U.S. frees ex-Nazi guard as deportation bid fails

Reuters
U.S. frees ex-Nazi guard as deportation bid fails

DETROIT (Reuters) - An 81-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was freed this week from a Michigan jail after U.S. officials failed to find a country that would take him in a deportation proceeding.

Johann Leprich, who was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1987, had been held in a county jail in Michigan since investigators found him hiding in a secret chamber in his suburban Detroit house in 2003.

Romania, Hungary and Germany all declined to accept Leprich, an ethnic German who was born in Romania, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

U.S. authorities chose to free Leprich after his lawyer asked a federal judge to order him released, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set a six-month limit on the period the government can hold detainees awaiting a court-ordered deportation.

"He was in custody for about 40 months," Leprich's Cleveland-based lawyer Joseph McGinness said. "They could not detain him and they released him."

Leprich will be issued an electronic monitor to wear on his ankle and be required to report weekly to U.S. authorities as a condition of his release, said Greg Palmore, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Palmore said U.S. officials would continue to try to negotiate an agreement that would allow Leprich to be deported to Europe. "Our work continues," he said.

Leprich had joined the Waffen SS in 1943 and served as a guard at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in 1943 and 1944, according to court records.

An estimated 119,000 prisoners died at Mauthausen, including political prisoners, Jews and prisoners of war.

The federal court that revoked Leprich's citizenship for lying on his application found inmates at Mauthausen had been used as slave laborers and that many had been starved, beaten, tortured and killed at the camp.

Leprich immigrated to the United States in 1952 and became a naturalized citizen in 1958, settling in suburban Detroit.

He said when he applied to become a citizen that he had served in the Hungarian Army during the war. He later said he had been forced to join the Waffen SS but had never killed anyone.

Leprich fled to Canada after his citizenship was revoked. In 2003, an investigator found him hiding in a secret compartment under the basement stairs in his Clinton Township, Michigan home as part of a renewed search.

McGinness said he believed that no nation would accept his client, effectively ending the 20-year-old case against him.

"I think this is the end of this one, but I can be surprised," he said.

Read More...

Summary only...

Could an "October surprise" shape the midterm election?

Reuters
Could an "October surprise" shape the midterm election?
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A last-minute "October surprise" -- a dramatic news event that shakes up the U.S. election -- could be a big wild card in the final three weeks of the fight for control of Congress.

With Democrats threatening to sweep Republicans out of power in Congress in the November 7 elections, a late-breaking foreign crisis, terrorist attack or a new scandal could change the debate and shape the ultimate outcome.

The possibilities are numerous, as President George W. Bush juggles multiple foreign threats like North Korea's nuclear tests, Iran's nuclear ambitions and civil war in Iraq, along with mushrooming Republican scandals at home.

"There is a huge potential for some sort of October surprise that changes the dynamic, something that reminds everyone just how unstable the world is," pollster John Zogby said.

The October surprise has a long history in U.S. political campaigns, from the collapse of hostage negotiations with Iran before President Jimmy Carter's 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan to the airing of an Osama bin Laden video before President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004.

The phenomenon is not as prevalent in congressional elections, which involve a collection of individual races and are not as focused on a single event. This year, Democrats must pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives and six Senate seats to win control of Congress.

In the last midterm elections, in 2002, the plane crash death of Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota little more than a week before the vote threw his Senate race into chaos. Republican Norm Coleman beat replacement Democrat Walter Mondale, the former vice president.

But the potential for a campaign-shaping event in the final weeks remains a topic of intense speculation.

"We are wary of their October surprise," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Senate Democratic campaign committee, which he said was keeping campaign money in reserve for late emergencies.

While most late-breaking events are beyond the control of politicians, plenty of conspiracy theorists expect the White House to make a late attempt to halt Democratic momentum.

'NO SURPRISE'

"It should come as no surprise if the Bush administration undertakes a pre-emptive war against Iran sometime before the November election," Gary Hart, a former Democratic senator and presidential candidate, predicted last month on the Huffington Post, an Internet site.

In many scenarios, the man imagined to be pulling the strings on an October surprise is White House political adviser Karl Rove, the architect of Bush's 2004 re-election.

"Karl Rove wouldn't be earning his pay if he didn't try something that would benefit the White House," said Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.

Early speculation about a late surprise to benefit Republicans focused on troop pullouts in Iraq, but that has been off the table for months. Another favorite, a plunge in gasoline prices, already happened to little apparent effect.

One Web site ran a contest to pick the most likely October surprise, with the winner being "Iran totally had it coming." The capture or death of bin Laden is another favorite.

Democrats already benefited from a sex scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican. News of a federal investigation into Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania will make his re-election more difficult.

The October surprise phenomenon surfaced in 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson halted bombing of North Vietnam a week before the 1968 election. It was not enough to help his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, beat Richard Nixon.

In 2000, Bush's 1976 drunken driving arrest became public days before the election. Bush narrowly lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore but won the Electoral College after the U.S. Supreme Court halted a dispute over votes in Florida.

For those running campaigns, though, strategy and voter turnout efforts trump concerns about a late surprise.

"There is nothing you can do. If something happens, then we'll worry about it," said Carl Forti, spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee.

Read More...

Summary only...

The human cost

Cape Cod News
The human cost
By K.C. MYERS
STAFF WRITER

EASTHAM - Her son taught nursery school. He was a case worker for mentally retarded adults. And he was a member of Pennsylvania National Guard who hoped the military would help him pay for his education.

Sgt. Sherwood Baker, 30, lost his life on April 26, 2004, when shrapnel from a nearby explosion in Iraq struck him in the back of his head, said his mother, Celeste Zappala of Pennsylvania.

His death is what brought Zappala to Coast Guard Beach in Eastham yesterday, where her son's cross stood among about 2,800 small grave markers plunged into the sand, each representing a U.S. soldier who has died in Iraq. Headstones nearby represented some of the Iraqi children killed in the war.

On a clear day, they stretched as far as the eye could see. The erection of ''Arlington East: The Human Cost of War'' took more than 200 volunteers in excess of six hours. They started at dawn, and would only begin to take down the grave markers after a rendition of Taps was played at 6 p.m., said Diane Turco, of Cape Codders for Peace and Justice.

For three months, her group, Veterans for Peace, and other volunteers found and cut the recycled wood and nailed together crosses. Their display, which has also been done by activists in California and Texas, made a breathtaking impact.

Every cross represents grief for family members, some of whom were there to speak out.

''Seamus was idealistic,'' said his father, Derek Davey, of Lowville, N.Y. ''He believed in his country and he believed he had a responsibility to serve.''

Seamus MacLean Davey, 25, died on Oct. 21, 2005, during combat in Iraq.

''We believe that responsibility goes two ways,'' his father continued. ''The civilian leaders have to use military forces wisely and not for their personal gain.''

The Daveys were opposed to the war from the beginning, but supported their son's decision to join the Marines in 1998 as soon as he graduated from high school.

After his death, they joined the Gold Star Families for Peace so that their son's death wouldn't be a total waste.

''We're pushing for everyone to vote,'' said his mother, Lorene Davey. ''I'm afraid people who are apathetic, who don't have a personal stake, won't come here to see this.''

Aseel Al Banna, an Iraqi who left the country in 1991 after experiencing two wars, knows the toll all too well.

Her parents are among about one million Iraqis who fled the violence to live in Amman, Jordan, where they are not allowed to work and yet must pay high rents in the adopted city, said Al Banna, who came as a member of Code Pink, an organization of women opposed to war.

''I don't know a single family that hasn't been affected directly,'' she said.

From her perspective, the United States has only made things worse. U.S. troops dismantled the government, disarmed the military, and now the country is ''a free for all'' for religious fanatics and violent groups with power and money, she said.

''It's already a civil war,'' she said. ''Yes, it will get worse temporarily if the U.S. pulls out. But then the Iraqis can rebuild it. It's their country. They've done it before.''

Andy Sapp, an Iraq war veteran who returned to his teaching job in Concord a year ago, couldn't agree more.

Sapp was hammering crosses into the sand yesterday.

''I was in the National Guard,'' he said. ''We had no clear vision. It was do your time, stay alive and get out.

