Bush protesters chant for peace

Bush protesters chant for peace
Associated Press

MILWAUKEE President Bush's motorcade was greeted by about 150 protesters, who milled about in the damp and cool conditions in downtown Milwaukee chanting for peace.

The majority of the protesters were nuns from The Sisters of Saint Joseph.

The organization was holding a convention in Milwaukee and the nuns chanted "No More War" and "We Want Peace" while holding signs shaped like doves.

Mary Anne Rodgers of Albany, New York, says that they are praying for Bush.

Jim Maurer of Milwaukee says he came out to protest because he thought Republicans were dishonest.

He held a poster of an oil barrel that thanked Bush and Congressman Mark Green for passing tax breaks to benefit the wealthy and oil companies.

Bush was in town today to tour a shoe company and hold a fund-raising event for Green, the Republican Party's candidate for governor.

Read More...

Summary only...

State Department suffers computer break-ins

USA TODAY
State Department suffers computer break-ins

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is recovering from large-scale computer break-ins worldwide over the past several weeks that appeared to target its headquarters and offices dealing with China and North Korea, the Associated Press has learned.

Investigators believe hackers stole sensitive U.S. information and passwords and implanted backdoors in unclassified government computers to allow them to return at will, said U.S. officials familiar with the hacking. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the widespread intrusions and the resulting investigation.

The break-ins and the State Department's emergency response severely limited Internet access at many locations, including some headquarters offices in Washington, these officials said. Internet connections have been restored across nearly all the department since the break-ins were recognized in mid-June.

"The department did detect anomalies in network traffic, and we thought it prudent to ensure out system's integrity," department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said. Asked what information was stolen by the hackers, Cooper said, "Because the investigation is continuing, I don't think we even know."

Tracing the origin of such break-ins is difficult. But employees told AP the hackers appeared to hit computers especially hard at headquarters and inside the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, which coordinates diplomacy in countries including China, the Koreas and Japan. In the tense weeks preceding North Korea's missile tests, that bureau lost its Internet connectivity for several days.

China's government was considered by experts a chief suspect in computer break-ins at the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies disclosed last summer. But China also is home to a large number of insecure computers and networks that hackers in other countries could use to disguise their locations and launch attacks.

The Pentagon warned earlier this year that China's army is emphasizing hacking as an offensive weapon. It cited Chinese military exercises in 2005 that included hacking "primarily in first strikes against enemy networks."

After the State Department break-ins, many employees were instructed to change their passwords. The department also temporarily disabled a technology known as secure sockets layer, used to transmit encrypted information over the Internet. Hackers can exploit weaknesses in this technology to break into computers, and they can use the same technology to transmit stolen information covertly off a victim's network.

Many diplomats were unable to access their online bank accounts using government computers because most financial institutions require the security technology to be turned on. Cooper said the department has since fixed that problem.


Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-11-state-department_x.htm?csp=34

Read More...

Summary only...

Steele's Web Site Parades Democrats

washingtonpost.com
Steele's Web Site Parades Democrats
Hoyer Wants Photo Removed; Mfume Also Pictured
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer

They are not the sort of photos one might expect to find headlining the Web site of a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

In one frame, Maryland's Michael S. Steele shares a chuckle and a slap on the shoulder with Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the House Democratic whip. In another, Steele stands with former congressman Kweisi Mfume -- one of the Democrats hoping to run against him this fall.

But the photos displayed until yesterday in the slide show at the top of Steele's campaign Web site, http://steeleformaryland.com/ , fit neatly into the script that the lieutenant governor is writing for his Senate bid. That script rarely employs the word Republican and almost always recognizes that in a dark blue state such as Maryland, no candidate can win without considerable support from registered Democrats.

"The lieutenant governor has said repeatedly that this is not a typical campaign," said Doug Heye, Steele's campaign spokesman. "He has consistently worked to reach out across party lines. The very foundation of his campaign is about building bridges."

But the use of the photos appears to have crossed a line for some Democrats, starting with Hoyer, who complained about the use of his image on the campaign site.

More recriminations came from state Democratic Party officials, who yesterday announced that they were launching a counter-site that will feature photos of who they say are Steele's real supporters. As of yesterday, the site http://therealsteele.com/ had one photo up -- of Steele on stage with President Bush. The headline below called it "the photo Steele forgot to post."

"There will be many more," Terry Lierman, chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party, vowed before rattling off a list of names that included Vice President Cheney; Bush's deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove; and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, all of whom have hosted fundraisers for Steele.

"Where are their pictures?" Lierman asked. "It's what's not up on his Web site that speaks volumes."

Analysts say there is little mystery as to why Steele is not splashing Bush's mug across his Web site. A Washington Post poll of 902 registered voters in Maryland conducted June 19 through 25 showed Bush with a 33 percent approval rating in the state. It also showed that 56 percent of voters would be less likely to support a candidate backed by the president.

"I think they understand the reality of the situation in Maryland and are trying to show in as many ways as possible that he's not a typical Republican, he's not a puppet for George Bush and Karl Rove," said Jennifer E. Duffy of the Cook Political Report.

Duffy noted that in states where Bush is more popular, Democrats have not shied away from promoting themselves by embracing the president. In Nebraska, for instance, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson has run a television ad that begins with the headline, "Bush Praises Ben Nelson."

Perhaps the most unusual among the photos on Steele's Web site, Duffy said, is the one of Mfume, who is a leading contender in the Democratic primary to take on Steele in November.

"I'm guessing that if Mfume wins the primary, that photo will come down," she said.

If Mfume was disturbed by the photo, he has not said so publicly. His campaign spokesman said only that "if Michael Steele wants to put his opponents' photographs on his Web site, it's really for him to explain why."

Hoyer was not as coy. He released a statement Friday, after a Washington Times columnist first reported on the photos. He and Steele had crossed paths at a Fourth of July event in Bowie, and Hoyer said he noticed immediately that someone from Steele's campaign was taking photos.

"The second picture, I put my hand up," Hoyer said yesterday. "It was obvious to me what she was doing."

Hoyer said that when he saw the photo on Steele's site, his concern was that it would be misinterpreted by voters.

"Clearly, he wanted to give the impression that those are people in agreement with him, and that is clearly not the case," Hoyer said. "He is not someone who just came in from the cold. He was chairman of the Republican Party and a very committed and active supporter of George Bush and a prominent figure in the 2004 Republican convention. He is what he is."

Hoyer said he has asked Steele to remove the image from the site, and Steele's spokesman said yesterday that the campaign would comply. Last night, the photos of Hoyer and Mfume were removed from the home page but appeared in a gallery of photographs elsewhere on the site.

Read More...

Summary only...

Senate Votes to Replace FEMA With a New Federal Agency

The New York Times
Senate Votes to Replace FEMA With a New Federal Agency
By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON, July 11 — The Senate voted 87 to 11 Tuesday night to create a new federal entity to replace the much-criticized Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Senate’s action came in the form of an amendment to the domestic security budget bill. The new agency, called the Emergency Management Authority, would remain in the Homeland Security Department into which FEMA, which once had cabinet status, was merged in 2003. But in times of major disasters, the new agency would report directly to the president.

The Senate also voted on Tuesday to amend the proposed $32.8 billion domestic security spending bill by adding another $648 million for port security to pay for more equipment and personnel to inspect ship containers, and an extra $350 million for border security to buy aircraft and vehicles to help border patrol agents and to enhance border fences.

Final passage of the bill by Congress is far from assured. The House is still considering legislation proposed by Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska, that would keep FEMA but move it outside the Homeland Security Department, returning it to the more prominent, stand-alone status it had during the Clinton administration.

Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, who co-sponsored the legislation to change the agency, said the agency’s performance after Hurricane Katrina last year was such a national embarrassment that the federal government had no option but to abolish it and replace it with an agency that had new powers and a new name.

The Senate bill would also reunite agencies assigned to help prepare for disasters or terrorist attacks with those that respond and help cities or states recover from them, functions now split in different parts of the Homeland Security Department. And it would require creation of larger, better-staffed regional emergency management offices for the new Emergency Management Agency.

