a violation of filmmakers' copyright protections but also an infringement of their artistic vision."

Critics of the bill have argued it was aimed at helping one company, Utah-based ClearPlay Inc., whose technology is used in some DVD players to help parents filter inappropriate material by muting dialogue or skipping scenes. ClearPlay sells filters for hundreds of movies that can be added to such DVD players for $4.95 each month.

Hollywood executives have complained that ClearPlay's technology represents unauthorized editing of their movies. They maintain that ClearPlay should pay them licensing fees for altering their creative efforts.

The Directors Guild of America sued ClearPlay in federal court in Colorado alleging copyright violations. The company's chief executive, Bill Aho, said he expects the lawsuit will be dismissed after Bush signs the bill into law.

The bill is Senate 167.

On the Net:

ClearPlay: www.clearplay.com

Directors Guild of America: www.dga.org

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Columbine Community Marks School Shooting

ABC News

Columbine Community Marks School Shooting

'I Will Never Be the Person I Was' - Healing Comes, Slowly for Some, to Columbine Teachers

By CATHERINE TSAI
The Associated Press

Apr. 18, 2005 - Joe Higgins remembers walking back into Columbine High School, weeks after two teenage gunmen slaughtered 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.

His math lessons were still on the chalkboard. His calendar was on the same page, April 20, and his students' calculators and books were still on the desks, left behind during what they thought was a fire drill.

"It was like time had frozen," Higgins said.

The memories of that day remain crystal clear for Higgins and dozens of other teachers who survived the nation's deadliest school shooting six years ago this Wednesday. Many have moved on, and one is writing a book about it. Others, including Higgins, have had trouble putting the attack behind them.

Higgins says he was once unemotional and strict. Last year, he wept upon hearing a student he had never met died of cancer. Fire alarms make him jumpy to this day.

"I would like to be unemotional again, but I don't have control over that anymore," says Higgins, who teaches part-time at another Denver-area high school. "I don't have total control over my emotions anymore."

For years, the anniversary of Columbine has brought media attention to relatives of the slain, student survivors and authorities, still blamed by some for failing to notice problems with Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris before their killing spree.

Teachers, meanwhile, have fiercely protected each other as they sought healing in private, while school officials have refused to release details of their investigation.

Scores of teachers stayed at Columbine until that year's freshmen class graduated. Roughly 30 teachers who were at the school on April 20, 1999, still work there.

Paula Reed returned part-time to Columbine this spring after a two-year leave during which she became a novelist. Every story she wrote had a happy ending.

She stayed at Columbine until students who remembered the shootings first-hand graduated, though the pain of coming to work was making it harder to walk in the door.

"There was such a sense as a teacher, you could not abandon those kids," Reed says. "I didn't want to go back in a lot of ways, but to actually not go back was unthinkable."

She finally left to get away from the constant media attention and what she describes as the ripping of a scab that came with other deaths within the Columbine community, including suicides and two students killed at a nearby sandwich shop in 2000.

After a shooting last month at a high school on a Minnesota Indian reservation, officials blocked outsiders. But Columbine became became virtually a tour-bus attraction, with tourists leaning out windows to take pictures.

"If we had been able to shut the world out the way they had done that, it would have made such a huge difference," Reed says.

Former Columbine art teacher Barbara Hirokawa Gal, whose work to tout the healing power of the arts has grown since 1999, agreed.

"They're really lucky in a way," she says of the Minnesota tribe. "They had total control of the situation. We had absolutely no control."

Klebold and Harris opened fire at 11:19 a.m. and killed themselves 49 minutes later after fatally wounding teacher Dave Sanders and 12 classmates, including 10 in the bullet-riddled library. While Higgins and his students were filing out, English teacher Paula Reed was helping students get over a fence and away from the school near suburban Littleton.

Afterward, Reed suffered from headaches, hives and having her hair fall out. She says she felt uncharacteristically withdrawn, angry and depressed.

"Right afterward, I looked back at who I was before the shootings. It feels like a stranger," Reed says.

"I will never be the person I was on April 19 and before, but I'm closer now than I thought I would be," she says. "I truly thought, `I will never be happy again.' I don't feel that way anymore."

Douglas Craft, who retired from Columbine in 2001, wishes he could teach again. The day of the shootings, the biology teacher gathered eight students in his classroom, locked the doors and waited four hours for help to arrive. He tried to divert students' attention from the sounds of gunfire by saying things to make them laugh.

Craft had five of the slain students in his classes.

"I think about those kids all the time," Craft says. "I remember their names, I remember their faces, I remember where they sat in my classroom. I review their names in my mind quite frequently."

He taught in Denver Public Schools for a few years after leaving Columbine, realizing he wasn't ready to quit, but he now sells cars in Golden. The attacks reinforced his understanding of a teacher's purpose.

"It just reaffirmed the notion that teachers are there for more than just to teach their subject matter, which I knew all along, but to be part of the overall school community," Craft says. "That means to be a good listener and a good watcher and to be involved with our students."

Former librarian Mary Swanson confronts memories of the shootings each day as she works on a book some teachers asked her to write to record their memories. Swanson might have been in the library when Harris and Klebold opened fire if she hadn't returned home to make sure she had turned off a television.

"I lived with a lot of guilt that I wasn't in there with the kids for a long, long time," Swanson says. "I decided the reason I wasn't in there was I needed to do this book."

The book, which has not yet found a publisher, will be dedicated to Theresa Miller, who was with Sanders before he died and helped keep students calm amid the gunfire. Miller died of cancer a few years ago.

"These are stories of typical teachers. Your kids come first when you're in the classroom, no matter if gunshots are going off," Swanson says. "None of them thought they were heroes."

Gal has spent her retirement from Columbine telling others about art as therapy for healing. She says the shootings changed her perspective on teaching.

"It made me realize even more how important I was for the kids. The next two years we spent using art to recover from the trauma. I am so passionate about that now," she says.