''I am here because most veterans and those in active duty cannot speak out,'' he continued. ''There is very real pressure. Everyone who died here is my comrade in arms. This is a very real way to support the troops.''

Read More...

Summary only...

What if They "Find" bin Laden Before the Election?

Huffington Post
Thomas de Zengotita
What if They "Find" bin Laden Before the Election?

As some of my previous posts make clear, I don't hold with major 9/11-was-an-inside-job conspiracy theories, but I think the possibility that they will "find" Osama before the election is real. Deceptions of that kind are par for the course for these champions of moral clarity. Plus, even more importantly, it is logistically feasible.

So it could happen.

But here's the thing. Their credibility is now so damaged that it might backfire--especially if Democrats were to be smart about it. Candidates should confine themselves to solemn head shaking and comments like "All I can say is that this is very convenient timing." Bloggers will take care of the rest.

Come to think about it, the possibility of backfire is so real that if, just by chance, just by accident, they were to locate bin Laden in the next couple of weeks they might be well advised to keep him on ice until after the election.

That's how suspect they've become.

That's the kind of looking-glass warp of weirdness you get into when you lie as much and as often as they have.

Fingers crossed. Let the hard rain fall...

Read More...

Summary only...

Lieberman endorses Bush appointee for U.N. post

New York Daily News
Lieberman endorses Bush appointee for U.N. post
By Helen Kennedy

NEW YORK - Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman on Monday endorsed controversial Bush appointee John Bolton for a permanent slot at the United Nations - putting him at odds once again with Democrats and his Senate colleague, Chris Dodd.

Dodd, D-Conn., is the leading critic of Bolton, the controversial envoy Bush sent to the U.N. on a temporary ambassadorship after Democrats and some key Republicans balked at nominating him.

"I see no reason not to be for Bolton," Lieberman told a meeting of the New York Daily News editorial board.

"Based on his capabilities - and now based on his performance - I believe Bolton is well-qualified," he said.

"I think he's been a good negotiator and a good spokesman. He deserves to have a vote. I think he deserves to be confirmed."

Bolton's recess appointment expires at the end of the year and he will need Senate approval to remain as U.N. ambassador.

Lieberman had not publicly taken a position on Bolton before.

Lieberman's support for Bush's foreign policies lost him the Democratic primary in Connecticut. He is now running for re-election as an independent and has a comfortable lead in polls.

Dodd, who is campaigning for the Democratic candidate, Ned Lamont, had lead the fight against nominating Bolton and remains his fiercest critic, saying his performance at the U.N. so far merits "a failing grade."

In a blistering Senate speech last month listing what he called Bolton's failures, Dodd said, "My objection isn't that he is a bully, but that he's been a very ineffective bully - he can't win the day when it really counts."

Read More...

Summary only...

Echoes of ’88: GOP is employing a fear-mongering ad strategy in the Massachusetts governor’s race

Echoes of ’88
Mark Starr, who covered the Dukakis presidential run for NEWSWEEK, says the GOP is employing a fear-mongering ad strategy in the Massachusetts governor’s race.
By Mark Starr
Newsweek

Oct. 17, 2006 - The 1988 presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis made more than its fair share of missteps. Still, it is not a stretch to say that the Dukakis dream died the day Vice President George H.W. Bush first mentioned the name Willie Horton.

Two years earlier, Horton, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, had assaulted a Maryland couple. He knifed and beat the man and raped his fiancée while on a weekend furlough program from a Massachusetts prison. By the end of the ’88 presidential campaign, Republicans had made good on the pledge of Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, to make Horton a household name. The GOP ad campaigns featuring Horton’s black “thug”-shot became a symbol of soft-on-crime Democrats—and an effective exercise in campaign fear mongering.

Now the GOP is at it again in Massachusetts. Democrat Deval Patrick, the black former chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Clinton, appeared to be coasting to victory in his gubernatorial campaign against Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. After the September primary, Patrick boasted a lead of more than 30 points in some polls. And Healey was making little headway portraying herself as a change agent given that four GOP governors-including incumbent Mitt Romney, who isn't seeking re-election so he can focus on his presidential aspirations—have held the top job on Beacon Hill since 1990.

So in recent weeks, the GOP’s turned to “Willie Hortonizing” Patrick. He’s been linked—through both Healey-endorsed Republican ads and anonymous new leaks—to three convicted criminals, one a family member. The names the GOP wants voters to remember in November are Carl Ray Songer, Benjamin LaGuer and Bernard Sigh. The plan might be working: a recent poll shows Patrick’s lead has shrunk to 13 points. And Healey, who has a Ph.D. in criminology, is married to one of the wealthiest businessmen in the state, providing her with seemingly unlimited resources to keep up the fire. (Asked about their ad campaigns, Stuart Stevens, a Healey campaign consultant, said, “There are legitimate differences on crime and we’re going to talk about them.”)

Who are these three men?

Carl Ray Songer: Songer was convicted of murdering a Florida state trooper in 1973. Patrick handled the 1985 appeal as a lawyer with the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. (He argued that, in the penalty phase of the trial, the jury didn’t hear crucial arguments before it issued a death sentence.) The appeal was successful; Songer is serving a life term. This seems to be a clear-cut case of Patrick doing his job—and doing it well. Still, an ad for Healey confuses. Its tag line is: “While lawyers have a right to defend admitted cop killers, do we really want one as governor?” Grammarians will note the ambiguity of “one,” which makes it unclear whether the lawyer or the cop-killer is running for governor. Moreover, by using Songer, who is white, for its first attack, the GOP should dodge the racist accusations that dogged the Horton ad campaign.

Benjamin LaGuer: LaGuer was a young, black man of Hispanic origin convicted in 1984 of raping a 59-year-old woman for more than eight hours. In calls and letters to prominent civic leaders and journalists, he said he was a victim of mistaken identity. Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel rallied to the cause, as did John Silber, then president of Boston University. Patrick wound up writing letters on LaGuer’s behalf to the Massachusetts Parole Board. And he wrote a check to help secure a DNA test for LaGuer (which confirmed his guilt). But when reporters asked about it, Patrick’s memory became hazy and he recalled writing only a single letter. A TV ad asks: “What kind of person defends a brutal rapist?” Patrick told reporters the attack was a “cheap shot”—but apologized at a campaign appearance “to anyone who feels we didn’t come forward with all the facts” about his efforts on LaGeur’s behalf.

Bernard Sigh: The Boston Herald reported last Friday that in 1993 Patrick’s brother-in-law, Sigh, was convicted of raping his wife, Patrick’s sister, and was now an unregistered sex offender living in Massachusetts. The story is true: Sigh served a short prison sentence, reconciled with his wife and moved to Massachusetts. Patrick told reporters the couple are now deacons in their church and counsel other couples. Most distressingly for the family, Patrick said, their two young children were unaware of their parents’ history. The Healey campaign denies having any hand in the story.

Dukakis said recently that the smears were worse than anything done to him; Sen. Edward Kennedy, appearing with Patrick last week, decried the ad campaigns as “gutter politics.” And at a fundraiser for Patrick in Boston last Monday, Clinton deplored the tactics in a speech. He said, “They don’t do that unless they think they’re going to get a big whuppin’ laid on.” Still, Patrick finds himself on the defensive. It’s a sign of how effective Healey’s latest attacks have been when a man who grew up in the Chicago projects has to compare crime creds with a suburbanite from the state’s affluent town of Prides Crossing.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15310001/site/newsweek/

Read More...

Summary only...

Many in Government Helped Cunningham Or Yielded, Panel Finds; Report Indicates Widening Investigation

washingtonpost.com
Many in Government Helped Cunningham Or Yielded, Panel Finds
Report Indicates Widening Investigation
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer

Former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) channeled more than $70 million in Pentagon and intelligence agency contracts to two companies that paid him bribes, and required the "cooperation or at least the non-interference of many people" to pull that off, a congressional investigation has found.

Since Cunningham had no authority to award contracts, he needed the acquiescence of some members of Congress, congressional staff members and Defense Department officials, according to the executive summary of an investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence into his activities as a panel member.

"This was a lot of people to persuade, cajole, deceive, pressure, intimidate, bribe or otherwise influence to do what they wanted," the executive summary says.