“It is not business as usual, but rather a dramatic reform of FEMA,” Ms. Collins said after the vote.

The Department of Homeland Security, which has opposed totally removing the functions handled by FEMA from its control, as one House bill proposes, ended up supporting the Senate legislation, saying it “wisely reinforces D.H.S.’s ability to operate as a comprehensive, all-hazards agency by keeping FEMA’s capabilities within D.H.S.”

Read More...

Summary only...

Novak Told Prosecutor His Sources in Leak Case

The New York Times
Novak Told Prosecutor His Sources in Leak Case
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, July 11 — The journalist who first identified the intelligence officer at the center of the C.I.A. leak case says he later voluntarily identified three sources to the prosecutor in the case, who, he says, had already learned of his conversations with each of the three.

In his syndicated column being published Wednesday, the journalist, Robert D. Novak, confirms that two of his sources were Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and Bill Harlow, then a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, both of whose roles in the case are already widely known. Mr. Novak does not disclose his primary source, saying this official has not come forward publicly.

Mr. Novak’s column of July 14, 2003, identified the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, by her maiden name, Valerie Plame. That column focused primarily on a trip that Ms. Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, took to Africa at the C.I.A.’s request in 2002 to check reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium there. Mr. Wilson found no evidence of such a purchase and subsequently became a critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

The 2003 column had far-reaching consequences, leading to a criminal inquiry that began as an effort to determine whether Ms. Wilson’s identity had been disclosed by someone in the government as retaliation for her husband’s criticism of the administration. Last October the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, obtained an obstruction and perjury indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Mr. Libby, who has pleaded not guilty, is to be tried early next year. Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter, was jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify and reveal her confidential source in the case, Mr. Libby.

In the column, which circulated over the Internet on Tuesday evening, Mr. Novak said his decision to discuss his sources with Mr. Fitzgerald had been made reluctantly, after he realized that the prosecutor had learned independently of those sources and his lawyers had advised him that he faced a costly and probably unsuccessful legal fight if he refused to cooperate.

“I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury,” Mr. Novak wrote. “Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue.”

Mr. Novak said he had previously avoided discussing the case at the request of Mr. Fitzgerald. He said he was doing so now because Mr. Fitzgerald had advised Mr. Novak’s lawyers that the inquiry related to him had ended. Last month, Mr. Fitzgerald informed Mr. Rove, who had testified before the grand jury five times, that he would not be charged. That step would appear to have given Mr. Novak impetus to seek the prosecutor’s permission to discuss matters related to the columnist, who did not return a telephone call to his office on Tuesday evening.

Mr. Novak said he refused to reveal his sources when F.B.I. agents first interviewed him about the 2003 column that fall. During that interview, he said, he discussed in general how he had learned that Ms. Wilson might have had a role in the C.I.A.’s assigning her husband to the Africa trip. But he did not disclose his sources then, he said, and was not asked by the agents to identify them.

Then, he said, on Jan. 14, 2004, at his first interview with the prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald made it clear that he already knew the identity of the sources, having brought with him three legal waivers, each signed by one of the three, relieving Mr. Novak of any confidentiality pledge.

Mr. Novak said he had a second session with Mr. Fitzgerald on Feb. 5, 2004. He was then subpoenaed, he said, and testified to the grand jury three weeks later.

“In my sworn testimony,” he wrote, “I said what I have contended in my columns and on television: Joe Wilson’s wife’s role in instituting her husband’s mission was revealed to me in the middle of a long interview with an official who I have previously said was not a political gunslinger. After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part.”

After his interview with that primary source, Mr. Novak sought out Mr. Rove at the White House and Mr. Harlow at the C.I.A. for confirmation, he wrote.

His new column confirms what he hinted at in a previous one: that although he had been told that Mr. Wilson’s wife was a C.I.A. officer, he learned her name from reading the former ambassador’s entry in Who’s Who in America. It identified her as Valerie Plame.

Read More...

Summary only...

Microsoft 'facing huge EU fine'

BBC NEWS
Microsoft 'facing huge EU fine'

The European Commission is preparing to impose a multi-million euro fine on Microsoft to punish it for failing to comply with an anti-competition ruling.

Reports suggest the US software giant will be fined between 200m euros and 300m euros ($383.2m; £207.6m).

The move follows a landmark ruling made in 2004, which ordered Microsoft to provide rivals with information about its Windows operating system.

And the fine could rise further should Microsoft continue to fail to comply.

Brussels has refused to comment on the reports until it issues its decision on Wednesday.

On Monday, regulators met to discuss penalties for the company ahead of an official ruling on Microsoft's actions since the 2004 decision.

The suggested 300m euro fine is thought to be backdated to a warning issued to the firm in December.

Rising penalty

At the time Brussels warned it would face daily fines of 2m euros a day if it failed to meet the Commission's demands.

Sources say that penalty could now rise to 3m euros a day if Microsoft fails to comply with the anti-trust ruling by 31 July.

However, Microsoft insists it has complied with the Commission's demands and says it expects to deliver the last bundle of information by 18 July.

Under the 2004 ruling, Microsoft was told to provide rival firms with more information about its software, in order to enable them to write programs that could run more smoothly on Microsoft's widely-used Windows operating system.

The judgment also called for Microsoft to debundle its Windows Media Player from its Windows operating system, and hit the software firm with a record fine of 497m euros.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/5171126.stm

Read More...

Summary only...

Tucker Carlson Blasts Ed Murrow!

Huffington Post
Brent Budowsky
Tucker Carlson Blasts Ed Murrow!

Did I just hear Tucker Carlson call Ed Murrow a phony? The intrepid Carlson's suggestion was that because some of Murrow's shows involved soft profiles (which some were), management never pushed him to do them (wrong) and Murrow was therefore a phony (huh?).

What Tucker says to his modest audience is not worthy of comment, except that this does
represent a broader decline of standards, a broader decline of truth in television, and a broader pandering to the lowest elements.

Murrow does not need any defense against Tucker's manly assault, but the truth does need a defense in an age where truth has become subservient to partisan interests, to political agendas, to cheap commercialism, to shallow sensationalism, to the cute one liner, by the airhead talker, on third rate cable, with miniscule audience, and zero respect for the integrity of the matter.

Truth is truth, and there are times when truth is non-negotiable. When Americans who landed at Normandy are murdered in war crimes when taken prisoner, to say, and then repeat, that those troops had themselves committed war crimes is beyond shame. This is not an issue about which reasonable people can disagree. It is non-negotiable. Is Fox News proud of Bill O'Reilly for this? Is there any standard? Do truth, facts and honor mean anything?

I will predict that there will be major news, very soon, that will bring the words "Edward R. Murrow" back to center stage, in old and new media alike. And that the so-called experts will be astonished at the huge market among Americans for what I would call Integrity Television, Truth Television, Courageous Television, Fearless Television, television with honor, context, and depth.

What the media should be, is letting a thousand flowers bloom, and letting the audience decide. What has happened is two alternate models, equally corrupt, for different reasons. There is the smear and fear model, which creates a megaphone for even those who slander widows of 9-11. Is there any shame to these people?

In this smear and fear model, we are treated like a nation of cowards, driven by fear to surrender even the Bill of Rights, and we are treated like a nation of anger management problems, where major papers are accused of treason, and war heroes are attacked even for the medals of bravery they were awarded. Is there any honor here?

When I wrote a guest essay in Editor and Publisher on the 4th of July defending the First Amendment from trash talk of treason, I was inundated with responses, most of them beyond favorable. But I received at least twenty to thirty that were pure, total, unadulterated hate. Not contempt, not anger, not disagreement, but pure hate directed to both the New York Times and to me.

One wonders, when the President walks the White House at night, looking at the portraits of the giants who occupied that home, whether he is proud that his own words, his own deeds, directly inflame hatred. One wonders if the programming executives who provide a megaphone to voices of hate, are proud, in their most private moments, that people watch their shows and respond by threatening the lives of Supreme Court Justices, or those they mark on their personal enemies lists.