Gal and other artists encouraged students to pour their hearts into their journals and artwork, expressing feelings that regular "talk therapy" couldn't unleash. It was all part of helping traumatized teachers, parents, students and community members deal with the pain.

"I tell people I will never do anything that difficult again in my life," Gal says. "I know I won't. I hope I won't."

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19 Bodies Left in Iraqi Soccer Stadium

ABC News

Iraqis: 19 Bodies Left in Soccer Stadium

Iraqi Reporter, Residents Say Bodies of 19 Men Left in Soccer Stadium Northwest of Baghdad

The Associated Press

Apr. 20, 2005 - The bodies of 19 Iraqis were left Wednesday in a soccer stadium in this town 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, an Iraqi reporter and residents said.

Taxi driver Usama Rauf said he heard gunshots and rushed to the stadium where he saw the bodies lined up against a bloodstained wall. The reporter and other residents counted 19 bodies and said all appeared to have been shot.

Residents said they believed the victims all men in civilian clothes were soldiers abducted by insurgents as they headed home for the holiday Thursday marking the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.

The reporter did not see any military identification documents on the bodies and it was not immediately possible to confirm the claim. U.S. and Iraqi military officials had no immediate information on the incident.

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Bodies of 50 Hostages Found in Iraq

Yahoo! News
Reuters
Bodies of 50 Hostages Found in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The bodies of 50 people, believed to be those of hostages held in a town near Baghdad earlier this week, have been found in the Tigris river south of Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday.

"More than 50 bodies have been brought out from the Tigris and we have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes," Talabani told reporters.

"We will give you details in the coming days ... terrorists committed crimes there. It is not true that there were no hostages. There were, but they were killed and they threw the bodies into the Tigris," he said.

Shi'ite officials said last Saturday that around 50 people had been taken hostage by Sunni militants in the town of Madaen, south of Baghdad, and were threatened with death.

Iraqi security forces raided the town earlier this week, but said they had found next to no evidence that anyone had been taken hostage or that there were any gunmen in the town.

Later, Shi'ite officials said that dozens of bodies had been found in the Tigris south of Madaen, but residents and police in the area who spoke to Reuters said they hadn't seen any bodies.

Talabani made his announcement at a news conference shortly after a meeting with Iraq's new prime minister and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Shi'ite political party SCIRI, one of the sources for the information on the Madaen hostages.

Talabani said details of the number of people who had been killed and their names would be announced in the coming days.

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Bush to Sign Rewrite of Bankruptcy Code

Yahoo! News
AP
Bush to Sign Rewrite of Bankruptcy Code

Wed Apr 20, 7:20 AM ET

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Americans weighed down by credit card bills and other financial obligations will have a harder time wiping out their debt under a bankruptcy bill President Bush is poised to sign.

Many debtors will have to work out repayment plans instead of having their obligations erased in bankruptcy court under the law, which will go into effect six months after Bush signs it Wednesday. The legislation is the biggest rewrite of the bankruptcy code in a quarter-century and was pushed for eight years by banks and credit card companies.

The measure would require people with incomes above a certain level to pay some or all of their credit-card charges, medical bills and other obligations under a court-ordered bankruptcy plan.

Those who fought the bill's passage said the change will fall especially hard on low-income working people, single mothers, minorities and the elderly and would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face crushing medical bills.

The financial services industry argued that bankruptcy frequently is the last refuge of gamblers, impulsive shoppers, divorced or separated fathers avoiding child support, and multimillionaires who buy mansions in states with liberal homestead exemptions to shelter assets from creditors.

The bill got final congressional approval last Thursday, and Bush said he was eager to sign it. "These commonsense reforms will make the system stronger and better so that more Americans — especially lower-income Americans — have greater access to credit," he said.

New personal bankruptcy filings edged down from 1,613,097 in the year ending June 30, 2003, to 1,599,986 in the year ending last June 30, breaking an upward trend of recent years.

Between 30,000 and 210,000 people — from 3.5 percent to 20 percent of those who dissolve their debts in bankruptcy each year in exchange for forfeiting some assets — would be disqualified from doing so under the legislation, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Those people have six months until the law takes effect to escape the tougher guidelines. Bankruptcy attorneys have said they anticipate a rush to the courthouse.

Under the current system, a federal bankruptcy judge determines whether individuals must repay some or all of their debt.

Under the new law, those with insufficient assets or income could still file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which, if approved by a judge, erases debts entirely after certain assets are forfeited. Those with income above their state's median income who can pay at least $6,000 over five years — $100 a month — would be forced into Chapter 13, where a judge would then order a repayment plan.

___

On the Net:

http://www.whitehouse.gov

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DeLay Continues Attacks on Federal Courts

Yahoo! News
AP
DeLay Continues Attacks on Federal Courts

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's work from the bench has been "incredibly outrageous," his latest salvo at the federal judiciary in the weeks following the courts' refusal to stop Terri Schiavo's death.

DeLay also labeled a lot of the courts' Republican appointees as "judicial activists," a term applied by conservatives to judges they dislike for not following what they call strict interpretations of the Constitution.

The No. 2 Republican in the House has been openly critical of the federal courts since they refused to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube. And he pointed to Kennedy as an example of Republican members of the Supreme Court who were activist and isolated.

"Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

A spokeswoman for the court, Kathy Arberg, said Kennedy could not be reached for comment.

Although Kennedy was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Reagan, a conservative icon, he has aroused conservatives' ire by sometimes agreeing with the court's more liberal members. Nevertheless, it is unusual for a congressional leader to single out a Supreme Court justice for criticism.

Dan Allen, a DeLay spokesman, declined comment on the interview.

Democrats jumped on DeLay's comments Wednesday morning.

"Has the Internet become the devil's workshop?" said Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat. "Is it some infernal machine now that needs to be avoided by all right-thinking Americans? What is Mr. DeLay trying to say, as he is stretching to lash out at judges who happen to disagree with his political point of view."