Although the congressional inquiry was directed at Cunningham's activities and found no evidence of corruption among panel staff members, the five-page summary written by the panel's special counsel, Michael Stern, indicates how the continuing federal criminal investigation of corruption and bribery has continued to spread since it began almost two years ago.

The summary discloses for the first time that the government is investigating the CIA's award of "several large contracts" that involved Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo when he was No. 3 at the agency under then-Director Porter J. Goss. Foggo was a longtime friend of contractor Brent R. Wilkes, who federal investigators say was one of Cunningham's co-conspirators along with contractor Mitchell J. Wade.

Foggo resigned in May after being linked to the Cunningham inquiry. Days later, federal agents searched his agency office and his rented home in Northern Virginia.

Yesterday, agency officials refused to comment on the newly disclosed information, saying the matter is under investigation. Foggo was originally investigated by both the CIA inspector general and federal prosecutors after it was alleged this year that he had helped Wilkes obtain CIA contracts and had improperly accepted vacation trips from him.

The House report adds that another Foggo friend, Brant Bassett, a former CIA officer who worked as a staff member of the House intelligence panel, has been drawn into the case. Bassett, Foggo, Wilkes and the unnamed person who received the large CIA contracts "apparently had dinner together at the Capital Grille in June 2003," according to the summary. Stern says that meeting warranted further inquiry but was outside his jurisdiction to investigate.

The summary says Cunningham had "dealings . . . with certain foreign nationals" that have apparently triggered inquiry by "law enforcement and national security agencies."

In November 2005, Cunningham pleaded guilty to taking bribes and is serving a prison sentence of up to eight years. Wade pleaded guilty in February to giving $1 million in bribes, and his sentencing has been postponed until March. Wilkes has yet to be charged but was listed as co-conspirator No. 1 in court documents charging Cunningham.

Published reports have indicated that other members of Congress are under investigation, including Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Stern, in his report, says requests to the committee for permission to speak to current and past staff members have not been answered.

House intelligence panel staff members were aware of Cunningham's activities and in some cases saw "red flags" but did not interfere, the report says. It adds that there was "no evidence" uncovered that any past or present committee aides "sought to profit or expect to profit personally from any of the funding requests," Stern wrote.

Release of the executive summary by the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), added fuel to the running partisan battling going on in the committee, and quickly drew criticism from its chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.).

Harman said that she acted because the original investigation was finished in May and the unclassified executive summary in July, and that the release was held up because of a disagreement between her and Hoekstra over subpoenaing Cunningham to testify. Earlier this month, according to Harman, Hoekstra agreed to release a mutually agreed upon version of the summary, which was completed last week.

Hoekstra, in a statement yesterday, described the release as "disturbing and beyond the pale," and called the summary an "incomplete, internal committee document" that other panel members had not reviewed. His statement echoed words Harman used this month when Hoekstra released reports by the committee majority staff on North Korea and Iraq that were done without the approval of Democrats on the panel.

Wade's company, MZM Inc., benefited from several questionable contracts given by the Counterintelligence Field Activity agency (CIFA), the Pentagon's newest intelligence arm, which was created in 2002 to coordinate protecting defense facilities and personnel at home and abroad from terrorist attacks. Its budget is secret, but congressional sources earlier this year said it totaled more than $1 billion over the past three years; its staff consisted of 400 full-time employees and 800 on contract status.

Cunningham, as a member of the intelligence panel, chaired the terrorism subcommittee that had authority over CIFA. The House committee's "ability to conduct appropriate oversight over the counterintelligence project at CIFA, MZM's other contracts with CIFA, and arguably CIFA as a whole appears to have been seriously impeded by the corrupt conspiracy between Cunningham and Wade," the report says.

CIFA's two top officials, director David A. Burtt II and his deputy, Joseph Hefferon, suddenly resigned in August, but other officials at the agency refused to discuss any link to the ongoing investigations. A Pentagon spokesman said their leaving was "a personal decision that they both made together."

Read More...

Summary only...

Weldon's Ties to Serbian Businessman Part of Probe

washingtonpost.com
Weldon's Ties to Serbian Businessman Part of Probe
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade were surprised three years ago to be invited to a luncheon in honor of visiting Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), hosted by Bogoljub Karic, a wealthy Serbian businessman who had been barred from visiting or trading with the United States because of his close ties to former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Weldon "was visiting solely because of Karic," whom he was trying to get off the U.S. blacklist, a former senior embassy official familiar with the visit concluded. "It seemed odd" at the time, because Karic had no obvious tie to Weldon's district outside Philadelphia, and Weldon should have known the embassy was shunning contacts with him, the official said.

What the embassy apparently did not know is that the Karic family that year signed a contract with Weldon's daughter, Karen, and a business partner that called for monthly payments of $20,000 for "management, government and public relations," according to a copy of the March 2003 contract. In all, the family paid Karen Weldon's firm $133,858 that year for efforts she undertook to set up a foundation for it.

Curt Weldon's visit and that deal are under investigation by the FBI, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the probe. His efforts to assist clients of his daughter's consulting firm in their dealings with the federal government are the focus of that probe, according to sources familiar with it .

FBI raids of six locations in Pennsylvania and Florida on Monday, including one of Karen Weldon's home and another of her consulting and lobbying firm, were part of the bureau's search for evidence of whether the lawmaker used his influence to benefit himself or his daughter's firm, according to the sources. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

A grand jury has been impaneled as part of the investigation, and it has obtained evidence gathered via wiretaps of Washington area cellphone numbers, the sources said.

Weldon has said he did not take actions to enrich his daughter or himself. His attorney, William J. Winning, said yesterday that "the congressman did nothing wrong, nor did his daughter do anything wrong." Winning added that he was not prepared to justify or discuss Weldon's travels.

Besides looking at Weldon's Karic connection, the FBI is examining the lawmaker's contacts with a Russian-managed oil and gas company, Itera International Energy Corp., the sources said. The company's offices in Jacksonville, Fla., were searched on Monday.

Itera spokesman Steve Koegler declined to answer questions yesterday, but released a statement saying that the government had expressed interest Monday in "any records or information Itera might have with respect to Itera's business relationship with Solutions Worldwide." The name of the firm that Karen Weldon operates with one of her father's close political supporters, Charles Sexton, is Solutions North America Inc.

"Itera and all of its employees have cooperated and will continue to cooperate with the government's request," the statement added.

According to a statement Karen Weldon filed with the Justice Department's foreign agent registration office, Itera agreed in September 2002 to pay her firm a $170,000 startup fee and $300,000 more in monthly retainer fees, in exchange for "such consulting services" as the company might request.

That was the same month that her father attended a lavish dinner for the company at the Library of Congress, at which Itera's director, Igor Makarov, announced the start of a U.S.-Russian student exchange program, based in Weldon's district. Members of Congress were to nominate participants in the program.

That year, Weldon complained to the U.S. Trade and Development Agency about its cancellation of a grant to Itera to explore a gas field in Siberia.

In filings with the Senate clerk, Weldon has reported that Itera paid for a trip he took to New York in September 2002 and a one-day trip to Jacksonville in January 2003. He also reported that a nonprofit group directed by Itera officials financed his two-day visit to Jacksonville in November 2002.

Weldon, who has long advocated closer U.S.-Russian trade ties, listed another client of his daughter's firm, Saratov Aviation, as the financial sponsor of a three-day trip to Moscow in January 2003, the same month as a visit he took to Belgrade.

Weldon's chief of staff went to Belgrade in November 2003, initially listing the Karic family as his financial sponsor in a filing the next month with the Senate clerk. Two months later, after reporters for the Los Angeles Times questioned him about the trip, he amended the filing to state that he had reimbursed the company for his travel expenses.

Some watchdog organizations previously noted Weldon's support for companies that had little to do with his constituents in Delaware County and that paid fees to the firm operated by his daughter and Sexton, or to a close friend of Weldon's, lobbyist Cecilia Grimes.

"There seems to be a pattern of Congressman Weldon's activities overlapping with his private and personal interests," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, which monitored the efforts of Weldon and other lawmakers on behalf of companies that had contracts with their associates. "You can explain away one or two cases, but here you really have to question what's going on here and is it really in the interest of the U.S. taxpayers."