The other model, of course, is the corporatized, bureaucratized, sensationalized, trivialized, and homogenized notion that Americans are obsessed with the corpses of the latest murder, where democracy is treated like a freak show, where issues worthy of treatment for hours are squeezed into minutes or seconds, to keep our attention between deodorant commercials.

The common denominator here, is how the television executives view the American people as morons and idiots. The fear and smear side turns cable news into negative attack ads and shameless appeals to anger and fear, and now, at times, openly, to outright hate. While the corporatized imitators take a bad art form with low esteem for the customer, and repeat it, having more in common with the street corner vendors selling fake Movados, than the heirs to a proud and honorable profession singled out by our Founding Fathers as essential to our democracy.

There are reasons cable audience, including Fox, are modest and often declining. There are reasons circulation of the daily newspapers is falling. There are reasons for the incredible surge to the internet, to more enlightened cable such as Keith Olbermann, and to offbeat but substantive alternatives such as Steve Colbert, Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. For those who think the future is Tucker Carlson calling Ed Murrow a phony, perhaps we need a new book: "Programming For Dummies".

Stay tuned. News is coming. Remember that those the right attacks, are those they truly fear, Tucker's assault on Murrow is a good omen indeed. I predict Edward R. Murrow's reputation will survive the blow of Carlson's contempt; and news of integrity and quality will be making a comeback. There will more assaults on Murrow because they attack what they fear, and they have good reason to fear news that speaks truth to power, and treats people with respect.

Read More...

Summary only...

Republican Majority -- Choosing Chemical Industry Over Public Health

Huffington Post
Rep. Hilda L. Solis
Republican Majority -- Choosing Chemical Industry Over Public Health

This Wednesday, the Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), is going to consider legislation to allow the United States to implement the Stockholm Convention which blatantly places the interests of the chemical industry above the needs of public health, undermines our states rights, and limits the ability of our nation to be a global leader.

Despite all this - the Republican majority will excitedly embrace this legislation. Why? Because this bill includes one of the worst cost-benefit standards since Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America and there is nothing they would love to do more than continue the gutting of our nation's safety, health and environmental regulations in the context of an international environmental treaty. Simply, it is a gift to the chemical industry.

This is unfortunate. The Stockholm Convention is an important step toward protecting public health at home and abroad from highly toxic substances which can cause serious developmental problems, including learning disabilities and birth defects. This treaty will not only ban chemicals and pesticides such as PCBs and DDT globally, but creates a venue to address such substances as lindane or flame retardants. This treaty was negotiated by President Clinton, signed by President Bush, and has been widely endorsed as an important step toward improving public health and the environment around the world.

I believe that legislation to allow the United States to implement this treaty must allow the United States to continue its role as a global leader while at the same time protecting public health. I introduced legislation to achieve these goals. My bill, H.R. 4800, has been endorsed by the American Nurses Association, National Hispanic Environmental Council, United Steelworkers, the lead United States' negotiators for the Convention, 11 state Attorneys General, nearly two dozen American Indian and Alaska Native tribes, and more than 60 environmental and public health groups. Why? Because it protects public health!

The markup is nothing more than an attempt to appear environmentally friendly while implementing one of the most egregious public health and environmental standards. I will fight again to defeat this bill and protect public health, US sovereignty and US global leadership. But tomorrow will be a sad day, when once again my Republican colleagues are willing to sell out public health for the highest bidder - the chemical industry.

Read More...

Summary only...

U.S. Terror Targets: Petting Zoo and Flea Market?

The New York Times
U.S. Terror Targets: Petting Zoo and Flea Market?
By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON, July 11 — It reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have written: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.”

But the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, in a report released Tuesday, found that the list was not child’s play: all these “unusual or out-of-place” sites “whose criticality is not readily apparent” are inexplicably included in the federal antiterrorism database.

The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

The database is used by the Homeland Security Department to help divvy up the hundreds of millions of dollars in antiterrorism grants each year, including the program announced in May that cut money to New York City and Washington by 40 percent, while significantly increasing spending for cities including Louisville, Ky., and Omaha.

“We don’t find it embarrassing,” said the department’s deputy press secretary, Jarrod Agen. “The list is a valuable tool.”

But the audit says that lower-level department officials agreed that some older information in the inventory “was of low quality and that they had little faith in it.”

“The presence of large numbers of out-of-place assets taints the credibility of the data,” the report says.

In addition to the petting zoo, in Woodville, Ala., and the Mule Day Parade in Columbia, Tenn., the auditors questioned many entries, including “Nix’s Check Cashing,” “Mall at Sears,” “Ice Cream Parlor,” “Tackle Shop,” “Donut Shop,” “Anti-Cruelty Society” and “Bean Fest.”

Even people connected to some of those businesses or events are baffled at their inclusion as possible terrorist targets.

“Seems like someone has gone overboard,” said Larry Buss, who helps organize the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton, Ill. “Their time could be spent better doing other things, like providing security for the country.”

Angela McNabb, manager of the Sweetwater Flea Market, which is 50 miles from Knoxville, Tenn., said: “I don’t know where they get their information. We are talking about a flea market here.”

New York City officials, who have questioned the rationale for the reduction in this year’s antiterrorism grants, were similarly blunt.

“Now we know why the Homeland Security grant formula came out as wacky as it was,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said Tuesday. “This report is the smoking gun that thoroughly indicts the system.”

The source of the problems, the audit said, appears to be insufficient definitions or standards for inclusion provided to the states, which submit lists of locations for the database.

New York, for example, lists only 2 percent of the nation’s banking and finance sector assets, which ranks it between North Dakota and Missouri. Washington State lists nearly twice as many national monuments and icons as the District of Columbia.

Montana, one of the least populous states in the nation, turned up with far more assets than big-population states including Massachusetts, North Carolina and New Jersey.

The inspector general questions whether many of the sites listed in whole categories — like the 1,305 casinos, 163 water parks, 159 cruise ships, 244 jails, 3,773 malls, 718 mortuaries and 571 nursing homes — should even be included in the tally.

But the report also notes that the list “may have too few assets in essential areas.” It apparently does not include many major business and finance operations or critical national telecommunications hubs.

The department does not release the list of 77,069 sites, but the report said that as of January it included 17,327 commercial properties like office buildings, malls and shopping centers, 12,019 government facilities, 8,402 public health buildings, 7,889 power plants and 2,963 sites with chemical or hazardous materials.

George W. Foresman, the department’s under secretary for preparedness, said the audit misunderstood the purpose of the database, as it was an inventory or catalog of national assets, not a prioritized list of the most critical sites.The database is just one of many sources consulted in deciding antiterrorism grants.

The inspector general recommends that the department review the list and determine which of the “extremely insignificant” assets that have been included should remain and provide better guidance to states on what to submit in the future.

Mr. Agen, the Homeland Security Department spokesman, said that he agreed that his agency should provide better directions for the states and that it would do so in the future.

One business owner who learned from a reporter that a company named Amish Country Popcorn was on the list was at first puzzled. The businessman, Brian Lehman, said he owned the only operation in the country with that name.

“I am out in the middle of nowhere,” said Mr. Lehman, whose business in Berne, Ind., has five employees and grows and distributes popcorn. “We are nothing but a bunch of Amish buggies and tractors out here. No one would care.”

But on second thought, he came up with an explanation: “Maybe because popcorn explodes?”

Read More...

Summary only...

Middle Class? You've Been Downlisted by the GOP

Huffington Post
Ross M. Levine
Middle Class? You've Been Downlisted by the GOP

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, depending on your income, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, depending on your gullibility...

With apologies to Chuck Dickens…

Yes, it's bad enough that young Americans are being exploded in Iraq because a cakewalk has turned into a bloodbath; that our national debt is more than $8 trillion and counting; that it's OK for illegal immigrants to wash dishes but not rent apartments; that it takes a Ben Franklin and change to gas up an Escalade; that nearly one in every six Americans lacks medical insurance; that the price of a no-frills home in L.A. County is over half a million bucks; that civil liberties have become an inconvenience to national security; and that if the Earth gets any hotter, the federal government will be building levies in New York as well as New Orleans.
All this is pretty unnerving, but these are the symptoms, not the sickness.