Sen. Larry Craig (news, bio, voting record), R-Idaho, retorted: "Doesn't the other side have anything to talk about nowadays?"

DeLay also has been criticized for his comments following Schiavo's death, which came despite Congress' passage of a law giving the federal courts jurisdiction to review her case. They declined to intervene.

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said in a statement.

He apologized last week, saying he had spoken in an "inartful" way.

Conservatives have been pushing to get the Senate to confirm President Bush's most conservative judicial nominees, which Senate Democrats are blocking. The House has no power over which judges are given lifetime appointments to the federal bench.

However, DeLay has called repeatedly for the House to find a way to hold the federal judiciary accountable for its decisions. "The judiciary has become so activist and so isolated from the American people that it's our job to do that," he said.

One way would be for the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the clause in the Constitution that says "judges can serve as long as they serve with good behavior," he said. "We want to define what good behavior means. And that's where you have to start."

___

On the Net:

DeLay: http://www.majorityleader.gov

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Energy Bill Includes $2 Billion Incentive for Gulf Drilling

The New York Times
April 20, 2005
Energy Bill Includes $2 Billion Incentive for Gulf Drilling
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, April 19 - Backers of energy legislation that the House plans to take up Wednesday like to emphasize its potential benefits for consumers. It has substantial rewards for energy producers as well.

A little-noted provision backed by Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the majority leader and an ally of the oil industry, would bypass Congress's normal spending process to funnel up to $2 billion over 10 years into research for recovering oil and gas from the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Supporters of what some lawmakers refer to as the "DeLay ultra-deep-water provision" say it is crucial to developing new technology to prevent the nation from becoming as dependent on foreign sources of natural gas as it is now for oil. The only way to undertake research of that magnitude, they said, is with a guaranteed flow of money over the long term.

Mr. DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, defended the move, saying, "American consumers will ultimately benefit from this provision because it will reduce our dependence on foreign energy and, more importantly, reduce personal energy costs."

But the direct spending on behalf of oil and gas companies, coming at a time when Congress is trying to tighten its belt and energy profits are up, strikes some as unjustified.

"It is really outrageous," said Jill Lancelot, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group. "As the cost of oil is going up to consumers, the handouts to the industry are gushing forth."

The money for the research is just one of the benefits to energy companies that opponents of the measure are zeroing in on. The measure includes about $8 billion in tax breaks, most of which goes to oil and gas companies to encourage traditional domestic energy production. The United States Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy organization that opposes the energy bill, estimates that only about 5 percent of the tax advantages apply to renewable resources or energy efficiency.

Opponents intend to try to strip out some of the provisions during two days of House debate, but the energy measure is expected to pass, propelled in part by worry about rising gasoline prices.

Similar legislation has been stalled in Congress for four years despite volatile gas prices and a major power blackout along the East Coast, leaving prospects for a final legislative deal again uncertain.

Some of those following the legislation closely say the House measure has become so industry-friendly that they expect it to encounter trouble in the Senate, where a version of the legislation is developing more slowly and could be held up by a looming procedural fight over judicial nominations.

Mr. DeLay figures prominently in another potential sticking point between the House and Senate, a proposal to protect manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE from lawsuits over pollution. That provision was the chief reason the measure was blocked in the last session of Congress, and Mr. DeLay and Representative Joe L. Barton, another Texas Republican and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, have kept the liability waiver in the new bill.

Opponents of the legislation are also trying to tie Mr. DeLay's close involvement with elements of the energy bill to heightened scrutiny of his ethical conduct. An advertisement underwritten by conservation groups that is scheduled to run Wednesday in a Capitol Hill newsletter urges a vote against what it portrays as the "MTBE-Tom DeLay bill."

Lawmakers and others say Mr. DeLay's influence clearly helped advance the deep-water research money, which has been proposed at lower amounts and which would have been subject to annual review by the appropriations committee. But the majority leader has gotten strongly behind the initiative as a potential boon to the Gulf of Mexico drilling business and as a way to increase domestic natural gas production and cut rising costs.

The energy industry has been a mainstay of Mr. DeLay's political support during his Congressional career, contributing more than $900,000 to his election campaigns since 1984, according to the organization Political MoneyLine, which monitors political fund-raising.

Under the deep-water proposal, a research consortium would receive up to $200 million a year in oil royalties over the next decade to develop new approaches to recovering gas and oil in waters deeper than 1,500 meters, or about 5,000 feet, in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, waters that oil companies believe hold huge reserves of natural gas.

C. Kyle Simpson, a former Clinton administration energy official who is a leading lobbyist on the provision, said federal help with the research was essential because smaller oil companies lacked the wherewithal to undertake it and the big companies would go in search of more accessible gas reserves overseas rather than devote resources to new research.

"If we want to maximize the use of our own domestic reserves, the government has to have some sort of incentive to get the companies to develop the technology to produce it," said Mr. Simpson, who represents the Gas Technology Institute, a research arm of the industry.

The guaranteed federal aid over 10 years is needed to attract interest in the type of long-term research that will be necessary, he said, adding that the electrical power industry and others also received direct aid in the House measure.

But Anna Aurilio, legislative director for the Public Interest Research Group, said the plan was a way for oil companies to get back part of the payments they were obligated to make for drilling on taxpayer-owned federal land.

"This is really an end-run around paying their fair share," Ms. Aurilio said. "These companies can and should do this on their own. They are laughing all the way to the bank."

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Senate Panel Postpones Vote on U.N. Nominee

The New York Times
April 20, 2005
Senate Panel Postpones Vote on U.N. Nominee
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, April 19 - A surprise last-minute defection by an Ohio Republican forced the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone a vote that had been scheduled for Tuesday on the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

The chairman of the panel, Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, reluctantly agreed to put off any vote until next month to allow a review of what Democrats portrayed as troubling new accusations that cast doubt on Mr. Bolton's temperament and credibility.