Weldon gave testimonials on behalf of a company, Advanced Ceramics Research, in two separate hearings of the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces, which he chairs. Weldon had invited the Arizona company's CEO to testify in 2004 and 2005 about what he characterized as its "very interesting work in developing state of the art composites that have increased performance while significantly reducing component cost."

The congressman lauded the company's work, noting its ability to produce "modern composites that lead to lighter weight, lower cost and tougher systems."

Advanced Ceramics Research paid Grimes $60,000 as its registered lobbyist in 2003 and 2004. An affiliate of Advanced Ceramics paid her an additional $40,000 during that time, according to her lobbying registration documents.

Efforts to reach Grimes at two phone numbers listed for her on lobbying registration forms were unsuccessful.

Weldon also supported an Italian defense contractor, Oto Melara, in a formal letter and testimony to the Armed Services Committee that recommended the Navy consider using the company's guns on its ships. Oto Melara has paid Grimes's firm $60,000 since she registered to lobby for it in June 2005, according to her lobbying reports .

Research director Lucy Shackelford and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...

NATO Commander Says Coalition in Afghanistan Failed to Follow Through After Ousting Taliban

ABC News
Commander: Mistakes Made in Afghanistan
NATO Commander Says Coalition in Afghanistan Failed to Follow Through After Ousting Taliban
By PAULINE JELINEK
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan failed to follow through as it should have after ousting the Taliban government in 2001, setting the stage for this year's deadly resurgence, the NATO commander in the country said Tuesday.

The mistake consisted of adopting "a peacetime approach" too early, British Gen. David Richards told Pentagon reporters. He said the international community has six months to correct the problem before losing Afghan support, reiterating a warning he issued last week.

"The Taliban were defeated. ... And it looked all pretty hunky-dory," Richard said of the environment at the end of 2001. "We thought it was all done ... and didn't treat it as aggressively as ... with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done."

Progress on security, rebuilding and good government didn't meet Afghan expectations, and this year the "Taliban exploited ... this sense of frustration amongst the people," Richards said in a televised conference from Afghanistan.

While it is unusual for a commander to criticize an ongoing military operation, Richards' comments came days after another British officer offered a much harsher assessment of the other U.S.-led war, in Iraq.

Asked for comment on Richards' remarks, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said Afghanistan was and is one of the world's poorest nations.

"It will take years of hard work by the Afghan people and the international community to reverse the effects of decades of occupation and civil war," he said. "Nonetheless, there has been significant economic growth and donor efforts to improve living conditions across the country," including improved health care, school enrollment, roads and other projects.

Insurgent bombings, ambushes and rocket attacks have surged this year. Since the Taliban was overthrown, many of Afghanistan's former rulers are thought to have found sanctuary across the border in Pakistan.

Five years later, NATO forces, along with Afghan army and police forces, plan a series of operations throughout the country this winter to do road building and other reconstruction projects in more secure areas and bolster security to prepare for reconstruction in less secure regions, Richards said.

Richards said that if there is not measurable improvement in six months, Afghans may choose "the rotten future offered by the Taliban" rather than the hopeful future that the coalition offered but didn't deliver.

"This is not just my view but that of many others," he said.

Bush administration critics have charged the Afghan campaign is lagging because the administration focused troops and other assets away from that country too quickly in order to plan and execute the invasion of Iraq, which they view as a diversion from the war on terror.

Just last week, Gen. Richard Dannatt, Britain's army chief, set off a political storm by calling for troops to be withdrawn "soon" from Iraq in part because their presence made the situation worse.

He later said he meant a phased withdrawal over two or three years.

Richards commands about 31,000 forces in Afghanistan. NATO early this month took command of 12,000 U.S. troops there, extending its security mission to all of Afghanistan.

The transfer of command gave NATO the biggest ground combat operation in its history, putting Richards in charge of the largest number of U.S. troops fighting under a foreign commander since World War II.

In "a tough summer" of fighting, NATO forces beat back the Taliban in southwestern Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold. "I think we have now established the psychological ascendancy over the Taliban" militarily, Richards said.

"We have now with the government and with the international community to exploit the window of opportunity ... that we now have as a result of military success," he said.

Asked why he was sure a new effort can achieve what wasn't done before, Richards said:

"I'm optimistic that we have understood the issue ... learned our lessons, and now can take this forward aggressively to deliver on the promises."

Read More...

Summary only...

President Bush's Grave Misconduct

Elizabeth Holtzman
President Bush's Grave Misconduct

Recent events--the Foley scandal, the Woodward book, revelations about White House scorn for evangelical Christians, the Abramoff scandal, not to mention the increasingly dire situation in Iraq--have all converged in a kind of tsunami headed for the Republican majority in the House and Senate. Of course, it could change course.


But, Democratic control would make impeachment a serious reality.

As I have pointed out many times, impeachment is not only constitutionally warranted but necessary, given the serious abuses of power engaged in by President Bush. Impeachment will help restore the rule of law and repair the damage he has done to our democracy. If on the other hand there is no impeachment, President Bush's grave misconduct, including his refusal to obey the law with respect to wiretapping and his driving the country into war on a basis of deception, will become just the starting point for another President who wants to thumb his nose at our constitution.

The passage of the military tribunals' bill provides another important reason for impeachment. That bill contained a pardon buried deep within it of President Bush and his top team for possible violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That Act makes it a federal crime to mistreat detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions, but the military tribunal bill guts the War Crimes Act and makes the changes retroactive to 1997.

In a remarkable example of the "modified limited hangout"--a Watergate term for covering up by exposing a bit of the truth--the Bush Administration admits that the bill will grant immunity to CIA interrogators for violations of the War Crimes Act. But it never so much as hints that immunity would also extend to those who were complicit with those interrogators. Since the War Crimes Act applies to all US nationals, immunity would also extend to anyone who directed, authorized or otherwise aided and abetted those interrogators in their abuse, including the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense and the Director of the CIA.

President Bush has been concerned about criminal liability under the War Crimes Act since at least January 2002, when his then White House counsel urged that the Geneva Conventions protections be withdrawn from Al Qaeda detainees to reduce the possibility of such prosecutions. Accordingly, in February 2002, President Bush directed that Al Qaeda would not qualify for protections under the Geneva Conventions, a direction that the US Supreme Court nullified in the recent Hamden case. This nullification opened to criminal liability all government officials who ordered the abuse of Al Qaeda detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions as well as those who actually abused the detainees. To avoid this, President Bush has called for weakening the War Crimes Act.

Although no full investigation has ever been conducted into the President's role in the abuse of detainees--and so we do not know what he ordered and what he knew--nonetheless there are strong indications that the President at a minimum condoned the mistreatment. He has consistently, including up to the present moment, tried to shield those who abused Al Qaeda detainees from criminal liability. Moreover, he wants the right in the military tribunal's bill to continue the practices that violate the Geneva Conventions and the original War Crimes Act, such as painful stress positions, subjecting detainees to extremes of heat and cold, food deprivation and acts of humiliation such as forcing detainees to remain naked.

No president should be able to violate the criminal law, including the War Crimes Act, and then in a stealth maneuver exonerate himself and his accomplices from liability. That makes a mockery of the rule of law.

If Congress cannot undo this immunization of higher ups and restore criminal liability and accountability on the part of higher ups for the mistreatment of detainees, then the only remedy for any role President Bush may have played in such mistreatment would be through impeachment.

Read More...

Summary only...

Torture Day: George Washington Is Pounding His Fist In The Name Of God From Heaven

Huffington Post
Brent Budowsky
Torture Day: George Washington Is Pounding His Fist In The Name Of God From Heaven

The rain pouring down on this cold dark day in Washington is made of the tears of heroes and patriots through the ages of the American Republic looking down on us, with outrage, and asking us, with rage:

What in the name of America have you done?