So what is the sickness? One could say a lack of leadership but that is not precisely the case. There is leadership, AKA the present government, but it's not exactly of, by and for the people anymore.

Was it ever? That's certainly open to discussion, but in the 21st century, as Rooseveltian socialism becomes more and more the scapegoat for America's ills, our leaders in the White House and on Capitol Hill are taking the American dream and whittling it down to a more manageable size. In other words, it's no longer for everybody.

Think of Bush and the Republican Congress as the captain and crew of the Titanic. They know there's an iceberg out there, but they also know there are enough lifeboats aboard for them and their friends to get off safely. For those of us in steerage, well, we can fend for ourselves. As the great Ayatollah Reagan once said: "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Translation -- you're on our own.

Well, sure, fair enough, if only the rules of the game were also fair enough. They're not. The rich get richer, while the rest of us nibble at a smaller and smaller chunk of cheese. This fact of American life today is everywhere.

For instance, with oil prices hovering above 70 bucks a barrel, you'd think the gasoline makers would be hurting, having to pay so much for their dead dinosaur juice. Not so -- profits are through the firmament.

Companies are scaling back, laying off workers, declaring bankruptcy and terminating pensions. Are their CEOs feeling the pinch? Hardly. While unions are told that workers must sacrifice for the good of the firm, company leaders are giving themselves raises that seem more like lotto prizes than compensation.

Let's face it -- the American middle class, endangered species that it is, has been downlisted -- i.e., the government no longer believes it's obligated to protect it.

And why should our President and Congresspersons save the middle class anyway? To the poor, the middles are just rich people who don't know how good they have it. To the rich, they're a bunch of would-be party crashers who should be more than satisfied with what they got.

And to the middle class itself -- what is its self-image like these days? Well, somewhat delusional, I'm afraid. Its rank and file believe they can sustain debt that would give Polonius a coronary and mortgages that exceed the GNPs of developing nations, all the while ignoring the fact that their future is as secure as the life of a Saddam Hussein defense lawyer.

Remember George W. Bush's broadside on Social Security, right after he'd earned his political capital against the Great Obfuscator, "Ichabod" Kerry? Bush felt confident that, denied his "mission accomplished" in Iraq, he could at least go down in history as the president who revamped social security and once and for all made this country the capitalist utopia it was intended to be. By letting ordinary Americans keep their money to invest as they wish, instead of the government guaranteeing them a retirement benefit, the average Joe would be better off (or so the argument went). Social Security, said Bush in the manner of Paul Revere announcing the redcoat advance, was on a downward spiral, and the only answer was letting the people sit on their own nest egg.

Great idea -- so why didn't it hatch? Not because most middle-income Americans realize that 401(k)s, as stated by benefits consultant Brooks Hamilton on PBS's Frontline, may not be all they're cracked up to be:

"The top 20% [of plan participants] always did anywhere between five and six times the annual investment rate of return of the bottom 20%. If the bottom 20%, say, had a 4% return, ... the top 20% might have had a 25 or 26% return. ...

I label this yield disparity. ... We have a yield disparity that is a financial cancer in our great, beautiful 401(k) movement. ... it was everywhere I looked. [A cancer because] it would destroy the opportunity for ordinary workers to retire in dignity. They couldn't get there from here. There is no way."

No, Bush was feeding us his line that the typical American would do better managing retirement money than the government ever could. But the people didn't buy it. They were understandably skeptical of the President after the WMDs failed to materialize, but they were also afraid to give up a known quantity -- a social security check (however endangered it might be) -- for an unknown quantity, earnings based on their own ability to play the financial markets. Most Americans, wisely enough, would rather not bet their futures on their own talent for saving and investing wisely.

In fact, most Americans may expect that their leaders will take better care of them than they will take care of themselves. In this, they are sorely misguided. When it comes to taking care of us, our leaders are utter incompetents. They seem to be fiddling away as the Earth heats to a boil; as the OPEC gang plays us like a marionette; as billions of dollars are siphoned to war profiteers in Iraq; as our environment is eaten away by unchecked growth; as our prisons spill forth an ever-growing graduate class of criminals; as our culture becomes Walmartized; as fewer and fewer media companies disseminate nearly all of our news and entertainment; and as it becomes increasingly harder for us to imagine how we'll ever be able to retire.

But no, our leaders are not fiddling, they're finagling. It may seem like they are oblivious to the plight of the planet and the people, but that is not the case. Do not be so naïve as to consider them Caligulas so heady with power that they cannot figure out how to exercise it. They do have plans, and those plans do not favor working stiffs on fixed, five-figure salaries. Such working stiffs may form the majority of a politician's constituents, but they do not command the majority of his or her attention.

Corporations, along with individuals as rich as corporations, have the money and influence required to make Faustian deals with White House and Congressional souls. And once such arrangements are struck, a politician in hock to Lucifer becomes even more energized and determined to work his boss's will. The war in Iraq rages on not because of some quixotic quest for democracy, but because the military industrial complex and its corporate cohorts are invested too deeply over there -- too profitably -- to allow for a "premature" pullout. Just think of the Pentagon and Halliburton as vampires in the midst of a repast.

Remember the bailout of the airline industry in the aftermath of September 11th? The blue chip flyers were in trouble before the attack, and would probably have gone under without the aid of the U.S. taxpayers. Our Republican President and his Congressional minions harnessed the power of the people to save their corporate pals in direct violation of their supposed faith in the free market. Some of these airlines are still limping along, their loyal employees limping along with them.

But not the folks in the corporate cockpit -- they're making plenty and don't have a care in the world about maintaining their opulent way of life in their golden years.

And what is happening as our robber barons snicker all the way to the bank? One in six Americans better not get sick; the city of New Orleans remains in intensive care nearly a year after Katrina; illegal aliens are vilified for taking backbreaking, carcinogenic jobs in construction and agriculture; billions are being flushed away on Congressional earmarks; the likes of DeLay and Abramoff have turned Washington into a laundromat; prisoners have languished in Gitmo long enough to commit suicide; instead of Bonnie and Clyde, we have Fannie (Mae) and Arthur (Anderson); and Merck, in true Industrial Revolutionary fashion, has been caught putting profits ahead of human life. My, my -- if Willy Lohman were alive today, he'd kill himself all over again.

So, are we describing a rudderless ship with Bush and the Republicans standing at the helm, unable to change course? Not on your life. They are steering the vessel in exactly the way that keeps the powerful powerful and the rest of us staring down the plank. Political spin is the art of committing crimes and making them seem not only legal but noble. When people do good deeds, no spin is required, but when people are corrupt, they can't get enough of their own shameless rhetoric.

Once upon a time, Galileo was put on trial because he was too gung-ho for Copernicus. The Inquisition was not ready to acknowledge that the Earth revolved around the sun. In the same way, our present leaders refuse to admit that we are not winning the global war on terror; that yes, we do use torture; that trashing ANWR is not preferable to regulating the auto industry; that photographing flag-draped coffins is not anti-American; that real education is more than just passing a standardized test; that good governance is about long-, not short-term, results; and that the economy, for a whole lot of people, really and truly sucks.

And one more thing -- that the American dream, for most of us, has become the American pipe dream.

There, I've said it. Let my trial begin.

Read More...

Summary only...

House easily approves Internet gambling ban

Reuters
House easily approves Internet gambling ban
By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House on Tuesday approved a Republican-written bill to crack down on Internet gambling, in what critics said was an election-year appeal to the party's conservative base.

The House voted 317-93 to impose a ban on most forms of Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites. Internet gambling generates some $12 billion annually worldwide, half from American gamblers.

The bill exempted horse racing and lotteries from the ban.

"This is a scourge on our society. It causes innumerable problems," Republican Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, one of the bill's sponsors, said on the House floor before the vote.

The House bill, which was also sponsored by Jim Leach of Iowa, is part of the Republican party's emphasis on moral values as congressional elections approach this fall.

It won support from majorities of both Republicans and Democrats.

Supporters cited examples of college students and other young people whose lives were ruined after they became addicted to Internet gambling. In one case, they said, a man robbed a bank to try to recover his losses.