Until the defection, by Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, the panel had appeared prepared to send the nomination to the Senate floor on a strict party-line vote. But Mr. Voinovich stunned other senators by announcing that more time was needed to explore accusations against Mr. Bolton.

"My conscience got me," he said after the stormy two-hour session. He said he had gone to the meeting planning to vote for Mr. Bolton, but changed his mind after hearing the case against the nominee made by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, both Democrats.

"I wanted more information about this individual, and I didn't feel comfortable voting for him," Mr. Voinovich said.

The Democrats called the delay a significant setback to Mr. Bolton's prospects, providing opponents with time to seek corroboration for the accusations made since he appeared before the committee a week ago.

Among those highlighted by Mr. Biden was a statement from Melody Townsel of Dallas, a former contract worker for the Agency for International Development who wrote in an "open letter" to the committee that Mr. Bolton, as a private lawyer, routinely visited her hotel room "to pound on the door and shout threats" over two weeks in 1994 in Moscow because she had complained about inefficiency by Mr. Bolton's client, the prime contractor in a foreign aid program.

Ms. Townsel actively opposed President Bush's re-election. Mr. Biden said that her accusations remained unsubstantiated but that there was some independent corroboration.

Mr. Bolton has not addressed the accusations since they became known late last week. His aides have said that he will not respond to reporters' inquiries during the confirmation process and that any statement will be in response to questions from the committee.

Among the 10 Republicans on the panel, two in addition to Mr. Voinovich expressed concerns on Tuesday about the nomination. One senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, said that he was ready to vote to send the nomination to the full Senate, but that he would not guarantee that he would vote in favor of the nomination on the floor.

"I think the charges are serious enough that they demand, or cry out, for further examination," Mr. Hagel said at the committee meeting.

The second Republican, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, did not make his views known at the hearing, but told reporters later that he was glad that the vote had been postponed.

"I don't know if I've ever seen, in a setting like this, a senator changing his mind as a result of what other senators said," Mr. Chafee said. "The process worked. It's kind of refreshing."

Until Mr. Voinovich spoke up near the end of the session, he had not figured in speculation about wavering among Republicans. Mr. Voinovich had not attended either of the committee hearings last week on the Bolton nomination, citing the press of other Senate business. The only doubts expressed in public by Republicans on the panel had come from Mr. Chafee and Mr. Hagel.

Mr. Lugar had pushed throughout the session for a vote, saying President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deserved a swift decision on the nomination.

Asked to comment on the decision, a spokesman for the State Department, Adam Ereli, said: "Our only comment is that we believe that Mr. Bolton's nomination is a good one. He'll be a strong candidate, and we hope for him to be in New York so he can begin the important work he has there."

At one point, Mr. Lugar asked that the roll be called for a vote.

But Mr. Voinovich spoke up to say, "I have heard enough today that it gives me some concern about Mr. Bolton."

After some hasty discussion, Republicans and Democrats agreed unanimously to put off any decision until the first week of May, when the Senate returns from a weeklong recess.

The parties agreed to ask the committee staff to investigate the accusations against Mr. Bolton and seek further information from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency about reports that he sought to intimidate intelligence analysts. The committee held out the possibility that Mr. Bolton, who appeared before the panel last Monday in a daylong session, could be called again.

To date, just one former official, Carl W. Ford Jr., a former assistant secretary of state, has testified in public against him.

The testimony of other officials, including Christian W. Westermann, the top biological weapons expert in the State Department, and Fulton T. Armstrong, a former intelligence officer for Latin America, has been placed on the public record.

The two men have said Mr. Bolton sought their removal from their positions because he objected to their intelligence assessments of the biological weapons program in Cuba. Neither official reported to Mr. Bolton, but he has testified that he lost confidence in them and sought their transfers.

Scott Shane contributed reporting for this article.

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Government Issues 12 New Food Pyramids

Yahoo! News
AP
Government Issues 12 New Food Pyramids

By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The government flipped the 13-year-old food pyramid on its side Tuesday, added a staircase for exercise and offered a dozen different models, all aimed at helping Americans trim their waistlines.

Dubbed "MyPyramid," the new graphic interprets the food groups as rainbow-colored bands running vertically from the tip to the base: Orange for grains, green for vegetables, red for fruits, a yellow sliver for oils, blue for milk products and purple for meats and beans. Preferred foods such as grains, vegetables and milk products have wider bands.

To emphasize exercise, the image depicts a figure climbing steps to the top.

In the old pyramid-shaped guide to healthy eating, grains filled the bottom, fats and sweets were at the tip, and vegetables, fruits, dairy products were in the middle.

"It's become quite familiar, but few Americans follow the recommendations," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Tuesday as he unveiled the new pyramid.

The new one encourages people to figure out their calorie and exercise needs using a new government Web site www.mypyramid.com. There people can find 12 different models based on daily calorie needs — from the 1,000 calories for sedentary toddlers to 3,200 for teenage boys.

Improving the health of a nation that has only grown fatter since the first pyramid debuted in 1992 is the goal of the new government tools. Nearly two out of three Americans are overweight or obese, and a report last month in The New England Journal of Medicine contended that obesity, particularly in children, is trimming four to nine months off the average life expectancy.

"If we don't change these trends, our children may be the first generation that cannot look forward to a longer life span than their parents, something that should be very troubling to all of us," said Eric Bost, the Agriculture Department's under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.

Nonetheless, officials insisted that "MyPyramid" is not a weight-loss plan, which drew criticism from consumer advocates.

"They don't clearly say, `Eat less,'" said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "They acknowledge or hint at it with the wedge shape of the food groups. But it doesn't go far enough in making it clear which foods to eat more of and which foods to eat less of."

Nigel Holmes, a Connecticut-based author and lecturer who designs explanation graphics said the new pyramid doesn't provide much information and instead assumes people will do a lot of research.