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad, that while the walls are crumbling around a failed policy of a war that should never have been fought, the great symbol of this policy, acts of torture that have never before been justified in this land of the free and our home of the brave, are sanctioned by smirking President, a supine Congress, and a nation that has lost it way.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad that these acts are done in the name of our commanders, when the indisputable truth in eyes of a just God is that those commanders hate and despise being ordered to do these things, no matter what lies are told from the morally undisclosed locations of secret and corrupt power.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad that while our intelligence community speaks with a unamimous voice that these policies create more terrorists, our leaders sanction the wrongs that created this nightmare that pours blood on our screens, while we eat our dinners and watch the television news.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad that these acts done in the name of fighting for freedom and democracy are an insult to every generation of democratic Americans that has loved this land before us, and a contempt to the decent opinion of believers in freedom and democracy around the world, who hunger for an America that is a beacon, and have such contempt and sadness for an America that resorts to this.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad, that these policies done by those who proclaim "One Nation, Under God" are despised by believers of every one of the world's great religions, and supported, only, by the spiritual advisors to the murderers, haters and killers we are unable to defeat in the battle of ideas.

In our greatest hour of domestic attack, when the fires burned, and the heroes died, and the mothers and widows cried, our entire nation rallied with the wrath of a just God, standing together as one, while virtually the entire world rallied behind us, with good people lifting their eyes to the sky, with the cry: "today we are all Americans".

In the name of God, in the name of simple justice and common decency, what kind of country do these advocates of torture believe we are, when we are divided each other, when we are town away from the decent opinion of the world, where even the anniversary of this solemn hour is defamed by the lies of a propaganda movie, demeaned by the partisan smears of desperate politicians abusing the occasion to rise two points in the polls, dishonored by the sickening slander that the widows of the heroes are harpies.

Let me clear, this is not the latest in the long list of liberals telling liberals who liberals should hate, or conservatives telling conservatives who conservatives should hate.

Some things are different. This is different.

Some things are more important. This is more important.

Some things are transcendant and timeless, and go to the heart of who are as Americans, whether we honor the legacy of those who came before, and what legacy we leave to those who will follow us.

This is one of those things. This is one of those moments.

This is not about our demon of the hour, to get its 15 minutes of reprobation, until we move to the next demon of the hour, to get its 15 minutes of fame. This is not about the Democrats or the Republicans. This is not about the liberals or the conservatives. This is not about the politics of the hour, the left's favorite grievance, or the right's favorite enemy of the state.

This is different.

This is different.

This is different.

Lt Commander Charles Swift should be given a major promotion and a Presidential Medal of Freedom and not the morally sickening and patriotically revolting violation of the core principles of mlitary justice, and the traditional prohibition against undue command influence.

The coming Congress should get the name of the man on the piece of the paper that did this great injustice not merely to a lawyer who stood proudly in the tradition of Justice Robert Jackson, but did great injustice to the nation that wants more of its young to emulate Lt. Commander Swift, not the avatars of torture or the politics of enemies who want our young to be too fearful, to do their duty to God, country, service and justice for all.

In the name of God, what kind of country do they believe we are, that when all of our commanders share a time honored notion of military honor we disregard them so casually, so brazenly, so wrongly, and so dishonorably, led by those who pin their flags to their lapels, and give speechs at picnics proclaiming their love for our troops?

In the name of God, what kind of country do they believe we are, that they say George Washington was wrong and George Bush is right on the matter of torture, telling us so casually, so brazenly, so wrongly and so dishonorably that we must act like a fearful and timid people, and do what no previous president or congress or court in the whole history of our land of the free and our home of the brave, has ever allowed be done?

In the name of God, in the name of patriotism, in name of decency, in the name of honor, in the name of dignity and truth and common sense and justice what kind of a country do they believe we are, what manner of people do they believe we have become, what kind of beacon do they think we offer this world, what kind of defamation do they do against the generations that have come before us, in this great and blessed land we love, that have never done things like this.

We walk in the footsteps of great generations, who faced far greater dangers than we do, who handed us an Americanism and patriotism and standards of freedom and justice and dignity but we are treated by our leaders as the coward generation, bullied into fear to justify the torture generation when our commanders, our ministers, our priests, our rabbis, and our allies from sea to shining sea, from one end of this earth to the other, are pleading and imploring us, to stop this madness before more damage is done, to ours soul and our security.

This is different.

This is different.

Never before in the history of our Republic have the military, the moral, the common sense and patriotic factors all told us to do one thing: stop this madness that must never be done in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Stop this madness that creates more enemies that want to kill us. Stop this madness that violates the cardinal morals of our great nation. Stop this madness that offends the commanders and clergy, that violates the most basic principles of common decency, the most basic principles of common sense, the most true ideals common to lovers of freedom and democracy everywhere.

This is different.

George Washington was right, and we must wage this fight until we win, whether it takes hours, or days, or months, or years, or decades because sooner or later we will win, because we are a better and nobler country. A better and nobler people. With a better and nobler mission that will outlast the politics, the polls and the partisans who have done so much damage to this land we love.

It is a dark, cold, day in our capital with the rain of tears from heaven pouring onto the Monuments and statues that bear the names of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.

There will never be such monuments in the Mall, within sight of the White House, that will carry the names of Bush, or Cheney, or Rumsfeld.

There will never be Walls or Monuments, within sight of the Oval Office, as we have that honor the heroes of the Great Generation and Vietnam, that will honor our achievements at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

We are not the first generation that faces its challenge.

We will not be the last.

But we will not be treated like the fearful generation by those who believe our legacy should be the torture generation.

We stand with Washington.

We have not yet begun to fight.

We will not stop until we win.

We will not let George Washington down.

We are the people of America, and we will never surrender the Dream, because we pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.

Read More...

Summary only...

Federal Judge Wipes away fraud and conspiracy conviction of Enron Corp. founder Ken Lay

washingtonpost.com
Judge Revokes Lay's Conviction
Ruling Rankles Enron Workers, Investors
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer

A federal judge in Houston yesterday wiped away the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron Corp. founder who died of heart disease in July, bowing to decades of legal precedent but frustrating government attempts to seize nearly $44 million from his family.

The ruling worried employees and investors who lost billions of dollars when the Houston energy-trading company filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001. It also came more than a week after Congress recessed for the November elections without acting on a last-ditch Justice Department proposal that would have changed the law to allow prosecutors to seize millions of dollars in investments and other assets that Lay controlled.

With the judge's order, Lay's conviction on 10 criminal charges will be erased from the record. "The indictment against Kenneth L. Lay is dismissed," U.S. District Judge Simeon T. Lake III wrote in a spare, 13-page order.

Legal analysts said Lake's ruling closely hewed to a long-held doctrine called abatement, which allows a conviction to be vacated if defendants die before they are able to exercise their right to appeal. Courts typically rule that defendants' constitutional rights to challenge their convictions outweigh other considerations, and the law hesitates to punish the dead, the analysts said.

Samuel J. Buffone, a Washington-based lawyer for Lay, said the family was pleased with the ruling. "As far as we're concerned, this is the last step," Buffone said. "It's as if the indictment never occurred."

But governance experts said Lay's name forever will be linked with the era's most complex and far-reaching corporate fraud.

"A lot of lives were ruined, both the perpetrators' and the victims,' " University of Tennessee corporate governance expert Joseph V. Carcello said. "This happened on his watch. Even if he's not legally culpable, he's culpable as a manager."

Regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission still may pursue their civil case against Lay's estate, but their task will be more difficult because they can no longer introduce the fact of his conviction and instead must prove again, in a resource-intensive trial, that he broke the law. The SEC case has been stayed pending resolution of the status of Lay's criminal conviction. The agency's five commissioners must decide in the weeks to come whether to proceed against Lay's estate.

The court ruling shifts the spotlight onto former Enron chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling, 52, who is to be sentenced Monday on 19 fraud, conspiracy and false-filings charges. Skilling, Lay's protégé and fellow defendant, handled day-to-day operations at Enron until his resignation in the summer of 2001 and faces more than two decades in prison.

Skilling is the sole survivor from Enron's top management ranks and the one most likely to pay a heavy price for his decision to vigorously fight the charges against him. Earlier this month, Skilling laid out several avenues for appeal, including jury bias, faulty instructions by the judge and what he called overreaching by prosecutors that infringed on his constitutional rights.

Former finance chief Andrew S. Fastow, whom Skilling has painted as the man most responsible for the company's downfall, pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges and gave damaging testimony against his onetime patrons. A separate federal judge in Houston last month sentenced him to six years in prison, a 40 percent reduction from the seemingly iron-clad deal his defense team had struck with the government. The leader of an Enron employees group later called the benefit to Fastow "a slap in the face."