Opponents, meanwhile, criticized the bill as a politically motivated bid to stir up social conservatives and boost Republican prospects in the November elections.

"It's politics, plain and simple," said Michael Bolcerek, president of the 30,000-member Poker Players Alliance, which is willing to support some regulation of online poker games, but opposes an outright ban.

Prospects for similar legislation in the Senate remained unclear with few work days left before the November elections. Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl was said to be seeking a bill to which he could attach anti-gambling language.

Kyl issued a statement after the House vote on Tuesday saying he would "explore all ways to move this much-needed legislation through the Senate this year."

BROAD SUPPORT FROM CONSERVATIVES

The bill was propelled by broad support among conservative and religious activist groups, which want to keep gambling out of easy reach of minors. To win more backing among lawmakers, the bill specifically exempted horse racing and lotteries and watered down enforcement provisions for banks that fail to block credit card payments, according to congressional aides.

An estimated 2,300 gambling sites exist on the Internet.

Investors in some British-based gaming companies, such as Partygaming Plc and 888 Holdings Plc have closely monitored U.S. legislation. In Tuesday trading on the London Stock Exchange, 888 Holdings was up about 0.6 percent while Partygaming was slightly lower.

The ban would have little effect on companies that offer Internet gambling, said Frank Catania, a consultant who opposed the bill and advises gambling companies on regulatory issues.

"This will not stop Internet gambling at all," he said.

A spokesman for Leach, Greg Wierzynski, denied suggestions the move was politically-motivated. He noted Leach has been pushing Congress to take up the issue for many years.

"It's not an effort to assuage or pander to a specific interest group," Wierzynski said.

Democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts said he thought the bill was "outrageous."

"If people want to do something, and it doesn't hurt anybody else, we ought to mind our own business," Frank said on Monday. "This is a bill to tell adults not to do something because people in this body disapprove of what they do."

Read More...

Summary only...

US Senate votes to end seizures of Canadian drugs

Reuters
US Senate votes to end seizures of Canadian drugs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. customs and border security agents would be banned from seizing prescription drugs that Americans import from Canada under a measure passed by the Senate on Tuesday.

The Senate voted 68-32 in favor of the provision, with supporters saying the federal government should stay out of the way of Americans seeking cheaper medicines in Canada for personal use. Many Americans import prescription drugs from abroad even though the practice is illegal.

"I don't think ... taking away small amounts of prescription drugs from seniors crossing back from Canada, et cetera, is the right thing do," said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who sponsored the amendment to a Department of Homeland Security funding bill.

Whether it will become law is uncertain. Similar language cleared the U.S. House of Representatives in May, but both chambers must agree on a final version before sending it to President George W. Bush to decide whether to sign it.

The Bush administration has opposed congressional efforts to allow importation of lower-cost medicines from Canada or other countries, saying the drugs could be dangerous. Critics say Bush and other opponents exaggerate the risks to protect drug industry profits.

"It's not an issue of defending the drug industry. It's an issue of making sure that the person who gets that (imported) drug is actually getting what they paid for (and) he's getting something that's safe," New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg said.

Gregg also said the measure would create "a massive hole in our borders and our ability to protect ourselves." He said terrorists could hide biological weapons such as anthrax in prescription drug bottles.

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush judicial nominee struggles to win Senate OK

Reuters
Bush judicial nominee struggles to win Senate OK
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's top lawyer drew bipartisan fire on Tuesday for coercive techniques used to question terrorism suspects as he struggled to win U.S. Senate confirmation to a seat on a federal appeals court.

William Haynes defended the Defense Department's detention and interrogation policies for enemy combatants that he helped draft after the September 11 attacks.

"The armed services operate within a tradition of restraint," Haynes, the department's general counsel, told a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.

"I have, along with others, endeavored ... to develop appropriate guidelines for treatment and questioning of terrorists," Haynes said. "Information is critical."

Yet Democrats and a few Republicans questioned if Haynes went too far, some particularly critical of the recommended use of dogs to exploit phobias of detainees.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada threatened to block President George W. Bush's nomination of Haynes to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, citing a letter from 20 retired military officers who expressed concern about the nominee.

"We'll do whatever is necessary to protect the judiciary," Reid told reporters when asked if Haynes would be filibustered.

Sixty votes would be needed in the Republican-led, 100-member Senate to end a filibuster. Members of both parties said it was unclear if it could be mustered.

Haynes said the policies he embraced did not lead to abuse of prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere, sand that those actions were not authorized.

Haynes also said the policies were drafted with the Justice Department and input from Defense Department "working group."

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said, "The working group was a sham" and its concerns ignored. He declined to say if he would oppose the nominee.

An August 2002 Justice Department memo said only the most severe types of torture were not permissible under U.S. and international agreements against torture. This was later replaced with a broader definition.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the military tribunal system set up to try enemy combatants.

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said he was awaiting a response from Haynes to a recent letter he sent him. "I'm not blocking it (the nomination), but I have questions," McCain said.

Read More...

Summary only...

GATES AND BUFFETT: 1000 TIMES WORSE THAN KEN LAY

Yahoo! News
GATES AND BUFFETT: 1000 TIMES WORSE THAN KEN LAY
By Ted Rall

Why Enron Chief Was Better Than "Philanthropists"

NEW YORK--Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Ken Lay--all thieves. Compared to the world's two richest men, however, Lay was small potatoes. So why are we praising them, and kicking Lay while he's down--six feet down?

Yeah, yeah, I watched the documentary ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"). Lay and his sidekick CEO Jeffrey Skilling, used bluster, lies, a bunch of fictional Excel spreadsheets and an updated Ponzi scheme to create what appeared to be the nation's seventh largest energy company. Even when the truth--that Enron had negative net assets--was about to come out, Lay continued to talk up his BS company and its fraudulently inflated stock. Shareholders, many of them employees whose retirement savings were invested entirely in Enron, believed his reports that the company's finances were solid. Meanwhile, while he lied through his teeth to thousands of men and women who would be ruined because they believed him, he secretly cashed out millions of dollars of his own.

Federal prosecutors say that Lay and Skilling illegally bilked Enron out of $183 million, including company bonuses paid during their conspiracy to pump up the company's stock and Lay's use of its line of credit to pay off millions in personal debt for such items as a $200,000 yacht for his wife Linda's 2001 birthday party. When Lay died last week of a heart attack, having been found guilty of a fraud that led to the 2001 collapse of Enron, he had been awaiting sentencing. The New York Post, noting that Texas law may protect Lay's estate from forking over the $43.5 million the Securities and Exchange Commission had sought as restitution, published one of its instant classic front pages: pictures of the deceased executive and a coffin, under the headline "Before They Put Cheato Lay's Coffin in the Grave, CHECK HE'S IN IT."

True, Lay was scum. But the "I Spit On Your Grave" act is a new phenomenon. Cruel and avaricious titans of industry typically receive the kid gloves treatment when they pass on to the Great Equities Desk. In 1989 Steven J. Ross, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, paid himself a record $78.2 million--more than 9,000 times the average salary of his employees, thousands of whom he had cheerfully laid off the year before. When some cynics mentioned that Ross' victims might be jumping for joy at the news of his 1992 death from prostate cancer, they were universally and loudly denounced as rude and unfeeling.

Lay stole $43.5 million. Ross overpaid himself at least $78.2 million (worth $121.9 million today). Now consider investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, worth $44 billion and $50 billion, respectively, according to Forbes. Each one has accumulated one thousand times more cash than Ken "#1 Bush Campaign Donor" Lay. But we're supposed to like, and even admire, these rogues.

Buffett and Gates may not have broken any laws--although, in Gates' case, the Clinton-era Justice Department thought he'd cheated millions of American consumers by violating anti-trust laws--but it's hard to see how their billions are more ethically legit than Lay's misbegotten millions. Sorry, but "working hard" doesn't cut it. I don't care if you stay late at the office every night, work weekends and holidays, or you never go on vacation. It doesn't matter how smart, imaginative or lucky you are. It just isn't possible to earn $44 billion in a single lifetime.

Not honestly, anyway.

Gates and Buffett have created a lot of pain and misery on their way to "earning" their combined $94 billion. (Bear in mind, that's what they're worth. That doesn't include what they've spent.) Gates scammed his dough the old-fashioned way: overcharging his customers and underpaying his employees. Somewhere along the way to accumulating $50 billion, doesn't it occur to a guy that he could charge a little less than $200 for buggy, instantly obsolete, software? Or that it's time for a company-wide raise? He could even hire (gasp) unionized American workers instead of building plants in the Third World and relying on the slave labor of prison inmates!

It's harder to draw a direct line between Buffett's convoluted arbitrage machinations and the reduced incomes of thousands of other people, but anyone who has been downsized by a shareholder-terrorized managing board has experienced the impoverishing of the workers whose employers he targets.

Now we're supposed to be shocked and awed by Buffett's decision to give $37 billion--about 85 percent of his assets--to Bill Gates' foundation. "Stunning in its generosity," raved the Christian Science Monitor. "The scale of Mr. Buffett's philanthropy is matched by its good sense," chimed the Washington Post. Recent grants paid out by the Gates Foundation include $100,000 for the museum at Pearl Harbor, $241,500 "to provide sustainable public access computer hardware and software upgrades" to libraries in Los Angeles, and $21 million "to provide curriculum and support for teachers as a part of a transformation that aims to prepare...Chicago public school students for success in post-secondary education."

Good causes all, but maintaining Pearl Harbor is one of the reasons we pay federal taxes. Why does a national war memorial need help from Gates? One can't help wonder whether L.A. libraries and Chicago schools might be less cash-strapped in the first place if so much of our society's wealth hadn't been monopolized by America's tiny, increasingly powerful oligarchy, rather than going to city taxpayers in the form of fair wages and affordable computers.

Factoid: the average member of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans has seen his income rise 3.5 times--from $800 million (adjusted to 2006 dollars) to $2.8 billion--in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, real income for more than half the population increased...zero. Nada. Zip.

To his credit, Buffett acknowledges the rising income disparity. "What has gone on in this country in recent years is a huge benefit to the very rich and not much that relief to those below," he told Fortune in 2005. But philanthropy won't slow the United States' slide into Third Worlddom. And it doesn't help the philanthropists' victims. All things considered, a $45 million lout like Ken Lay hurts America less than a $44 billion one like Bill Gates.

Consider a burglar who boosts your TV and then, thinking better of it, donates it to an orphanage. His act of generosity beats the alternative--keeping it for himself. But you'd probably prefer that he'd returned it to you, or better yet, never stolen it at all.

(Ted Rall is the author of "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

Read More...

Summary only...

A Bumper Sticker Con in Connecticut

factcheck.org
A Bumper Sticker Con in Connecticut

Joe Lieberman's latest ad shows a supposed Lamont bumper sticker and website address that don't really exist.

Summary

A campaign ad that extols Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman's "principles" contains an invented bumper sticker and fictitious website address, making them appear to be part of his primary challenger Ned Lamont's campaign.

The bumper sticker in the ad reads "No More Joe" and features the URL www.nomorejoe.com. Yet the Lamont campaign has no such bumper sticker and the website is not even owned by the Lamont campaign or anyone connected to it.

Analysis

The Lieberman Campaign has recently released a thirty second ad, that reportedly began running last week.

Before touting Sen. Lieberman's accomplishments for Connecticut, the ad shows two bumper stickers side by side. One is Lieberman's and the other is supposedly from his primary challenger Ned Lamont.


Lieberman Ad

(On-Screen: Lieberman and Lamont bumper stickers side by side)
Announcer: Of these two bumper stickers, this one has a simple message: 'No more Joe.' But what else does Lamont really have to say?
(On-Screen: Pictures and video of Joe Lieberman)
His is a little more complicated. He marched for civil rights and was a great attorney general. In the Senate, he’s delivered. From saving thousands of jobs to protecting the Sound. He has the experience money can’t buy and the courage of his convictions. Experience, principles, results. Not a bad bumper sticker after all.
Lieberman: I’m Joe Lieberman and I approve this message.

Photoshopping the Truth

The faux Lamont bumper sticker reads "No More Joe" and, in smaller type, "Ned Lamont - Democrat for U.S. Senate." At the bottom of the sticker is the following URL: www.nomorejoe.com.
The fake bumper sticker looks remarkable similar to the official Lamont sticker, complete with the same color scheme and elongated American flag.

Further, the website on the sticker featured in the ad, www.nomorejoe.com, does not exist. The page is currently blank. Nomorejoe.com is registered to Highground Inc. of Phoenix, AZ. A spokesperson for Highground told FactCheck.org that the domain name was purchased in 2004 as an independent expenditure for a local campaign against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and has no affiliation with the Connecticut Senate race.

Overall, the Lieberman campaign is well within its rights to argue that Lamont's campaign lacks a positive message and is simply "anti-Lieberman." But creating false campaign material and passing it off as authentic? That seems at odds with the ad's praise of Lieberman's "principles."

- by James Ficaro

Read More...

Summary only...

War veterans denied GI Bill benefits

War veterans denied GI Bill benefits
By Ron Martz / Cox News Service

SUMMERVILLE, Ga. — Andy Rowe thought he had life after the Army pretty well figured out before he came home from eight months in Afghanistan in November 2003.

An Army reservist since high school, Rowe, 27, planned to serve out the remaining four months of his military obligation in the inactive Reserve, get his honorable discharge and then use his GI Bill education benefits to go to college, just as his father did more than 30 years ago.

But Rowe soon realized that, despite his time in a combat zone, he didn't qualify for those education benefits unless he remained in the Reserves or Guard.

It's the same for tens of thousands of National Guard and Army Reserve troops mobilized since 9/11 — the largest deployment of reservists since World War II.

When military benefits were updated in 1984 through a law called the Montgomery GI Bill, members of Congress and even the military did not envision reservists being called into active duty as frequently as they are today. The law did not extend full college benefits to citizen soldiers and terminated them once they left the Guard or Reserve.

But since 2001, more than 500,000 reservists and Guard troops have been deployed for homeland security duties or sent to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet when they get home, they don't get the same benefits as those who were active-duty service members.

"Looking at how the Reserve forces are being used now, it really upset me," said Rowe, called up from the inactive Reserves to serve in Afghanistan.

Retired Army Col. Bob Norton is deputy director for government relations for the Washington-based Military Officers Association of America, which is lobbying for an extension of benefits.

"Under the law, [reservists and Guard troops] are veterans for every single benefit except the education benefits," Norton said.

Primary opposition to changing the education benefit for reservists and Guard troops — those on duty one weekend a month and two weeks in summer unless they are called to active duty — is coming from the Pentagon's Office of Reserve Affairs. Pentagon officials fear changes could hurt attracting and keeping men and women who sign up for the Guard or Reserve.

"It has proven to be a very attractive recruiting tool, and its effectiveness as a retention tool is certainly equally important to the Reserve components," Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs Thomas Hall testified in March before the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

The Military Officers Association has helped put together a consortium of about 40 groups and service organizations that represent more than 5.5 million vets — including such stalwarts as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Association of the U.S. Army and Military Order of the Purple Heart — collectively known as the Partnership for Veterans Education. Several higher education associations such as the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the American Council on Education also are part of the consortium. Its aim: to try to persuade Congress to provide more equality in education benefits for citizen soldiers.

The group is pushing especially hard for what it is calling the Total Force Montgomery GI Bill. One major selling point of this proposal is the portability of GI Bill education benefits. That would allow reservists such as Rowe to earn credits for education while mobilized, just like active-duty troops do, and then use them after they leave the service.

Current law gives troops who serve on active duty three or more years to collect up to $1,034 a month for 36 months as full-time students. That benefit is available up to 10 years after discharge.

Reserve and Guard troops can earn 60 percent of that, or about $22,000, if they are mobilized for 15 months — the average length of deployment — and then go to school full time. However, they can collect only if they remain in a Guard or Reserve unit. If they go into the inactive Reserve — also known as the Individual Ready Reserve — as Rowe did, or are discharged, they no longer are eligible for education benefits.

"Right now, it's a double standard. They are treating these reservists like second-class citizens," Norton said. U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) said Marine reservists in his congressional district who were deployed after 9/11 alerted him to the disparity in benefits.

"When I heard about it, I didn't think it was right," Matheson said.

Last year, he co-sponsored with Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) legislation that would enable Guard and Reserve troops who have accrued 24 months of active service within the last five years to be eligible for 100 percent of GI Bill education benefits.

Some unofficial cost estimates of the Total Force Montgomery GI Bill run as high as $4.5 billion for the first 10 years, although the Congressional Budget Office has yet to weigh in with more detailed figures.

Despite its cost, which could become a key obstacle in Congress, the bill now has 140 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, including Georgia Democrats John Barrow, Sanford Bishop, John Lewis and David Scott and Republican Nathan Deal.

"This is truly a bipartisan issue because it's about veterans," Matheson said.

The MOAA's Norton said another measure in the works is an amendment offered by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) to the fiscal year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill.

This amendment would enable Guard and Reserve members mobilized for active duty to use their GI Bill education benefits after they leave military service.

Hall, the assistant secretary of defense who also is a retired rear admiral, told members of Congress that such a change could affect troop retention.

"The fact that a member must continue to serve in the Reserves to maintain eligibility has greatly assisted the Reserve components as a whole in maintaining consistently high retention rates over the years and has increased the education level of our Reserve forces," he said.

But Norton contends that the Defense Department's own survey data show education is not a major factor in an individual's decision to re-enlist or extend in the Guard or Reserves.

Rowe said education benefits he thought he would receive as a reservist were only part of his decision to enlist in 1996, when he was 17 and still a high school junior in his hometown of Summerville.

"My father instilled a true sense of patriotism in me, and I wanted to do something for the country," Rowe said.

His father, Tim, had served in the Air Force and used his GI Bill benefits to obtain an education degree and become a teacher.

Rowe went to basic training between his junior and senior years in high school and then was assigned to a unit — first in Chattanooga, and later in Atlanta — as an information systems specialist. He served nearly six years in the active Reserve force before transferring to the Individual Ready Reserve.

In April 2003 he was recalled to active duty and sent to Afghanistan, giving up his civilian job as a project manager for a telecommunications company.

"All I wanted to do when I came home was get another job and go back to school. But then when I applied I found out I couldn't use the GI Bill so I had to reconsider things," he said.

Rowe now works for Covista Communications out of Chattanooga and said that the issue for him is not so much the money as the principle.

"I don't think there's anything that will be done to help me now, but I think it's something that definitely needs to be done for soldiers in the future," he said.

Ron Martz writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7505

Read More...

Summary only...

White House calls Clinton-era North Korea policy a failure

USA TODAY
White House calls Clinton-era North Korea policy a failure

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House belittled former President Clinton's policy of direct engagement with North Korea on Monday, saying efforts to shower North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "with flowers and chocolates" failed.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that Bill Richardson, who served as United Nations ambassador and Energy Secretary under Clinton, "went with flowers and chocolates, and he went with light-water nuclear reactors ... and a basketball signed by Michael Jordan and many other inducements for the 'dear leader' to try to agree not to develop nuclear weapons, and it failed."

Snow added, "We've learned from that mistake."

Jay Carson, a spokesman for the former president, responded, "This is a serious issue for global security, and it's unfortunate that the Bush administration's TV spinmaster is manufacturing excuses for North Korea's transgressions instead of looking at the last six years of inaction and the abandonment of diplomacy."

Members of President Bush's Republican administration, which succeeded Clinton's, have repeatedly rejected the suggestion that formal discussions might be undertaken with Pyongyang outside of six-nation talks meant to rid the North of its nuclear weapons program. Bush officials insist on speaking with the North at a negotiating forum that includes the Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia. Those talks have been stalled since November.

Snow did say the Clinton tactic of trying to "talk reason to the government of Pyongyang" was "at least a good faith effort on the part of some very smart people."

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-10-clinton-north-korea_x.htm?csp=34

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush Is Pressed on Reporting Domestic Surveillance

washingtonpost.com
Bush Is Pressed on Reporting Domestic Surveillance
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer

In a sharply worded letter, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has told President Bush that the administration is angering lawmakers, and possibly violating the law, by giving Congress too little information about domestic surveillance programs.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) has been a staunch defender of the administration's anti-terrorism tactics. But seven weeks ago, he wrote to Bush to report that he had heard of "alleged Intelligence Community activities" not outlined to committee members in classified briefings.

"If these allegations are true," he wrote, "they may represent a breach of responsibility by the Administration, a violation of law and . . . a direct affront to me and the Members of this committee."

Hoekstra's four-page letter of May 18 was posted yesterday on the New York Times' Web site. His staff confirmed the letter's authenticity but said it was meant to remain private. Spokesman Jamal D. Ware said Hoekstra "has raised these concerns, and they are being addressed. He will continue to push for full disclosure so the committee can conduct vigorous oversight."

The letter is significant because few congressional Republicans have complained publicly about Bush's surveillance programs, which include warrantless wiretaps of some Americans' international phone calls and e-mails as well as the massive collection of telephone records involving U.S. homes and businesses.

Heretofore, the sharpest GOP concerns have been raised by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.). On May 26, Specter voted against Michael V. Hayden's confirmation as CIA director to protest what he called "the administration's policy of not informing the Congress . . . in a way which enables the Congress and the Judiciary Committee to do our constitutional job on oversight."

In his letter, Hoekstra complained of unspecified alleged surveillance operations that had not become public at the time and that, perhaps, remain undisclosed. It was written five weeks before newspapers divulged that the administration has been secretly tapping into a vast global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years. It was unclear yesterday whether Hoekstra and other top-ranking lawmakers had been briefed on that program by the date of the letter.

Hoekstra has differed with the White House in recent weeks over the significance of 500 chemical munitions shells uncovered in Iraq near the Iranian border in 2004. The shells were buried by Iraqi troops, and then apparently forgotten, during Iraq's eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.

Last month, Hoekstra highlighted the findings in a Capitol Hill news conference. But administration officials played them down, saying the old shells did not point to a bid by Saddam Hussein to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Much of Hoekstra's letter to Bush outlined the chairman's objections -- which were widely known -- to the appointment of Stephen R. Kappes as CIA deputy director under Hayden. Kappes quit the CIA in 2004 in a dispute with then-Director Porter J. Goss. Goss preceded Hoekstra as House intelligence committee chairman, and many Republicans remain loyal to him.

"Regrettably," Hoekstra wrote Bush, "the appointment of Mr. Kappes sends a clear signal that the days of collaborative reform between the White House and this committee may be over." He defended Goss for responding to Kappes's "demonstrated contempt for Congress."

In imploring Bush to brief top lawmakers on surveillance operations, Hoekstra wrote that Congress "should not have to play 'Twenty Questions' to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution."

"I want to reemphasize," he wrote, "that the Administration has the legal responsibility to 'fully and currently' inform the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of its intelligence and intelligence-related activities."

He said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) shared his concerns.

Asked for a comment on the letter, White House spokesman Peter Watkins said the administration "will continue to work closely" with Hoekstra and other congressional leaders on intelligence matters.

Read More...

Summary only...

In YouTube Clips, a Political Edge

washingtonpost.com
In YouTube Clips, a Political Edge
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer

It starts off like a typical negative ad, with swelling music and pictures of John McCain: "Flip-Flopper? Yes. Waffler? Yes."

But then the Internet spot takes a strange turn: "Eh, whatever. He should still be president," the graphics say. "John McCain 2008. He's Not Hillary."

This is one of the 60,000 videos added each day to YouTube.com, a shoot-it-yourself Web site that has exploded in popularity over the past year. And while many of the most widely viewed videos are merely intended to entertain or titillate -- rants, parodies, pet tricks, soccer brawls, singing, dancing and booty shaking -- company executives say politics is on the rise.

The site's sixth most popular group -- as measured by the number of people who click to subscribe -- is titled "Bush Sucks," with 2,018 members and 741 videos. Also near the top is "Nedheads," with 841 members signing on to a group created by activists backing Ned Lamont in his Democratic primary race against Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.

While bloggers played a role in the last presidential election, most advertising and message delivery still comes from campaigns, political parties and interest groups with enough money to bankroll a television blitz. But the YouTube revolution -- which includes dozens of sites such as Google Video, Revver.com and Metacafe.com -- could turn that on its head.

If any teenager can put up a video for or against a candidate, and persuade other people to watch that video, the center of gravity could shift to masses of people with camcorders and passable computer skills. And if people increasingly distrust the mainstream media, they might be more receptive to messages created by ordinary folks.

"YouTube is a campaign game-changer, shifting the dynamics of how to reach voters and build intimate relationships," says Julie Supan, senior marketing director for the small, California-based firm, which by one measure now runs the 39th most popular Web site. "YouTube levels the playing field, allowing well-backed and less-known candidates to reach the same audience and share the same stage."

Even the seemingly simple act of posting footage of a politician's interview on "Meet the Press" or "The Daily Show" has a viral quality, because it can be seen by far more people than watched during a single broadcast.

The 18-month-old site, which makes its revenue from banner ads, is free for viewers and contributors. The company says 80 million videos are viewed every day. Each video, group or page is placed in easily searchable categories, and those who subscribe to the groups are automatically notified of new content.

The networks are just starting to awaken to the power of these citizen video sites. After feuding with YouTube for illegally showing a clip from "Saturday Night Live" earlier this year, NBC realized the power of such online promotion and recently struck a deal with the site to publicize its fall lineup. Hollywood studios are interested as well.

Contributors to YouTube seem to lean to the left. There are videos of verbal stumbles labeled "Stupid Bush" and "Bush Screwups," along with "President Bush Drunk," a bit on CBS's "Late Late Show" that slowed down a tape of the president so it appeared as if he were slurring his words. Another shows Bush, in his Texas days, extending his middle finger. (One positive video features a group called the Right Brothers singing "Bush Was Right.")

Any registered user can form a group, and the site includes one called "Support George Bush," which says, "Don't be afraid of your beliefs -- most campuses nationwide have a liberal bias anyway . . . as does the media." But it doesn't crack the top 100 in terms of membership, unlike "Bush Sucks," which is designed "for everyone who hates Bush and all his Republican cronies."

A video about Virginia's junior senator is titled "George Allen (R-Exxon)." It turns out to be an old commercial slamming Allen's votes on energy by Democrat Harris Miller, who lost a primary bid to oppose Allen.

Not everything is serious business. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is razzed with a song parody called "Gay Wedding Bell Blues," to the tune of an old Fifth Dimension song: "I've heard your rants, I wish you'd quit / Just listen to you and hear your passion against gays / (Oh, but you're never gonna take my wedding day)."

And Rudy Giuliani would probably not choose to appear in drag, being nuzzled by Donald Trump, as he does in the video of a six-year-old press roast.

Democrats don't get a free ride on YouTube. While one supporter put up footage from "Imus in the Morning" on MSNBC with the title, "John Kerry goes on the offensive against the right wing smear machine," other videos were titled "Kerry's Lost Again" and "Senator 2 Face Kerry." And several people posted anti-Kerry commercials from the 2004 campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Former senator John Edwards has his own page, or "channel," but elsewhere on the site, someone has posted footage of Edwards in the makeup chair, titled "Pretty Boy John Edwards / Watch as the ambulance chaser pretties up for the camera."

Hillary Rodham Clinton gets skewered in such videos as "The Scariest Monster," "Hillary Clinton's Campaign Frauds," "Hillary's Plantation," "Hillary Goes Nuts" and "Ken Mehlman on Hillary's Anger!," reprising an ABC interview with the Republican Party chairman. A video by a draft-Clinton group -- which flips through images of previous presidents and ends with the former first lady -- has been seen just 351 times, compared with 5,404 views for a draft-McCain video.

Politicians are increasingly joining the party. Former Virginia governor Mark Warner, a Democrat who is weighing a White House bid, has posted a two-minute video, which has been viewed 426 times. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has a channel featuring C-SPAN clips of various Democrats. (Readers can offer comments; one called her "the biggest windbag in the House.") Krissy Keefer, a Green Party candidate challenging Pelosi, also has a channel, which includes a taped endorsement by a San Francisco street poet named Diamond Dave.

YouTube does not verify the identities of the posters. Supan says political campaigns often put up their ads and speeches under unknown screen names but have begun doing so more openly. (Of course, little-known operatives can also post videos mocking opposing candidates.) Television networks have the right to demand that their clips be deleted when posted by people who have no rights to the material, but Supan says such complaints are declining as the major broadcast and cable networks -- all of which have held talks with YouTube -- have recognized the importance of not alienating their viewers.

While the site's amateur contributions range from nasty to uplifting to downright silly, they also restore a measure of fun to politics -- precisely what might appeal to younger people turned off by traditional speeches, ads and rhetoric. Supan says the modest viewing levels for politicians' pages reflect the pedestrian content of standard speeches and ads -- and will likely remain that way until they come up with behind-the-scenes footage or other eye-catching fare.

"At the end of the day," she says, "it's all about entertaining."

Read More...

Summary only...

Hoekstra Urges Bush to Impart Intelligence Details

washingtonpost.com
Hoekstra Urges Bush to Impart Intelligence Details
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration briefed top lawmakers on a significant intelligence program only after a key Republican committee chairman angrily complained of being left in the dark, the chairman said yesterday.

House intelligence committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) would not describe the program, but he said it was significant enough that the administration should have briefed him and others voluntarily, without waiting for them to learn of it through government tipsters.

"There was at least one major -- what I consider significant -- activity that we had not been briefed on that we have now been briefed on," Hoekstra said on "Fox News Sunday." "Some people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on. They were right."

Hoekstra said the briefings took place after he complained in a May 18 letter to President Bush of hearing about "alleged Intelligence Community activities" not described to committee members in classified briefings. "If these allegations are true," he wrote to Bush, "they may represent a breach of responsibility by the Administration, a violation of law and . . . a direct affront to me and the Members of this committee."

Yesterday, Hoekstra appeared mollified. But he said he still believes the administration falls short of its legal obligations to brief key congressional members on significant intelligence operations.

"I wanted to reinforce to the president and to the executive branch and the intelligence community how important, and by law the requirement, that they keep the legislative branch informed of what they are doing," he said. "It is not optional for this president or any president or people in the executive community not to keep the intelligence committees fully informed of what they are doing."

Numerous Democrats and civil liberties groups have alleged that the administration ignores laws involving due process and congressional notification in conducting surveillance and intelligence programs in the name of fighting terrorism. Until Hoekstra's May 18 letter was disclosed Saturday by the New York Times, the most prominent Republican questioning the administration's tactics was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Hoekstra's remarks left unclear the nature of the intelligence programs he alluded to in his letter. He did not specify whether they involved domestic surveillance, a contentious area in which newspapers have reported about programs involving warrantless wiretaps, extensive gathering of phone records and monitoring of international bank transactions. Hoekstra, like many other GOP lawmakers, has defended the programs as important tools in combating terrorism, and he has resisted Democrats' calls for full inquiries into the programs' legality.

Hoekstra also had shown deep interest in an April report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that Iranian troops had buried in the 1980s, which were uncovered in 2004. Hoekstra and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) have said the shells justify claims that deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but the administration has not embraced those assertions. On June 29, Hoekstra complained in a letter to Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte about an administration background briefing for reporters that played down the shells' significance.

Sources said yesterday that they believe Hoekstra did not hear of the report on the shells until after he wrote to Bush.

An aide to Hoekstra said he could not elaborate on the chairman's letter to Bush or his remarks yesterday. The chairman did not respond to a request for an interview.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in a statement that she agrees with Hoekstra that "vigorous congressional oversight is impossible unless the administration shares critical information with the appropriate committees of Congress."

Read More...

Summary only...