"They've thrown away the useful part of the pyramid — less at the top, more at the bottom," Holmes said. "I think words and pictures together are very powerful. But just by itself, this isn't a substitute for what we had before."

Holmes called the stair-climbing figure an "inelegant" attempt to encourage exercise. "If you remember the pyramid at all, and you remember oil was at the top, you now have somebody marching steadfastly up towards the oils," he said.

The new pyramid recommends 30 minutes of daily physical activity, says 60 minutes is needed to prevent weight gain and 90 minutes may be needed to sustain weight loss.

To help promote the new emphasis on exercise, Johanns invited fitness expert Denise Austin to be a cheerleader for the recommended 30 minutes of daily physical activity.

Austin, a member of the president's Physical Fitness and Sports Council, goaded reporters like an exercise class instructor: "The more you move, the more you lose!" She gave an impromptu demonstration, gripping the arms of her chair like parallel bars and lifting her legs to work her abdominal muscles.

Criticism of the new pyramid stood in contrast to praise that greeted the more detailed "Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005," released by the government in January. Developed by a panel of scientists and doctors using the latest research, the 70-page booklet served as the basis for the pyramid's makeover.

The guidelines' message was to choose foods packed with the most nutrition and the least calories; for example, bread made from whole-grain flour instead of white flour.

They also said the government should make its advice less confusing by switching from "serving" sizes to cups, ounces and other household measures, which it did.

In all, there were 23 general recommendations and 18 suggestions for special populations. Officials decided that was too much to cram into the symbol and put the information on the new MyPyramid Web site.

The department figured some would be less interested than others, so they created different types of tools. My Pyramid Plan gives a quick estimate of types and amounts of food people should eat based on age, gender and activity, while My Pyramid Tracker gives a more detailed assessment of an individual's actual diet and exercise habits.

Plenty of people don't use the Internet, and for them, the government is looking to educators, public health officials, dietitians and counselors for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, to help spread the word.

Food companies said through their trade association, Grocery Manufacturers of America, they will distribute posters and guides for teachers and parents next fall aimed at reaching 4 million students. Materials for students to take home will be in both English and Spanish and will include math, nutrition and science activities.

___

Associated Press writer John Heilprin contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

New Pyramid: http://www.mypyramid.gov

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US hands over Guantanamo inmates

BBC NEWS

US hands over Guantanamo inmates

Seventeen Afghans held in Guantanamo Bay have been handed over to the Afghan authorities in the capital, Kabul.

Afghan intelligence sources told the BBC that the men will questioned until be Wednesday, when it is expected they will be re-united with their families.

Some of them complained of mistreatment by the US.

So far over 200 people have been freed from its Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. About 500 terror suspects remain there.

The released men - nearly all bearded and most wearing denim jackets - were handed over to the Afghan authorities on Tuesday.

A Turkish man was also freed after three years at Guantanamo and flown back to the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey where he was handed over to police, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Correspondents say it is unlikely that any of the men will face charges.

Poorly treated

The Afghans were urged by Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwardi not to complain about their treatment in Guantanamo Bay because it may jeopardise efforts to release other Afghan prisoners.

Our government should also work to release hundreds of innocent Afghans who have been in jail for crimes they have never committed
Abdul Rahim Muslimdost

But some of the men had time briefly to tell reporters that they had been poorly treated.

"There was a lot of bad treatment against us, but this is not the time to tell you," Abdul Rahman, who spent more than three years at Guantanamo Bay, told the Associated Press news agency.

Another released inmate, Abdul Rahim Muslimdost, told the AFP news agency that he had suffered "indescribable torture" while in Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Muslimdost complained that the Afghan authorities had not done enough to help them.

"Our government should also work to release hundreds of innocent Afghans who have been in jail for crimes they have never committed," he said.

He said that Pakistan had done more to help its own nationals in detention.

'Enemy combatants'

Foreign groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross have complained to US President George W Bush about conditions endured by detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

ICRC officials regularly visit the US naval base, and a leaked report by the ICRC earlier this year was said to have found evidence of torture tactics.

In late March the Pentagon said 38 Guantanamo detainees were no longer considered "enemy combatants" - most of them were from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There was a lot of bad treatment against us, but this is not the time to tell you
Abdul Rahman, released Guantanamo prisoner

Pentagon spokesman Maj Michael Shavers said on Tuesday that the 17 Afghans and the Turk had been cleared during recent military tribunals.

Five others had already been sent home and another 15 were awaiting transfers home, he said.

The US military freed 80 Afghan detainees in January ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid.

On that occasion officials first said the men were coming from Guantanamo but it later turned out they had been held at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.

Many detainees released from Guantanamo have been repatriated on condition they would be held in their home country.

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Oklahoma City remembers bombing

BBC NEWS

Oklahoma City remembers bombing

Hundreds of people have gathered in Oklahoma City to remember the 168 victims of the bombing 10 years ago.

A moment of silence was held for each of the victims of the attack that destroyed the Alfred P Murrah federal building on 19 April 1995.

Ex-President Bill Clinton, in office at the time, and current Vice-President Dick Cheney paid tribute to the way people had dealt with the tragedy.

Timothy McVeigh was executed for the attack on 11 June 2001.

Co-conspirator Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison without parole last year.

The mourners gathered at the Oklahoma City National Memorial - where 168 empty bronze chairs stand on the site of the attack - for the anniversary.

'Test of faith'

Bill Clinton told them that "by the grace of God, time takes its toll not only on youth and beauty, but also on tragedy".

"The tomorrows come almost against our will. And they bring healing and hope, new responsibilities and new possibilities," he added.

Vice-President Cheney said:

"Goodness overcame evil that day.

"All humanity can see you experienced bottomless cruelty and responded with heroism. Your strength was challenged and you held firm. Your faith was tested and it has not wavered."

Among the mourners was survivor Amy Petty.

"Eighteen of my 33 co-workers were killed and I miss them dearly. That doesn't mean that I need to stop living my life. I've got to live," she told ABC News.

"It's good that Oklahoma remembers," said Gail Batiste, aunt of LaKesha Levy, a 21-year-old who had entered the building that morning to get a Social Security card.

The attack was the worst act of domestic terrorism in US history and brought to the attention of the American people the world of radical rightwing paramilitary groups and their followers.

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New guilty plea by 9/11 suspect

BBC NEWS

New guilty plea by 9/11 suspect

A judge is to consider once again a guilty plea from Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in the US charged over the 11 September terror attacks.

Judge Leonie Brinkema's decision is expected to hinge on whether she thinks Mr Moussaoui is mentally competent to make the decision.

A letter Mr Moussaoui sent to the court in Alexandria, Virginia, is to be considered by lawyers.

Ms Brinkema reportedly intends to meet Mr Moussaoui this week.

Trial delays

Mr Moussaoui - a French citizen of Moroccan origin - tried to plead guilty in 2002 but took back the plea a week later.

The US government says he was a full member of the original hijack team involved in the 2001 attacks.

Mr Moussaoui has also accused his court-appointed lawyers of wanting to have him executed and fired them.

But Ms Brinkema revoked Mr Moussaoui's right to defend himself.

His lawyers have argued against the death penalty, and are likely to oppose the guilty plea, if it means he could be sentenced to death.

The trial has been beset by delays.

In March, the US Supreme Court refused to examine an appeal by his team for access to US al-Qaeda suspects on security grounds.

Last year, federal judges barred Mr Moussaoui from calling people held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as witnesses.

The court said the accused could only use government-prepared summaries of the interrogation statements from al-Qaeda suspects in Guantanamo.

The three judges also overruled a lower court decision by deciding that the death penalty could be used if there was a guilty verdict.

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Breaking News: New Pope Elected

Cardinal Ratzinger, 78, of Germany, elected new Pope.
Chooses name: Pope Benedict XVI

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IRS Flaws Expose Taxpayers to Snooping, Study Finds

Yahoo! News
Reuters
IRS Flaws Expose Taxpayers to Snooping, Study Finds

Mon Apr 18, 5:14 PM ET

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Computer-security flaws at the U.S. tax-collection agency expose millions of taxpayers to potential identity theft or illegal police snooping, according to a congressional report released on Monday.

The Internal Revenue Service also is unlikely to know if outsiders are browsing through citizens' tax returns, because it doesn't effectively police its computer systems for unauthorized use, the Government Accountability Office found.

The report was released three days after the deadline for filing personal income-tax returns, and at a time when concerns about identity theft and computer security are running high.

"This lack of systems security at the IRS is completely unacceptable and needs to be corrected immediately," said House of Representatives Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican.

The IRS promised to fix any problems and find out if tax returns had been exposed to outsiders.

The IRS over the past several years has taken steps to protect the information it collects, the report found. The agency has fixed 32 of the 53 problems that turned up in a 2002 review, the GAO said.

But the GAO found 39 new security problems on top of the 21 that remain unfixed.

Along with $2 trillion in tax receipts, the IRS also collects information on money laundering and other possible financial crimes for the government's financial-intelligence office.

But barriers between tax returns and money-laundering reports don't exist, the GAO found. Thus a police officer checking up on money-laundering reports can also read personal tax returns, in violation of federal law.

In all, 7,500 IRS employees, law enforcers and outside contractors can access and modify tax returns and financial-crime reports, the GAO found.

A master list of passwords and user names is also widely available, the report said.

"Increased risk exists that unauthorized users could ... claim a user identity and then use that identity to gain access to sensitive taxpayer or Bank Secrecy Act data," the report said.

Identity thieves have used stolen passwords to gain access to nearly half a million profiles of U.S. citizens maintained by data brokers ChoicePoint Inc. and LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier .

In a letter dated April 14, a Treasury Department official said many of the security holes portrayed in the report have been fixed and others should be completed by October.

The agency will figure out whether tax returns and financial-crime information have been inappropriately disclosed, Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary Arnold Havens said.

An IRS spokesman declined to comment further.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat, said the Judiciary Committee will consider whether additional measures are needed to strengthen computer security.

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More Credit Card Numbers Stolen

wnyw-tv

Credit Card Numbers Stolen

Data apparently stolen from the popular clothing retailer Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. is forcing banks and credit card issuers to notify thousands of consumers their credit card information may have been exposed. HSBC North America, a division of London-based HSBC Holdings PLC, has begun notifying holders of the HSBC-issued, General Motors-branded MasterCard that criminals may have obtained access to their credit card information and that the cards should be replaced.

HSBC spokesman Stephen E. Cohen said Thursday that "we began doing it last week, and we are continuing." He said that about 180,000 GM-branded card holders are affected. Neither Cohen nor spokesmen for MasterCard International would identify the retailer by name.

The security breach was reported in Thursday's editions of The Wall Street Journal, which quoted "people with knowledge of the matter" as saying the data was stolen at Polo Ralph Lauren. A spokeswoman at Polo Ralph Lauren, which is headquartered in New York, said "we have no comment at the moment" on the report. She asked that her name not be used.

Polo Ralph Lauren shares dropped 55 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $37.91 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange where they have traded in a 52-week range of $31.01 to $42.83.

It was unclear how many other cards might be at risk, but both Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard, the nation's largest credit card associations, were reported to be dealing with Polo Ralph Lauren on the matter.

MasterCard said in a statement that it was informed of a possible security breach "of transaction data associated with a U.S.-based retailer" in January 2005 and had launched an investigation immediately. The statement said banks that are members of the card association were notified. "Investigations into this incident by MasterCard, law enforcement and other parties are ongoing," the statement said.

Visa USA issued a similar statement, saying it was notified "by a U.S. merchant" of a possible data security breach. Visa USA said it was working with the merchant, law enforcement agencies and its bank members "to monitor and prevent card-related fraud."

In response to a reporter's query, Citigroup Inc., the nation's largest financial institution, confirmed that it currently was "notifying some customers who we think may be at risk." The New York-based bank said it takes "appropriate action" when notified by Visa or MasterCard of potential security breaches, but gave no other details.

It was the latest in a series of data thefts that have increased public concern about the security of their personal information. ChoicePoint Inc., which is based in suburban Atlanta, disclosed in February that thieves, who operated undetected for more than a year, opened up 50 accounts and received vast amounts of data on some 145,000 consumers nationwide. Authorities said some 750 people were defrauded.

In March, DSW Shoe Warehouse, based in Columbus, Ohio, said that more than 100,000 customers of a shoe-store chain likely were affected by a cyber break-in of the company's database.

Earlier this week, London-based Reed Elsevier, which owns LexisNexis, revealed that criminals may have breached computer files containing the personal information of 310,000 people since January 2003.

HSBC's Cohen said the bank did not yet know if the thieves had used any of the data they got. "We're being cautious, and we want to protect our customers' accounts, so we're notifying them," he said.

originally published April 14, 2005

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The Tom DeLay loyalty test

salon.com

The Tom DeLay loyalty test

When Trent Lott starts lecturing the Bush White House about loyalty,
you know that things are starting to get interesting. Lott, who is
providing advice to Tom DeLay as the House majority leader struggles
through waves and waves of ethics allegations, said Sunday that the
White House "needs to remember that people who fight hard for you as a
candidate and for your issues as president deserve your support,
aggressive support."

It's not like the White House has thrown DeLay over the side just yet.
Although one senior White House official tells Time that DeLay is
handling his troubles "like an idiot," the White House is more or less
standing behind the Hammer publicly. Bush calls the Hammer a friend,
even if White House press secretary Scott McClellan went out of his way
last week to remind reporters that there are "different levels of
friendship."

One "level of friendship," for example, would be the one that lobbyist
Jack Abramoff and the gambling interests he represented showed to DeLay
and his staff. As Time reports, nothing was too good for DeLay and his
top aides on a London junket Abramoff arranged -- and the gambling
interests paid for -- in 2000. Three sources who worked for Abramoff at
the time of the trip told Time that aides for DeLay ran one of
Abramoff's assistants ragged with ever-changing requests for their
first-class travels. Time says that DeLay's aides "wanted to make sure
DeLay's little delegation had the finest of everything on its weeklong
trip to Britain -- from lodgings at the Four Seasons Hotel in London to
dinners at the poshest restaurants with the most interesting people,
right down to the best tickets for The Lion King , at the time, one of
the hottest shows playing on the West End and one for which good seats
usually meant a six-month wait." The aides told Abamoff's assistant
what they wanted, the sources told Time, and Abramoff delivered.

While there's nothing wrong with a former pest-control impresario
having a high time while traveling, Time explains that the demands by
DeLay's staff raise two problems for the majority leader. First, they
further undercut the notion that DeLay and his staff really thought the
trip was a fact-finding mission being funded by the National Center for
Public Policy Research; if a non-profit were funding your trip abroad,
would you feel comfortable ordering up the first-class digs and the
Lion King tickets? Moreover, if the idea for and details of the trip
came from DeLay's office rather than from the National Center for
Public Policy Research, Time says that DeLay and his staff may have
violated House ethics rules that allow members to accept gifts, under
limited circumstances, but not to solicit them.

Of course, a violation of House ethics rules is important only if
there's a functioning House ethics committee to investigate it. DeLay
has made sure there isn't: He succeeded in replacing Republican
committee members critical of him with supporters, and he got the rules
changed so that no investigation can begin unless Republicans want one.
Appearing on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Rep. Barney Frank put a fine
point on the way in which DeLay has handled his ethical troubles. "I,
15 years ago, had a problem because I behaved inappropriately. The
ethics committee stepped in," Frank said. "Newt Gingrich had a problem.
He was reprimanded; the ethics committee stepped in. The difference
between us and Mr. DeLay is, I think, we changed our behavior. Mr.
DeLay changed the ethics committee."

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Bob Kerrey Weighing Run for Mayor of New York

The New York Times
April 17, 2005
Bob Kerrey Weighing Run for Mayor of New York
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JIM RUTENBERG

Former United States Senator Bob Kerrey, the president of the New School University and a Democratic candidate for president in 1992, said yesterday that he was considering a run for mayor of New York City, declaring that Michael R. Bloomberg had failed to fight Washington Republican policies that Mr. Kerrey said endangered the city's finances and security.

Mr. Kerrey, in an interview, also questioned why Mr. Bloomberg had invested so much energy in trying to build a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. Mr. Kerrey said it would make more sense to put the stadium in another borough, and that the rezoning of the West Side proposed as part of stadium plan would overwhelm the neighborhood.

Asked about reports from other Democrats that he had talked to associates about possibly running against Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Kerrey at first said he was inclined not to run for mayor. But a moment later, in what turned out to be an expansive conversation, he said, "You know me: I am just crazy enough to do this."

Aides to Mr. Bloomberg said they were surprised by Mr. Kerrey's comments. They said that just last week Mr. Bloomberg called Mr. Kerrey and asked him to head "Democrats for Bloomberg" - and Mr. Kerrey accepted.

Mr. Kerrey confirmed that conversation. "That is exactly right," he said last night. But he said that he began having second thoughts almost as soon as he had accepted.

A former senator from Nebraska who moved to New York to become the president of New School University in 2001, Mr. Kerrey has raised the prospect of a candidacy at a time when there has been rising anguish among New York Democrats over the candidacy of Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president who has been struggling in his third bid to become mayor. Asked whether he thought Mr. Ferrer could now defeat Mr. Bloomberg given his troubles, Mr. Kerrey responded, "I don't know."

Beyond Mr. Ferrer, who had long been viewed as the strongest Democrat in the race, other major Democrats vying to challenge the Republican Mr. Bloomberg are the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields; the City Council speaker, Gifford Miller; and United States Representative Anthony D. Weiner.

Mr. Kerrey, 61, said that he just signed a contract extending his stay at the New School through 2011, but that he could break it if necessary. He said he would decide within a few days whether to run.

Mr. Kerrey himself suggested that his talk may ultimately amount to little more than the musings of a New York Democrat frustrated by a national government controlled by Republicans.

His task would be daunting, should he decide to enter at this late date. For one thing, he would be far behind his Democratic rivals in raising money. For another, Mr. Kerrey has lived in New York for only four years, making him even more of a transplant than Mr. Bloomberg, who is from Boston.

"The hard truth of this is I became a New Yorker on the 11th of September, 2001," he said. "Now it's in my gene code. I lived here for four years, but thanks to Sept. 11, this is now my city. I care about what happens to it."

Mr. Kerrey said he began thinking about running for mayor as he watched the House of Representatives vote to repeal the estate tax. At the time, he said, he was filling out his own tax return and was reminded of how many New Yorkers had been hurt by provisions of the tax code - the Alternative Minimum Tax - which has had the effect of eliminating the deduction of state and local income taxes for many Americans.

"I am angry about the way New York City is being treated by Washington, D.C.," Mr. Kerrey said. "Who is fighting these guys? What would Giuliani and Koch be doing now? They'd be raising hell!"

Still, in the course of the interview, Mr. Kerrey offered some words of praise for the man who might be his rival.

"I like Bloomberg a lot," Mr. Kerrey said. "I think he's been gutsy. I think he's authentic. I like what he did with the schools. He calmed race relations in New York in a way that I think is quite impressive.

"But there are areas where I'm not so happy," Mr. Kerrey continued.

He said that Mr. Bloomberg was devoting far too much energy to the West Side stadium, and that his rezoning proposal would be very damaging to the neighborhood.

And he said Mr. Bloomberg had failed to fight Republicans in Washington when they were approving measures that he said were damaging to the city - from tax cuts that do not benefit New York residents to the allocation of national security money away from New York.

Mr. Bloomberg's aides said Mr. Kerrey and Mr. Bloomberg have been in agreement that homeland security dollars should be doled out based on assessed threat, which would result in more federal money for New York.

"The mayor was the first public official to draw attention to the fact that homeland security funds need to be distributed by risk and threat and the resulting formula changes will result in millions in dollars that New York City would otherwise never see," said Edward Skyler, Mr. Bloomberg's press secretary.

Mr. Bloomberg's aides noted that even Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat, has complimented him for lobbying Washington. Last week, Mr. Bloomberg made a high-profile trip to Washington, where he met with Congressional leaders and Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. But even as he has called for more money from Washington, the mayor has declined to criticize his fellow Republicans, arguing that it would be counterproductive to rail against those from whom he seeks help.

But Mr. Kerrey disagreed "We need to start fighting these guys to change their priorities," he said. "I don't think you do that by being a nice guy."

Mr. Kerrey acknowledged last night that it might seem unusual to go, in the space of a week, from agreeing to head Democrats for Bloomberg to talking about challenging him this year. He said the shift reflected his own ambivalence about a mayor who he said was good in some ways, but flawed in others.

He said that he had not informed Mr. Bloomberg that he was thinking of running for mayor, or that he had decided against heading the committee. "I guess they know now," he said.

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A Radical in the White House

The New York Times
April 18, 2005

A Radical in the White House
By BOB HERBERT

Last week - April 12, to be exact - was the 60th anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "I have a terrific headache," he said, before collapsing at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Ga. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the 83rd day of his fourth term as president. His hold on the nation was such that most Americans, stunned by the announcement of his death that spring afternoon, reacted as though they had lost a close relative.

That more wasn't made of this anniversary is not just a matter of time; it's a measure of the distance the U.S. has traveled from the egalitarian ideals championed by F.D.R. His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster. We're now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.

To get a sense of just how radical Roosevelt was (compared with the politics of today), consider the State of the Union address he delivered from the White House on Jan. 11, 1944. He was already in declining health and, suffering from a cold, he gave the speech over the radio in the form of a fireside chat.

After talking about the war, which was still being fought on two fronts, the president offered what should have been recognized immediately for what it was, nothing less than a blueprint for the future of the United States. It was the clearest statement I've ever seen of the kind of nation the U.S. could have become in the years between the end of World War II and now. Roosevelt referred to his proposals in that speech as "a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed."

Among these rights, he said, are:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

"The right of every family to a decent home.

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

"The right to a good education."

I mentioned this a few days ago to an acquaintance who is 30 years old. She said, "Wow, I can't believe a president would say that."

Roosevelt's vision gave conservatives in both parties apoplexy in 1944 and it would still drive them crazy today. But the truth is that during the 1950's and 60's the nation made substantial progress toward his wonderfully admirable goals, before the momentum of liberal politics slowed with the war in Vietnam and the election in 1968 of Richard Nixon.

It wouldn't be long before Ronald Reagan was, as the historian Robert Dallek put it, attacking Medicare as "the advance wave of socialism" and Dick Cheney, from a seat in Congress, was giving the thumbs down to Head Start. Mr. Cheney says he has since seen the light on Head Start. But his real idea of a head start is to throw government money at people who already have more cash than they know what to do with. He's one of the leaders of the G.O.P. gang (the members should all wear masks) that has executed a wholesale transfer of wealth via tax cuts from working people to the very rich.

Roosevelt was far from a perfect president, but he gave hope and a sense of the possible to a nation in dire need. And he famously warned against giving in to fear.

The nation is now in the hands of leaders who are experts at exploiting fear, and indifferent to the needs and hopes, even the suffering, of ordinary people.

"The test of our progress," said Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Sixty years after his death we should be raising a toast to F.D.R. and his progressive ideas. And we should take that opportunity to ask: How in the world did we allow ourselves to get from there to here?

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

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