The lead plaintiffs in a separate shareholder lawsuit against former Enron executives and other advisers accused of helping the company conceal its financial problems already have said they intend to focus their attentions not on Lay's family, but on investment banks with deeper pockets.

Days before Lay's death, prosecutors had filed court papers seeking to extract $43.5 million from his financial holdings, including $6 million in a recently matured investment and at least $1.5 million more that Lay used to cover part of the mortgage on a luxury apartment in Houston. The government said it intended to set aside the money in a special fund for Enron investors and employees. Now, federal prosecutors are seeking to hold Skilling responsible for Lay's share, over Skilling's objections.

Separately yesterday, lawyers for the Lay family asked the court to release a $5 million bond that had been secured by the homes of several of Lay's five children. Federal prosecutors at the Enron Task Force declined to comment.

"Today's ruling does not change the fact that Mr. Lay was found guilty after a four-month jury trial and a separate bench trial," Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said. "We will continue to pursue all remedies available for restitution on behalf of the victims of the fraud at Enron."

Lay, 64, collapsed in a rental home near Aspen, Colo., about a month after a Houston jury found him guilty of conspiring to mislead employees and investors about Enron's mounting financial problems. His death unleashed vicious criticism on the Internet and prompted conspiracy theories that were dispelled by a coroner's report and sheriff's deputies.

A man accustomed to flying in private jets and mingling with the Bush family, foreign diplomats and owners of professional sports teams, Lay was brought low by a widening scandal after disclosures that Enron had disguised billions of dollars in debt and manufactured revenue. He told the jury at his trial earlier this year that he was in the hole $250,000 after years of spending lavishly on homes, vacations and his five children.

Federal prosecutors baited Lay into displaying a short temper and a flair for micromanagement on the witness stand, and pounced when Lay could not explain why he sold more than $77 million in Enron shares back to the company in the months before its demise.

In recent weeks, Lay's family paid an undisclosed sum to settle a smaller civil case filed by former Enron employees over their pension and retirement funds.

Ken Horton, a former Enron manager who was laid off alongside thousands of others in December 2001, said he had steeled himself for the conviction to be extinguished after word of Lay's death three months ago. But Horton, who pegged his retirement and savings plan losses in the six-figure range, expressed "great" concern that he and former colleagues would never be made whole financially. Horton said he has received only $4,000 to date.

"If I got 10 cents on the dollar, I would be elated," Horton said.

Read More...

Summary only...

Baker says no "magic bullet" for Iraq problems

Reuters
Baker says no "magic bullet" for Iraq problems

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker warned on Tuesday not to expect a special Iraq panel he co-chairs to come up with a "magic bullet" to solve deepening problems in that country.

He said the bipartisan Iraq Study Group appointed by the U.S. Congress to look at alternatives to current policy in Iraq had not decided what to recommend, but he suggested there was no easy way out of the violent conflict.

"I will say one other thing -- there's no magic bullet for the situation in Iraq. It is very, very difficult," Baker said in a speech to the World Affairs Council of Houston.

"So anybody who thinks that somehow we're going to come up with something that is going to totally solve the problem is engaging in wishful thinking," he said.

Baker, who was secretary of state and chief of staff under former President George H.W. Bush and has long ties to the Bush family, suggested last week in media interviews the current Bush administration's insistence on "staying the course" in Iraq was not the only policy alternative.

A Los Angeles Times report said the study group may recommend a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq or discussions with Syria or Iran to help stop the fighting in Iraq.

Baker said the study group had made no decisions.

"We've taken nothing off the table and we've put nothing on the table. The report hasn't even been written," he said.

Baker said the group, which is co-chaired by former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton and includes prominent Republicans and Democrats, would not issue a report until after the November 7 congressional elections.

"We will report after the election in order to try and take our report out of domestic politics," he said.

In the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Baker warned President George W. Bush against attacking the country without the backing of a large international coalition like the one Baker helped assemble for the Gulf War in 1991.

But he said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq would lead to "the biggest civil war you've ever seen."

Read More...

Summary only...

Former FDA Chief Illegally Held Stocks

washingtonpost.com
Former FDA Chief Illegally Held Stocks
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer

Lester M. Crawford, who resigned mysteriously last fall just two months after being confirmed as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, will plead guilty today to charges that he hid his ownership of stock in food and drug companies that his agency regulated, his lawyer said.

The Justice Department charged Crawford yesterday with two misdemeanors for withholding the financial information, which included his ownership of shares in food and drink manufacturers Pepsico Inc. and Sysco Corp. and the drug company Embrex Inc.

The complaint, called a criminal "information," accused Crawford, who held numerous senior FDA and Agriculture Department jobs in his many years in government, of conflict of interest and filing false financial disclosure reports.

Barbara Van Gelder, Crawford's lawyer, said he "is going to plead guilty to two misdemeanors tomorrow afternoon, and he is going to admit his financial disclosures had errors and omissions, mostly with his wife's continued ownership of stocks," the Associated Press reported. "At the end of the day, he owned these stocks, and he will admit he owned them while he was at the FDA, and he will take responsibility for that."

Crawford failed to disclose $28,000 he gained from stock options in Embrex, an agriculture biotechnology company, the complaint said. Crawford was a member of Embrex's board of directors from 1992 to 2002.

The Justice Department document said a government ethics official told Crawford in 2002 that he had to sell shares the couple owned in 12 companies considered to be "significantly regulated organizations" -- companies that regularly had business before the FDA.

The prosecutors wrote that the Crawfords sold many of their shares but kept ownership in three companies. When asked in 2004 about two of them, Crawford replied in a December e-mail that "Sysco and Kimberly-Clark have in fact been sold." Actually, the court papers state, Crawford knew that he or his wife still held shares in both companies.

Crawford chaired the FDA's Obesity Working Group, which made recommendations affecting food and soft drink makers, at a time when he and his wife owned stock in Pepsico and Sysco, the court papers said.

The complaint said Crawford made some of his false statements on yearly financial disclosure forms and others on his financial disclosure statement to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- which was considering his nomination to become permanent FDA commissioner.

Crawford's short tenure as commissioner was best known for his August 2005 decision to postpone action on the "morning after" contraceptive Plan B. He had earlier told the Senate that the agency would act on the application, and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) allowed a vote on his nomination as a result.

Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who helped initiate an investigation into Crawford's departure by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that further digging into Crawford's finances should and will continue.

"By blatantly ignoring the law on financial holdings and conflicts of interest, Lester Crawford used his position as the head of the FDA to send all the wrong signals to other FDA employees and the American public," Hinchey said in a statement.

Crawford, trained as a veterinarian and pharmacologist, had previously served as deputy FDA commissioner and acting commissioner. The agency, which regulates almost one-quarter of the U.S. economy, has had a confirmed commissioner for less than two years since the Bush administration came into office.

Read More...

Summary only...

Alaska Dems Battle State Over E-voting

ComputerWorld
Alaska Dems Battle State Over E-voting
Marc Songini

An examination of the e-voting database and its audit logs from the November 2004 general election in Alaska found that changes were made to thedatabase in the months after the votes were tallied, according to the state’s Democratic Party.

The party contends that a study of the electronic voting database, which it obtained a copy of last month after a long battle with the state, revealed that the database had been accessed as recently as this July.

“The [state's] Division of Elections has not comprehensively explained and corrected the situation,” said Alaska Democratic Party spokeswoman Kay Brown.

The logs were generated by Diebold Election Systems’ AccuVote-OS optical-scan voting systems, which were used statewide in the election.

The party had sought a copy of the AccuVote voting database last December to reconcile apparent discrepancies in voting results compiled by the state after the November election. The Alaska Division of Elections first rejected the request but relented last month.

Democrats had filed a lawsuit in April to force the state to release the documents. That suit remains open in Alaska’s Superior Court.

Meanwhile, the state last week rejected the Democratic Party’s Oct. 5 request for a copy of the database as it stood just after the election in order to determine what manual modifications were later made. The state contended that there is no unchanged version of the database.

Many Manual Votes

Brown said that experts from Black Box Voting, a Renton, Wash.-based nonprofit voter advocacy group commissioned by the party to review the contents of the database, also found an “incredibly high” number of manual votes added to it shortly after the 2004 elections.

According to the Democratic Party, the study by Black Box revealed that 293 votes were entered manually to the database between the election on Nov. 2 and Dec. 2, 2004.

While some manual entries are expected as a result of mismarked ballots, the study’s total was far more than normal, the party contended. “This calls into question the certified numbers,” said Brown.

Annette Kreitzer, chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Loren Leman for the Division of Elections, contended that the Black Box Voting analysis is flawed. Moreover, she said that the number of manual entries was acceptable for a large rural state like Alaska.

“We don’t have anything to hide,” Kreitzer said.

Brown said the study of the database did not resolve what she called huge discrepancies in the vote totals originally tallied just after the election by the elections agency. She said that two separate election reports — overall statewide results and those of individual voting districts — varied by “orders of magnitude.”

E-voting Questions
The Alaska Democratic party said a study of the state's e-voting database after the November 2004 election found:

• Votes added manually to the database for about a month after the election ended• Audit logs in the voting database have been accessed as recently as July 2006• No copy of the database as it stood just after that election
For example, Brown said a tally of individual district vote counts gave President George W. Bush 292,267 votes. The statewide count, on the other hand, listed 190,889 Bush votes — a difference of 101,378. The statewide total was the official one in Bush’s easy victory in the state.

Brown also said the count showed that 16 districts had a voter turnout of at least 200%.

Kreitzer said the discrepancies were caused by an erroneous counting process used by the state elections program manager. The elections agency contends that the database log proves that the 2004 statewide vote totals are accurate, according to Kreitzer.

She defended the elections agency’s decision to reject early requests by the party for the database. The party’s request first sought the database file structure, which included sensitive information and violated the state’s contract with Diebold, she noted.

The agency declined to release the logs even after Diebold approved the request because it feared such a move might compromise the state’s core IT systems, said Kreitzer.

“The situation in the state does make me worry about the integrity of the system,” said Brown. “I’m a lot more suspicious than I used to be.”

A spokesman for Allen, Texas-based Diebold said the company will do what it can to meet the requests of both the elections agency and Alaska’s Democratic Party.

Read More...

Summary only...

NAACP to Monitor Elections in 10 States Following Primary Problems

ABC News
NAACP to Monitor Elections in 10 States
NAACP to Monitor Elections Following Primary Problems
By ALEX DOMINGUEZ
The Associated Press

BALTIMORE - The NAACP said Monday that it will monitor voting in 10 states next month, sending observers to polling places, taking citizen complaints and notifying the Justice Department of any serious problems.

The states were chosen based on those with pivotal elections, states with concentrations of black voters, and those with a history of polling problems, according to the Baltimore-based civil rights organization.

President Bruce Gordon urged voters to persist in trying to cast ballots.

"While the NAACP will take steps to counter obstacles to voter participation, we are encouraging our communities to cast their votes, even if it requires extra effort," he said in a statement released before a news conference at the group's headquarters.

"Civil rights activists went to extraordinary lengths to earn the right for black Americans to vote. Some lost their lives. We owe it to them and ourselves to honor their sacrifice by voting, no matter what challenges we face."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to have hundreds of volunteers monitoring elections in Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

On the Net:

NAACP: http://www.naacp.org

Read More...

Summary only...

Second U.S. lawmaker faces misconduct allegations

Reuters
Second U.S. lawmaker faces misconduct allegations

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional board which oversees a Capitol Hill internship program rocked by a sex scandal, discussed allegations on Monday involving a second lawmaker, said Rep. Dale Kildee, a Michigan Democrat.

Kildee made the comment as he emerged from a closed-door meeting of a House ethics committee, which has been focused on the case of former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, who resigned last month following disclosure he sent inappropriate electronic messages to male teenage interns, known as pages.

"It's only been allegations made," Kildee told reporters of the House page board's discussion about a second lawmaker, who he declined to identify.

Kildee said he and other board members had a conference call earlier in the day about "other allegations, not about Mr. Foley." Kildee also indicated the page board had talked about the matter with the second lawmaker.

Last week, a law enforcement official confirmed a report by NBC News that the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI in Arizona were conducting a "preliminary look" into a camping trip Rep. Jim Kolbe took with two teenage pages and others 10 years ago.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said federal investigators were responding to a "single allegation" about Kolbe of Arizona. The official refused to say who made the allegation or what was being alleged.

Kolbe's office denied any wrongdoing.

"The rafting trip back in 1996 consisted of five current staff, two former pages and his sister," a spokeswoman for Kolbe said. "There is absolutely no basis and no truth to any (allegations of) inappropriate behavior."

As part of the ethics committee's investigation of Foley, it is trying to determine if any other House members demonstrated troubling behavior toward teenage interns.

With reports that some Republican House members or staff were told about Foley's troubling conduct months or even years ago, the panel is also trying to determine if there was a cover-up -- who knew what and when about Foley and what, if anything, they did about it.

Read More...

Summary only...

Study: IT job cuts up sharply in Q3

ComputerWorld
Study: IT job cuts up sharply in Q3
Todd R. Weiss

October 16, 2006 (Computerworld) Just three months after U.S. IT job cuts reached their lowest levels since 2000, a new study has found that planned workforce cuts are again heading upward as recent corporate restructuring, mergers and other events are reducing the number of available jobs.

The study, released today by Chicago-based global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., found that planned IT job cuts increased 74% in the third quarter to 50,957, up from 29,226 this past June 30, when the number of IT job cuts had dropped to its lowest level since the third quarter of 2000.

The seven-page study, "Tech Spending Slowdown on the Horizon?" concludes that the third-quarter job cuts are attributable mostly to cost-cutting and restructuring, which accounted for 33,373, or 65%, of the cuts in the quarter that ended Sept. 30. Overall for the year, corporate mergers have been cited for 29% of the tech job cuts through September, according to the study. Also affecting job cut levels are business competition, reduced sales and product demand, company closings and outsourcing.

"These numbers are a clear indication that tech companies see a slowdown on the horizon," said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in a statement. "The economy seems relatively stable now but corporate leaders have been less than optimistic about the outlook for 2007. For technology companies, this translates into lower business-to-business and consumer sales."

The Challenger study found that third-quarter job cuts by employers in the telecommunications, electronics, computer and e-commerce industries were 23% higher than the 41,439 cuts announced a year ago.

Most of the third-quarter job cuts occurred in the computer sector, the study said, with 30,511 cuts. That's more than the 30,342 announced in the first six months of this year.

Even with the higher job-cut figures in the third quarter, the total of 119,562 IT job cuts for the year so far remains 15% below the 140,696 cuts for the same period in 2005, according to the study.

Other related data from Challenger shows that technology companies have announced plans to hire just 5,764 new workers in the third quarter, down from 14,090 in the second quarter, according to the study.

Read More...

Summary only...

U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Hits 53 So Far This Month

The New York Times
U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Hits 53 So Far This Month
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Oct. 15 — Two marines were killed by insurgents in Anbar Province on Sunday, the American military command said, and three American soldiers died a day earlier in a bombing in southern Baghdad, bringing the total number of American troop deaths in Iraq this month to at least 53, an extraordinarily high midmonth tally.

At the current rate of American deaths — more than 3.5 a day — October is on track to be the third deadliest month of the entire Iraq war for American forces, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site that tracks war-related casualties.

In a series of attacks on Sunday against Iraqi civilian and government targets in the northern city of Kirkuk, seven bombs, including three suicide car bombs, exploded within a few hours of each other, killing at least 17 people and wounding at least 73, according to police officials.

The rising American military death toll, which comes in spite of improvements in armor and other defenses, follows a recent decision by the American military to raise the profile of American troops in Baghdad and increase their combat operations.

Beginning last year, American commanders reduced the number of American patrols and pushed Iraqi forces to take over more responsibility for securing the capital.

But in late July, amid escalating sectarian violence that threatened to engulf the city and shove the country into full-scale civil war, American commanders decided to reverse their strategy, shift thousands of American troops to Baghdad from elsewhere in the country and abandon a plan to reduce troop strength significantly by the end of the year.

A cornerstone of the new approach has been the house-to-house sweeps of the capital’s most troubled areas, intended to ferret out militia networks, fighters and armaments. To date, the Americans, with Iraqi assistance, have swept eight districts.

Simultaneously, the American and Iraqi military have more aggressively pursued Shiite death squads, including elements of the Mahdi Army, the militia that loosely operates under the authority of the militant cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

Since the neighborhood sweeps began at the beginning of August, guerrilla attacks — against military and civilian targets alike — have risen about 23 percent across the capital, according to American military statistics.

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, a senior military spokesman here, attributed the spike in attacks — and resulting American troop deaths — to the military’s retooled strategy to quell the city’s violence.

“We are out more aggressively engaged in the city at this point than we were just a month ago,” he said at a news conference on Thursday. “Coalition forces are being much more active in going out and looking for these folks, these death squads and elements that are associated with the sectarian violence.”

According to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which collates statistics distributed in Pentagon press releases, the number of American deaths in Baghdad has sharply increased since the American-led crackdown began in early August.

That month, 20 American troops died in or near the capital, up from 12 in July and 15 in June. The number rose again last month, to 29.

Meanwhile, in Anbar Province, the western insurgent stronghold where the military has suffered its highest number of casualties since the beginning of the war, American troops have continued to face fierce resistance. At least 19 troops have died there this month, and 60 over the last two months.

Some troops were shifted from that desert region to Baghdad to bolster the new security push, further stretching American forces there.

The deadliest months for American troops since the beginning of the war have been associated with major offensives.

Some 137 American troops died in November 2004, the same month as the second siege of Falluja, when the Americans battled Sunni Arab rebels. In April 2004, a bloody month that saw the first siege of Falluja and pitched battles between the Americans and Mr. Sadr’s militia in Najaf, 135 American troops died.

In contrast, the American military has not conducted any major operations this month: the military has not initiated a new urban cordon-and-search operation for more than two weeks. Instead, it has focused on patrolling the areas already swept, officials say.

In recent weeks, the number of troops wounded in action, a figure that usually parallels the number of fatalities, has also seen a sharp increase. In a two-week period that began on Sept. 28, some 428 American troops were wounded, one of the highest fortnightly tolls of the entire conflict, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

In September, 776 troops were wounded, the fourth-highest monthly total since the American invasion.

In the multiple car bombings in Kirkuk, a city bitterly contested by several ethnic and religious groups, three suicide car bombers, including one driving a van packed with chickens and explosives, detonated their payloads throughout the city, killing 13 people and wounding at least 34, according to Maj. Gen. Turhan Yusuf, chief of the Kirkuk police department. One blew himself up near a girls’ academy, killing two school girls.

Four other bombs, including two unattended car bombs, killed four civilians and wounded at least 19 others, police officials said. Most of the bombs were apparently directed at Iraqi security forces.

In Baghdad on Sunday, the authorities recovered at least 30 bodies dumped around the city, an Interior Ministry official said.

Two bombs exploded near the convoy of the chief of financial affairs for the Interior Ministry, killing seven people, although the administrator escaped unscathed, the ministry official said. Another bomb exploded in the Amel neighborhood of the capital, killing one civilian and wounding two others, the official said.

In Tal Afar, near Mosul, a suicide bomber wrapped in explosives wandered into a local market and detonated himself near a police checkpoint, killing a child and wounding five other people, including two police officers, hospital and police officials said.

In Mosul, five members of a family were killed when gunmen burst into their home and opened fire, officials said, and gunmen assassinated Raad al-Haiali, a provincial official and a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab group.

The tribunal trying Saddam Hussein and his associates said on Sunday that it was postponing the date for verdicts from Monday, as originally planned, to Nov. 5, according to a senior court official who requested anonymity since he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

Other court officials have said in recent days that a major reason for the delay is that after nine months of hearings, the five judges in the case have so far failed to reach agreement on a sentence for Mr. Hussein and appeared to be undecided between a death sentence for him or a penalty of life imprisonment.

The 68-year-old former Iraqi ruler faces a possible sentence of death by hanging for his role in the execution of 148 men and boys from the mostly Shiite town of Dujail after a reputed assassination attempt against Mr. Hussein in 1982.

Reporting was contributed by John F. Burns and Khalid al-Ansary from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Kirkuk and Mosul.

Read More...

Summary only...

If You're Gonna Cheat -- Cheat With A Smile!

Huffington Post
Bob Cesca
If You're Gonna Cheat -- Cheat With A Smile!

I'd like to present the following pictorial as a corollary to Sunday's Washington Post article, White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects, in which we're presented with this ominous lead:

"Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove."

"Inexplicably upbeat," Michael Abramowitz wrote. The Post went further by reporting that Rove believes the Democrats will only gain a few seats -- nowhere near the 15 needed to attain a majority in the House of Representatives.

Here now is the face of a man who is mysteriously, eerily, "inexplicably" and almost frighteningly upbeat about his and the GOP's prospects next month:









These images were taken from the official White House video of last week's press conference during the following exchange:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Since you last held a news conference here in the Rose Garden, about a month ago, Republicans across the country have seen races that were once safe tighten, with the tide turning, according to several polls, towards the Democrats. Understanding that you don't lead by looking at polls --

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir, thank you. Finally.

Q -- as you've said many times, are you still confident Republicans will hold the House and the Senate?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am.

Of course I didn't expect President Bush to break into tears, but look at those photos again. Am I insane or does that grin make it seem as if he knows something we don't? It's certainly not the face of a man who's bearing down on the very real prospect of being investigated up the bunghole for the next two-plus years.

What does he know? What does Rove know that makes them so confident?

Firstly, it goes without saying that despite the efforts of Brad Blog, Mark Crispin Miller, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Thom Hartmann and others that widespread election fraud is bound to take place on and before Election Day. And those of us who are familiar with Rove's history of dirty tricks, rat fuckings and the like, understand that he has is pasty pink fingers on the pulse of the whole operation. At the very least the whisper campaigns are his direct responsibility. Diebold and others will handle the rest by electronically moving Democratic votes to independent candidates; friendly operatives state-by-state will purge Democratic voters from the registration rolls; and Democratic precincts will have fewer voting machines than Republican precincts. The same playbook from 2000, 2002 and 2004 recycled for this year.

But the tide of Republican blunders and the ongoing tragedy of the Iraq War could be enough to overcome the cheating machines and voter purges. Rove isn't an idiot and knows this, so what's the wild card? Temporarily low gas prices thanks to Bandar Bush, the president's Saudi bunkmate, and a nationwide ad campaign -- direct mail and television -- telling voters that the Democrats WILL raise your taxes. Underscore will.

I give you the president's own words shortly after his above go-with-a-smile Joker grin:

"Matter of fact, I would like to keep the -- make the tax cuts we pass permanent. And the Democrats will raise taxes. Now, I know they say only on rich people, but that's -- in my judgment, having been around here long enough to know, it's just code word. They're going to raise them on whoever they can raise them on."

Love that Joker. Sadly for the president, most voters are smart enough to know (we hope) that the only way Congress can pass anything is if the president signs said anything into law. So even if a Democratic House takes a stab at rolling back the tax cuts for Paris Hilton and Dick Cheney, it'll be vetoed by the president. Yet the president and the GOP are implying that the Democrats have somehow discovered a way to circumvent the president's signature.

You and I both know that the president won't sign any legislation raising taxes on the rich. No Bush would ever do that. Nah. Gah. Dah. Read his lips.

Ah, that was unfair. But I enjoyed it. Anyway, take my home district, the PA-6th for example and the preface that this is happening in many competitive districts. Congressman Gerlach and the NRCC have collectively spent piles of cash spooking voters in Montgomery, Chester and Berks Counties into believing that Democratic challenger Lois Murphy will magically raise taxes on everyone. Not just the rich, but everyone by two-thousand-some-odd-dollars each. So if you earn $2500 next year, you'll owe the government all of it. And of course it's a lie bigger than Karl Rove's bulbous forehead.

However, it's not nearly a lie the size of this one... In a recent ad here, the NRCC claimed Lois Murphy magically voted against a spending bill that provided body armor for the troops (the spending bill, by the way, was attached to a bill opening AWR for oil drilling). