In U.S. heartland, anxiety over Iraq, oil

Reuters

In U.S. heartland, anxiety over Iraq, oil

By Alan Elsner

BROKEN BOW, Nebraska (Reuters) - In the solidly Republican state of Nebraska, voters are expressing deep anxiety about rising gasoline prices and the war in Iraq, a possible early warning sign for President George W. Bush in one of his most reliable strongholds.

When Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel traveled around his home state this week, citizens at every stop brought up Iraq policy and the inexorable rise in fuel prices.

"Is there anything the United States can do to get some stability in crude oil prices in the world, because it affects everything we do?" Larry Ahlers, a manager at medical device manufacturer Becton and Dickinson in Broken Bow, asked Hagel in one of dozens of such encounters.

Hagel, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2008, responded that gasoline prices were likely to stay high for the foreseeable future because of rising world demand and the U.S. failure to develop new energy sources and conserve.

Earlier the same day in Lincoln, an elderly woman asked about Iraq. "Why are we there in the first place?" she asked.


On Tuesday in the central Nebraska town of Lexington, after a meeting with law enforcement officials on drug problems, three sheriffs expressed serious doubts about what the United States was doing in Iraq and whether it could succeed.

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, acknowledged the U.S. military presence was becoming harder and harder to justify. He believes Iraq faces a serious danger of civil war that would threaten Middle East stability, and said there is little Washington can do to avert this.

"We are seen as occupiers, we are targets. We have got to get out. I don't think we can sustain our current policy, nor do I think we should," he said at one stop.

UNCERTAINTY, NOT PANIC

In an interview, Hagel said uncertainties over Iraq and oil prices fed off and reinforced each other.

"The mood is one of a certain sense of unsteadiness," he said. "I have sensed that since September 11, 2001. Our people have still not found an equilibrium and when you get these shocks, like gasoline at $2.50 a gallon and projecting natural gas costs doubling and tripling from what they paid last year, that further shakes them."

"I don't think there's panic, I don't think there's cynicism. I think there's this steady unsure sense about where is this all leading -- the constant daily reports on Iraq, our people being killed there, the money being spent there," he added.

Nebraska has been a solid Republican state in presidential elections for decades. Republicans dominate state politics and hold most elective offices.

But Hagel said even some who had previously backed Bush strongly on Iraq now felt deep unease.

"The feeling that I get back here, looking in the eyes of real people, where I knew where they were two years ago or a year ago -- they've changed," he said. "These aren't people who ebb and flow on issues. These are rock solid, conservative Republicans who love their country, support the troops and support the president."

Hagel said Bush faced a growing credibility gap. "The expectations that the president and his administration presented to the American people 2 1/2 years ago is not what the reality is today. That's presented the biggest credibility gap problem he's got," he said.

"I hope he has some sense that something's going on out in the country, that there's a lack of confidence that has developed in our position."

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US senators: Global warming obvious in far north

Reuters

US senators: Global warming obvious in far north

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Fresh from visits to Canada's Yukon Territory and Alaska's northernmost city, four U.S. senators said on Wednesday that signs of rising temperatures on Earth are obvious and they called on Congress to act.

"If you can go to the Native people and walk away with any doubt about what's going on, I just think you're not listening," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Hillary Clinton of New York told reporters in Anchorage that Inupiat Eskimo residents in Barrow, Alaska, have found their ancestral land and traditional lifestyle disrupted by disappearing sea ice, thawing permafrost, increased coastal erosion and changes to wildlife habitat.

Heat-stimulated beetle infestation has also killed vast amounts of the spruce forest in the Yukon Territory, they said.

Such observations provide more ammunition in the fight for a bill, co-sponsored by McCain and Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman, to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, McCain said. That bill has repeatedly failed to pass the Senate.

"People around the country are going to demand it," McCain said. "It's the special interests versus the people's interest."


The United States is the biggest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, which many scientists have linked to global warming.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has dismissed global warming as a hoax and questioned scientific evidence supporting rising temperatures.

The White House has warned that mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions could stunt U.S. economic growth. President George W. Bush supports a voluntary plan for industry to cut greenhouse gas output.

The senators said they were headed Tuesday for a visit to Kenai Fjords National Park in Seward, where the National Park Service has been tracking retreating glaciers.

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US sets last-minute drive to scrap UN reform plan

Reuters

US sets last-minute drive to scrap UN reform plan

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has launched a last-minute drive to scrap much of a draft plan for comprehensive U.N. reform just weeks before it is to be adopted at a world summit, Western diplomats said on Wednesday.

One option put forward by Washington would be to return to square one and launch line-by-line negotiations on the document, the diplomats said, insisting on anonymity so as not to anger Washington.

But another top diplomat involved in the negotiations dismissed the others' concerns, saying the initiative was a negotiating tactic the United States fully expected would be rejected by U.N. General Assembly President Jean Ping, who is leading the talks.

"Their position is still evolving. They are looking at other ways forward," this diplomat said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. effort comes in the final stages of the drafting process, with negotiators last Friday unveiling what they hoped would be a near-final draft. Negotiations resume on Monday.

It also falls two weeks after the arrival at U.N. headquarters of U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, President George W. Bush's contentious choice to press for U.N. reform despite his inability to win U.S. Senate approval for the post.

The aggressive and sometimes abrasive Bolton is a longtime U.N. critic and a skeptic on the value of multilateral action who was accused by Senate Democrats of seeking to twist intelligence findings to advance Bush foreign policy goals.

The U.N. document, intended to serve as a blueprint for bringing the world body into the 21st century, touches on a broad range of issues from U.N. management reform -- a top U.S. priority -- to eliminating poverty, protecting human rights and ending the spread of nuclear arms.

Adoption of the document, currently weighing in at 38 single-spaced pages, is meant to mark the climax of a September 14-16 U.N. summit expected to draw more than 170 world leaders to New York. Bush is among those expected to attend although he has not formally responded to an invitation.


'VERY LATE'

Diplomats involved in the drafting process said they feared such an extensive rewrite at this point would reopen many contentious issues thought to be settled, and could end up sinking the document altogether.

"The U.S. objections are not unexpected, but it is very late in the process," said a diplomat close to the drafting process, who also asked not to be identified by name.

A U.S. official expressed surprise that other delegates would find it unusual that Washington would seek major revisions and line-by-line negotiations at this point.

"We have been giving our input and continue to do so," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. "It is a thorough and exhaustive process that we will continue to work on until it's finished."

The United States has been a regular participant in the negotiations, and diplomats involved in the drafting said Washington has had a major impact on the document to date.

They said that was why they were surprised to learn that the United States had at this stage circulated a document that proposed eliminated most of the latest draft and suggested starting line-by-line reconsideration with all 191 U.N. members invited to the table.

The drafting has been conducted informally to date, to keep the focus on the whole package and off the details.

"Their concern is that the draft is not in their view summit-worthy -- that it would be hard to convince Bush that it would be worth his while to come to New York to sign it," said an envoy involved in the talks, who also asked not to be identified by name.

"To be fair, they are not a voice crying in the wilderness," said this diplomat, adding that developing nations also had reservations about much of the text.

But the section of the document on development and poverty was the top target of the U.S. revisions, a tactic certain to anger developing nations, which make up the overwhelming majority of the U.N. membership, the diplomats said.

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Roberts once wrote of 'abortion tragedy'

SignOnSanDiego.com
Roberts once wrote of 'abortion tragedy'

By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As a young lawyer in the Reagan White House, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts concluded that a group's memorial service for aborted fetuses was "an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy."

Roberts' wrote the advice in an October, 1985 memo after he was asked to review a proposed telegram from President Reagan to the memorial service promoted by the California Pro Life Medical Association.

"The president's position is that the fetuses were human beings, or at least cannot be proven not to have been, and accordingly a memorial service would seem an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy," wrote Roberts.

Roberts, during his confirmation hearing to be a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, had referred to Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion in the United States, as "settled law." Senate Democrats have been aggressively seeking the nominee's innermost thoughts on the 1973 abortion ruling by the Supreme Court, and the documents released Tuesday shed more light on it.

The memorial service came at the end of a three-year battle over how to dispose of some 16,000 fetuses discovered in February 1982 in sealed plastic bags of formaldehyde and stored in a bin outside the California home of a man who had managed a medical laboratory. The then-closed laboratory routinely examined aborted fetuses for clinics and hospitals.

The Feminist Women's Health Center of Los Angeles, which endorsed women's right to abortion, had sued to stop Los Angeles county from giving the fetuses to the Catholic League for religious burial.

The dispute reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld lower court decisions that the county could bury or cremate the fetuses but could not arrange or join in religious services.

Other documents showed that Roberts, 50, in 1985 voiced support for the notion of allowing prayer in public schools, writing that a ruling to the contrary "seems indefensible" under the Constitution.

As a young Reagan administration lawyer, he wrote he would have no objection if the Justice Department wanted to express support for a constitutional amendment permitting prayer.

Referring to a Supreme Court ruling issued earlier that year that struck down an Alabama school prayer law, he said, "The conclusion ... that the Constitution prohibits such a moment of silent reflection - or even silent `prayer' - seems indefensible."

The Alabama law, ruled unconstitutional by a divided court, mandated a one-minute period of silence for meditation or prayer.


Roberts' two-paragraph memo, written to White House counsel Fred Fielding, was among nearly 5,400 pages of records released by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. They comprise a portion of the material relating to Roberts' tenure as a member of the office of White House counsel.

An additional 478 pages that cover the same subject areas remain under seal, according to Allen Weinstein, archivist of the United States. White House spokesman Steve Schmidt said the library had withheld material based on requirements in the Freedom of Information Act to protect privacy and national security.

The White House "did not hold any back" after reviewing those cleared for release by the library, Schmidt said.

The library contains an additional 40,000 pages relating to Roberts, expected to be made public before Senate confirmation hearings convene Sept. 6.

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$7.5M awarded to study electronic voting

SignOnSanDiego.com
$7.5M awarded to study electronic voting

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Armed with a $7.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Johns Hopkins University is leading a new effort to improve the reliability of electronic voting machines.

The project's goal is to design the most foolproof, transparent voting system possible, officials said Monday.

"I don't think with today's technology we can have a voting system that is fully electronic that can be trusted," said Avi Rubin, a computer science professor. He will head a new Hopkins center called ACCURATE, short for A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections.

Rubin told The (Baltimore) Sun he hopes the center will provide information in time for the 2008 presidential contest, but that its research will take longer.

Rubin has been an outspoken critic of computerized voting. In 2003, he co-authored a report that found voting machines from Diebold Elections Systems were vulnerable to hackers, multiple votes and vote-switching.


The Hopkins grant is part of the National Science Foundation's 2005 Cyber Trust program, a $36 million initiative to support cybersecurity research and explore ways to increase the dependability of computers.

Hopkins is leading the effort, but the money will also support research at Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Iowa; Rice University; and SRI International, the nonprofit research group in Menlo Park, Calif.

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Sen. Biden says Bush should fire Rumsfeld

SignOnSanDiego.com

Sen. Biden says Bush should fire Rumsfeld

By RANDALL CHASE
Associated Press Writer

DOVER, Del. (AP) -- President Bush needs to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and level with the American people about the situation in Iraq, said U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, who is testing the political waters for a possible White House run in 2008.

Following up on remarks he made Sunday, Biden said the Bush administration is downplaying expectations in Iraq, and that he wouldn't be surprised if a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops is announced before parliamentary elections scheduled for December.

But the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops would be unwise, given that the biggest problem in Iraq, as he sees it, is "the lack of order."

Biden disputed administration claims that more than 175,000 Iraqis have been trained to take over security duties from U.S. troops.

In reality, only a few thousand Iraqi troops are capable of carrying out security operations on their own, and another 12,000 or so can operate successfully only with the help of U.S. troops, Biden said. He said there is "no possibility" of Iraqis being able to maintain control themselves without at least another year of training.

"Why doesn't the president just tell the truth?" said Biden, adding that Rumsfeld should have been fired a year ago for incompetence - whether it be sending too few U.S. troops or failing to equip them adequately - that approaches "criminal."


"The president's got to get rid of Rumsfeld," he said.

Closer to home, Biden said he is continuing to travel around the country to gauge whether he has enough public support to run for president in 2008.

"There's no campaign yet," said the Delaware Democrat, who has made trips to several "red states," many in the South, won by Republicans in past elections.

Biden said Democrats and Republicans previously have focused campaign strategies on energizing their core voters, which has led to an increasingly polarized electorate. Biden said his challenge is to strike a chord with middle-class voters from both parties who he believes share common hopes and frustrations.

"You're not going to solve Social Security with a 51 percent solution," said Biden, referring to President Bush's share of the popular vote in his re-election last year over Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "If you cant unite the states, then you can't govern."

While trying to find common ground among voters, however, Biden doesn't plan to abandon his Democrat pedigree.

"I'm not going to start trimming my sails," said Biden, who believes fundraising will be his biggest obstacle. "I know what I think. I know what I believe. ... If I can't do it on my own terms, ... then I don't want to do it."

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On the Net:

Biden Political Site: http://uniteourstates.com

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New poll reflects growing U.S. worry over Iraq

Reuters
New poll reflects growing U.S. worry over Iraq
By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new survey shows the U.S. public is unhappy with U.S. handling of Iraq and with how the Bush administration deals with the Muslim world in general.

The latest poll reflects a growing disquiet seen in other recent surveys over U.S. involvement in Iraq and a dip in President George W. Bush's overall job approval rating.

The poll, to be published in next month's edition of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, found nearly six in 10 Americans were worried about the outcome of the war in Iraq.

"Soon the grumbling may become too loud for the Bush administration to ignore," wrote Daniel Yankelovich, who heads Public Agenda, a nonprofit research group that did the poll for the council. It is the first in a new "foreign policy index" to be conducted every six months.


The Bush administration insists that Iraq is on the road to establishing a democracy that would help bring about peace, but the president's credibility on Iraq has been slowly eroding among the U.S. public in recent months amid a continuing bloody insurgency.

Asked whether the United States was meeting its objectives in Iraq, 56 percent in the poll said the United States was not while 39 percent said it was.

The findings were based on a random sample of 1,004 adults over the age of 18 who were interviewed between June 1 and June 13, 2005, before a surge of violence in Iraq in recent weeks. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

When asked to name the most important global problems facing the United States, Iraq and terrorism were the top concerns. Immigration and U.S. relations with the Muslim world were also becoming hot-button topics.

U.S. SEEN LOSING TRUST

Three quarters of those polled worried the United States might be losing the trust and friendship of other countries and that there might be growing hatred of the United States in Muslim countries.

When asked an open-ended question on how the rest of the world saw the United States, nearly two-thirds said the rest of the world had a negative view and one in 10 used the word "bully" or "bullying."

"So far, public thinking is a disquieting mix of high anxiety, growing uncertainly about current policy and virtually no consensus about what else the country might do," said the report accompanying the poll.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll last month found a majority of the U.S. public doubted the United States would win the war in Iraq and believed the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans over Iraq's weapons capabilities when it went to war in 2003.

Bush has also taken a public relations battering while on vacation in Texas -- where hundreds of anti-war demonstrators, led by the mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, have camped outside the president's ranch.

The president has said repeatedly the United States will not prematurely withdraw troops from Iraq because doing so would betray that country and put U.S. security at risk.

In the latest poll, the United States did get high marks for aiding other countries in need. Asked about America's performance in helping other nations during natural disasters, 83 percent of the respondents gave the United States high grades.

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Cindy Sheehan's War

huffingtonpost.com
Tom Hayden
Cindy Sheehan's War

Cindy Sheehan inhabits an alternative world of meaning that more Americans need to experience before this war can end. She represents the survivors' need to define a meaning in her son's death - and her life - that is counter to the meaning offered by President Bush. That is why she refuses any condolences, and why she continues to ask the President what was the "noble purpose" for which Casey Sheehan died.

All wars take on a new momentum when the survivors believe that those killed represent a "noble sacrifice" and hear repeated assurances from authority figures that they "shall not have died in vain." The momentum begins to reverse when the survivors question deeply the justification for all the suffering.

Robert Jay Lifton reported this phenomenon among Vietnam-era soldiers and their families. He wrote that "when the alternative survivor mission takes hold, victims become ignoble sacrifices, products of crual deception. Their deaths then have meaning only in serving to expose the grotesque truths of the war. The alternative survivor mission can become one of oppostion to the war, its advocates, and their policies." Lipton writes further: "[we become] survivors of a death encounter, and survivors of all kinds are hungry for the meaning of that encounter - meaning that is inevitably associated with the authority of the dead."

An alternative survior mission took hold of Americans after World War I and Vietnam. It is taking hold among Americans once again because of Iraq. Cindy Sheehan's war is for this alternative meaning. She is bringing many Americans to confront the awful fact that nearly 2,000 soldiers have died and 13,000 been wounded in a war fought for fabricated reasons.

She is challenging George Bush never to use those deaths as justification for more killing. She wants the truth, nothing more than the truth, because that will stop George Bush from desecrating the dead all over again through deceit. By embracing an alternative meaning, Cindy's war suggests to young Americans and their families that they are under no obligation to keep the faith with the dead by continuing to die or kill Iraqis.

The reason she is such a threat to Bush is that she claims the "authority of the dead" as a justification for peace. So do an increasing number of Gold Star mothers and military families and Iraq veterans. What is striking so far is that the Bush operatives have been unable to organize a committee of pro-war families who lost sons or daughters in the war. [Nixon did so against John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War]. The White House has only been able to mobilize the Bill O'Reilly, who never fought a war, and Cindy Sheehan's in-laws.

Cindy is winning the war for meaning. Only the families, friends, and buddies of the dead can carry this lonely burden for the rest of us. As they do, peace movement slogans like "bring them home now" will have deep resonance with all Americans.

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Writings from a New Kind of Base: An Update from Camp Casey

huffingtonpost.com
Tim Goodrich
Writings from a New Kind of Base: An Update from Camp Casey

Saturday, August 13, 2005

I can barely see as I type this because I am extremely exhausted. Today was a phenomenal day at Camp Casey. The day started off with a rally near the Crawford Peace House in which members of Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, Veterans for Peace, and Iraq Veterans Against the War spoke. A crowd of approximately 1,000 attended, shouting and clapping wildly as the speakers took the stage and delivered their message.

After the morning rally, everybody regrouped outside Camp Casey. On their way in, they were greeted by Cindy Sheehan and members of the other groups. While we were greeting the newly arrived, we looked up the road and realized that the line of cars stretched farther than the eye could see and around the corner. It was as if we were looking at a "field of dreams". We later learned that the line stretched for miles. It was a beautiful sight to be seen and it brought tears to the eyes of many.

Throughout the day, more people continued to appear. By the end of the day, several thousand people, including soldiers from Fort Hood, had made their way to Camp Casey to show their support. Many of these visitors stopped to talk to the members of IVAW, thanking them for their service and their stance against the war. While speaking with many of the visitors, I began to see the scope of Camp Casey. In my conversations, I spoke with people from Little Rock, Kansas City, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, and San Diego, just to name a few. As a sign of the growing movement, we've learned that another Camp Casey was set up in Chico, California. As you read this, please think about the power of multiple Camp Caseys being established all across the United States. The power is with the people, and with everybody's help, we will get one step closer to ending the occupation of Iraq.


Friday, August 12, 2005

The heat and humidity are not letting up outside Bush¹s ranch at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas. Although it's not as hot as, say, Iraq, the heat can still take a toll on those not used to it. Luckily, through the generous outpouring of others from across the country, we have managed to stay well supplied with fluids and food.

Friday was day seven since the establishment of Camp Casey and still no meeting with Bush. I was kept from arriving at camp due to an extended secret service blockade on the only road into the ranch. Apparently, Bush had fundraising activities to attend and drove by the camp for the first time, ignoring all who stood ready to receive him. My question is this: Why is it that those who can afford to donate thousands of dollars to Bush get to meet him?

Meanwhile, Cindy, veterans, and other Gold Star and military families, all of whom have sacrificed tremendously, brave the heat and fire ants waiting for the chance to meet with Bush.

The tensions escalated a bit when rumors circulated that there may be a group of counter-protestors showing up in the late afternoon. True to their word, a group of counter-protestors arrived in the late afternoon on a chartered bus, allegedly paid for by a right-wing Dallas radio DJ. The bus pulled up, unloaded, and the counter-protestors, each armed with a miniature flag, aligned on the side of the road. The local authorities and secret service placed themselves in the middle of the two groups in order to prevent any aggressive acts. To everybody's surprise, after fifteen minutes and callous chants of "I don't care" directed at Cindy, the bus began to load again. A short time later, the fully loaded bus was headed down the road back to Dallas.

Now, in these fifteen minutes, the media was swarming over the newly arrived. Time will tell if they were provided an equal amount of coverage. It would hardly seem fair if this was the case, seeing as the people at Camp Casey are camped out 24 hours a day, seven days a week and not merely making a "media appearance." It seems to me that if these people felt so strongly about the war, they would have stayed longer than fifteen minutes and done more than only talk to the media.

The good news is that Camp Casey continues to grow and our message is resonating around the world. On another positive note, we continue to see other Iraq war veterans come to investigate and meet the people who have traveled from around the country to make their voice heard. In one particular case, a mother and her two sons who had both been to Iraq, came to voice their support for the cause. Amazingly, one of the sons had just returned from Iraq the day before.

So far, all the Iraq war veterans have been very receptive about joining Iraq Veterans Against the War. As the war rages on, we will see more returning disgruntled vets and military families who have suffered the ultimate loss. With continued momentum, we can end the occupation of Iraq before the costs become greater.


Thursday, August 11, 2005

Good things come in small packages. Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas may not have the people of a 500,000 strong anti-war march, but it's making at least as powerful a statement. Today was only my first day here outside the ranch, but this has already been one of the most moving events I have attended.

Almost immediately, I recognized the standard tactics of the right wing; deceit and hatred. Upon waking up at the Crawford Peace House, I noticed a news van for the local AM radio station sitting outside. I watched him for a while, but he never bothered to step outside of the van. Later on, I heard the radio station reporting that the people at the Crawford Peace House had chased him away by throwing bottles and rocks at him. This was obviously a lie; designed to paint us, who have gathered peacefully, as militants.

Upon arrival at Camp Casey one of the first new people I met was a Gulf War Marine veteran who now works driving trucks out of Augusta, Georgia. While listening to his satellite radio, he heard about the encampment here in Crawford. Since he was running ahead of schedule and didn't have to be to San Antonio until the next morning, he took a detour to investigate. As a few of us veterans had a good conversation with him, I realized one important thing: He gets it. This former marine was just another of countless veterans across the United States that realize the war in Iraq is a tremendous waste of life and resources.

The weather is very hot and humid here, as evidenced by the few who succumbed to heat stroke. Despite the lack of most creature comforts, the spirit and will of the people here amazes me. In the end the world will know the truth, but in the meantime, I have a request for my former Commander-in-Chief. Come meet with us who served in your imperial war. Come meet with the military families who have loved ones serving in Iraq. Come meet with Cindy and the other Gold Star families. It¹s about time you're honest with the American people.

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Critics Decry Roberts' Environment Record

Critics Decry Roberts' Environment Record

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court nominee John Roberts once offered the National Mining Association some unpaid advice on how to intervene in other people's court cases. Two years later he was hired by the group to argue against a citizens group trying to stop coal companies from shearing off the tops of West Virginia's mountains.

That relationship is among a number of situations where Roberts - as a government lawyer, private attorney and federal appeals judge - has become involved in environmental issues. His critics say he tended generally to side with the views of industry.

"He defers to economic interests over the public health, to executive agencies over the Congress, and to secrecy over the public's right-to-know," complains Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, a major environmental protection group. "He's always tweaking the facts to the benefit of insiders."



But lawyer Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which advocates reducing government regulation, says Roberts views on environmental issues do not stray far from those of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

"She may have been liberal on some things, but she was not liberal on environmental regulation and property rights," said Bader.

A review of Roberts' record as an attorney and more recently a U.S. Court of Appeals judge provides a glimpse of how he has looked upon issues like federal mining law, the Endangered Species Act and land use issues.

Roberts has not always argued in favor of development, as demonstrated in a case involving protection of Lake Tahoe. Representing the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in 2002, Roberts persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a moratorium on developing the lake's shoreline.

While in the Reagan administration as an aide to White House counsel Fred Fielding, Roberts helped run damage control in 1982 over the refusal by then-Environmental Protection Agency head Anne Gorsuch to provide Congress documents on irregularities in the Superfund toxic waste program.

In a memo, Roberts cautioned that Reagan himself might become entangled in the controversy since Gorsuch was "a presidential appointee carrying out a presidential directive" when she refused to share subpoenaed documents with a House subcommittee.

If that happened, wrote Roberts, it "could be very politically damaging. With Mrs. Gorsuch in the case there is at least a 'buffer' separating the president from the dispute."

Years later, in 1999, as a partner in the Hogan & Hartson law firm here, Roberts was asked to give a presentation at a conference held by the National Mining Association. He offered "several pointers" on how the group might get their views heard by judges.

The "flood of increasingly partisan" friend-of-the-court briefs in recent high-profile appeals cases "raises the question of whether the briefs are read at all, let alone whether they influence the eventual outcome of a case," he advised the mining group.

In 1990, Roberts persuaded the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling in a lawsuit brought by the National Wildlife Federation challenging mining operations in Wyoming and Arizona. He argued successfully that the lower court shouldn't have heard the case since it was based on "vague" claims by two federation members that the mining activities impaired their enjoyment of the land.

Bader said Roberts may be "a hair more conservative" than O'Connor on the issue of when someone has legal standing to sue in court. Roberts may be "a bit more willing to kick out lawsuits from people who don't really have injuries," Bader said.

Just two months ago, Roberts backed the Interior Department in a case challenging oil leases it had issued. Writing for an appeals court majority, Roberts said courts should defer to an agency's view where regulations are complex and highly technical.

A hint of Roberts' views on land use and endangered species may be found in a 2003 case in which the judge took a minority view over the protection of a California toad.

Noting that the federal government's authority was based on its regulation of interstate commerce, Roberts wondered why the Interior Department should be "regulating the taking of a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California."

Many environment laws are based on government's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, says Glenn Sugameli of Earthjustice, a law firm devoted to environmental protection. He said Roberts' views expressed in the California toad case "does raise serious questions" about how he might view "the constitutionality of important protections under the Endangered Species Act."

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On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov

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So you won't meet with her?

So you won't meet with her?

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Directions are for Girlie Men

Directions are for Girlie Men

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Now there's a Hummer owner

Now there's a Hummer owner

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Someone Tell the President the War Is Over

The New York Times

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over
By FRANK RICH

LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire.

But our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.

The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)

As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Mr. Bush's top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls "a global struggle against violent extremism." A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's über-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost.

That battle crashed past the tipping point this month in Ohio. There's historical symmetry in that. It was in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, that Mr. Bush gave the fateful address that sped Congressional ratification of the war just days later. The speech was a miasma of self-delusion, half-truths and hype. The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive. He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." Our own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious."

It was on these false premises - that Iraq was both a collaborator on 9/11 and about to inflict mushroom clouds on America - that honorable and brave young Americans were sent off to fight. Among them were the 19 marine reservists from a single suburban Cleveland battalion slaughtered in just three days at the start of this month. As they perished, another Ohio marine reservist who had served in Iraq came close to winning a Congressional election in southern Ohio. Paul Hackett, a Democrat who called the president a "chicken hawk," received 48 percent of the vote in exactly the kind of bedrock conservative Ohio district that decided the 2004 election for Mr. Bush.

These are the tea leaves that all Republicans, not just Chuck Hagel, are reading now. Newt Gingrich called the Hackett near-victory "a wake-up call." The resolutely pro-war New York Post editorial page begged Mr. Bush (to no avail) to "show some leadership" by showing up in Ohio to salute the fallen and their families. A Bush loyalist, Senator George Allen of Virginia, instructed the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother camping out in Crawford, as "a matter of courtesy and decency." Or, to translate his Washingtonese, as a matter of politics. Only someone as adrift from reality as Mr. Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president can't win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering TV cameras and the blogosphere 24/7.


Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Mr. Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Mr. Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive."

But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it.

The endgame for American involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Mr. Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, Gen. George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring. Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006.

Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). A citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field the wholesale additional American troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq.

WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.

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Bush raises option of using force against Iran

Reuters

Bush raises option of using force against Iran

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush said he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program.

But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, one of the most prominent European opponents of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, told an election rally on Saturday the threat of force was not acceptable.

In what appeared to be a reference to Bush's remarks that "all options are on the table," Schroeder told the crowd in his home city of Hanover:

" ... let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."


Iran angered the European Union and the United States by resuming uranium conversion at the Isfahan plant last Monday after rejecting an EU offer of political and economic incentives in return for giving up its nuclear program.

Tehran says it aims only to produce electricity and denies Western accusations it is seeking a nuclear bomb.

The EU -- represented by Britain, France and Germany -- has been trying to find a compromise for two years between arch foes Iran and the United States.

Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, was asked in the interview broadcast on Saturday whether possible options included the use of force.

"As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country," he told state-owned Israel Channel One television.

DIPLOMACY

Washington last week expressed a willingness to give negotiations on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program more time before getting tougher with the country, and Bush made clear he still hoped for a diplomatic solution.

"In all these instances we want diplomacy to work and so we're working feverishly on the diplomatic route and we'll see if we're successful or not," Bush said in the Israeli interview.

Bush has also previously said that the United States has not ruled out the possibility of military strikes. But U.S. officials have played down media speculation earlier this year they were planning military action against Iran.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Friday that negotiations were still possible with Iran on condition the Iranians suspend their nuclear activities.

The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency unanimously called on Iran on Thursday to halt sensitive atomic work.

If Iran continues to defy global demands, another IAEA meeting will likely be held, where both Europe and Washington will push for a referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Schroeder, whose Social Democrats are lagging the opposition conservatives in opinion polls ahead of September elections, said he was worried about developments in Iran because no one wants it to gain possession of atomic weapons.

"The Europeans and the Americans are united in this goal. Up to now we were also united in the way to pursue this," he said.

Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war was seen as a decisive factor in his unexpected victory in the 2002 general election, which he won narrowly after coming from behind.

But his critical stance caused serious ruptures in Germany's traditionally strong relations with the United States.

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Senate Democrats demand certain Roberts documents

Reuters

Senate Democrats demand certain Roberts documents

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on Friday again demanded documents from what they said was U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' most important period of executive service and asked to meet with the attorney general to resolve an impasse over the material.

Preparing for confirmation hearings early next month, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote another letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanding documents from 16 cases Roberts dealt with as deputy solicitor general for President George H.W. Bush. The lawmakers said the material "may particularly illuminate his views on judicial decision-making."

The administration has refused to release that material, saying in a Justice Department letter that they reflected "internal discussions" that "have always been considered privileged."

The White House on Monday is to issue about 5,300 pages from Roberts' work as associate counsel to former President Ronald Reagan, a less senior position.

The White House assured committee members they will receive up to 40,000 pages of additional material by August 22, the deadline sought by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican.

Democrats have complained that much of the material they have received so far from the career of the conservative jurist was already in the public domain, and that much was from his work before he moved into a higher-level position.

Material from Roberts' work as deputy solicitor general, which the Bush administration has refused to release, "may well be the most relevant for evaluating the Supreme Court nomination," committee Democrats said.


They said those documents would show whether views expressed publicly in administration legal briefs "were also shared by Judge Roberts personally, and to evaluate the progression and consistency of his legal reasoning and analysis throughout his career."

Democrats disputed the White House argument that releasing the material could chill the free flow of internal discourse among administration lawyers.

They said Roberts was a "political appointee in a leadership position, politically responsible for making high-level policy decisions" who should not be afforded the same confidentiality as career staff attorneys.

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Iraq war boosted Islamic extremist threat- Carter

Reuters

Iraq war boosted Islamic extremist threat- Carter

KINGS BAY, Georgia (Reuters) - The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake that has boosted the ranks and morale of extremist Islamic groups and made them a greater threat to U.S. interests, former President Jimmy Carter said on Friday.

"We have not lessened the strength of terrorists around the world and have not lessened but have increased both the number and the fervor and the organizational capabilities of terrorists," Carter said in a news conference at this U.S. naval base in southeastern Georgia.

Carter, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and one of the fiercest U.S. critics of the war in Iraq, added that he was opposed to a sudden withdrawal of U.S. troops "because it would lead to a "debacle" in the Middle Eastern nation.

Carter's comments came one day after President George W. Bush rejected calls for a quick pullout. Bush, who is vacationing at his ranch in Texas, said a premature withdrawal would betray the Iraqis just as they are being trained to defend themselves and eventually take over from U.S. soldiers.

More than 1,800 U.S. soldiers have been killed since a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003, toppling Saddam Hussein from power.



Carter was in Kings Bay, Georgia, to tour the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter, a newly commissioned nuclear submarine. Carter, a former Navy submarine officer, and his wife, Rosalynn, spent Thursday night on the submerged vessel.

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Guns of August

Huffingtonpost.com
Russ Baker
Guns of August

Can you hear the footsteps growing louder?

Mounting anecdotal evidence suggests that civil libertarians were not exaggerating when they began long ago to worry about prospects for dangerous excess in the ‘response’ to 9/11. If it ever was just about the government poking into our requests for library books on the history of timing devices, those days are long past. In the past week alone, the following troubling developments and revelations were reported, but not necessarily widely discussed or appreciated for their collective import:

-On August 7, we could read in the New York Times (Metro Section) about the case of a longtime naturalized American citizen, a New York area-translator, an apparently peaceable fellow, working on a doctorate, with no personal involvement with or sympathies with terror activity, who has been convicted of providing material aid to terrorism and conspiring to deceive the government – and faces a possible 20 years in prison. His boss, Lynne Stewart, defense attorney for the jailed Sheikh Abdul Rahman, was convicted of passing along communications from the cleric. But the translator claims he was simply following her instructions. And it’s far from clear that he understood that anything he did could be seen as aiding terrorism – or that this was his intention.

-On August 8, the Washington Post reported on plans being developed by the Pentagon to have normal military troops intervene domestically in various crisis scenarios. No matter that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 severely restricts the use of troops in domestic law enforcement. The big concern here is that, of course, introducing active-duty troops into the streets of the United States could at least in theory lead to military government. Beyond that, one could raise credible concerns about the transferability of skills troops utilize in war zones, in highly volatile situations where civil liberties and other niceties play little or no role, to the streets of, say, Washington, D.C. or Cleveland. The article contains various reassurances that there’s no cause for alarm. But the Post got this story from “officers who drafted the plans.” Assuming they spoke to the reporter with the permission of their superiors, that means the military is floating the idea to see whether it actually bothers anyone.


-On August 9, we learned about an Illinois student from Qatar being held as an enemy combatant under conditions that, if true, channel Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo. Except that he’s in a navy brig in Charleston, SC. His lawyer claims that he is held in isolation, nearly round-the-clock, in a dark 6-by-9-foot cell; being deliberately exposed to extreme cold, and denied basic necessities like a toothbrush, toilet paper, adequate bedding, and medical and psychological care, an denied any contact with his family. He further claims to be denied access to any books, newspapers, radio, television or religious material except for the Koran (which he says was placed on the floor, with other items heaped atop it), and says that threats have been made against his family.

-On August 10, we learned that the US government has been seizing foreign citizens who simply change planes at airports in the United States -- detaining them for days without charges, depriving them of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denying basic necessities like food. One naturalized Canadian citizen alleges that he was grabbed at JFK Airport, held in solitary confinement in a Brooklyn detention center and then shipped off to his native Syria to be interrogated under torture because officials suspected that he was a member of Al Qaeda. Since then, Syrian and Canadian officials have said that the man had no terrorist connections, but US officials steadfastly maintain otherwise. According to the New York Times, they are seeking dismissal of his lawsuit, in part through the rare assertion of a "state secrets" privilege.

Personally, I have twice been pulled into an interrogation room after coming off foreign flights. The first time, the officers involved released me soon after, but declined to explain why I had been flagged. The second time, one confessed that my name was ‘similar’ to that of someone on a watch list (“Sheikh Ras al-Bakr”?) – this despite a unique passport number and a history of decidedly nonjihadist overseas travel. Can I – or any of us – learn more about what is going on?

No, we can’t. No administration in history has come close to the Bush White House in its zeal to block the routine release of information, and to stamp “classified” on pieces of paper – millions upon millions. It’s worth noting that this policy went into effect long before 9/11 – indeed, within days of Bush taking office in early 2001.

One has to wonder when a hero will emerge from among our elected officials to loudly take up the cudgel for freedom and liberty – the protection of which is presumably the purpose for which we all fight. When will someone (ideally from the party in power) boldly begin demanding answers about how the growing police state is substantively protecting our ‘national security’ – and insist that the government be forced to publicly define that vague term with much, much greater specificity?

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Washington lobbyist Abramoff charged with fraud

Reuters
Washington lobbyist Abramoff charged with fraud

By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Washington lobbyist who is a central figure in investigations involving House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was charged on Thursday with defrauding two lenders of $60 million to buy a casino cruise line.

Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist, and Adam Kidan, his partner in the $147.5 million buyout of SunCruz Casino five years ago, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta said.

The two were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud. Each count carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors are also seeking restitution of the $60 million.

Federal authorities said they were in the process of arresting Abramoff in Los Angeles and Kidan in Florida.

The indictment alleges that Abramoff and Kidan duped specialty lenders Foothill Capital and Citadel Equity Fund Ltd by pledging to invest $23 million in the purchase of SunCruz in return for the $60 million loan. The indictment alleges the two men offered a fake wire transfer document as proof they had invested the money.

"That document was counterfeit. The defendants never transferred the funds," Acosta, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, told reporters at a news conference in Miami.


Abramoff and Kidan bought the casino cruise empire from Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, a Greek-immigrant entrepreneur who built the cruise line and the Miami Subs restaurant chain. He was shot to death in his car on a Fort Lauderdale street in a gangland-style hit in 2001.

DeLay, a Texas Republican, has faced questions about his ties to lobbyists, foreign trips funded by outside groups and the use of campaign funds. Opponents claim he has engaged in unethical behavior. He has denied the allegations. DeLay's office had no comment on the charges against Abramoff.

The Washington Post reported in April that a plane trip to London and Scotland by DeLay was charged to a credit card issued to Abramoff. Under House ethics rules, lawmakers are prohibited from accepting payment of trips and related expenses from registered lobbyists.

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Blog postings may be sparse over the next few days

Blog postings may be sparse over the next few days . . .

while the proprietor of this blog takes a vacation.

However, as time and connectivity permit, some new articles

may appear, so please check daily.



Thank you.

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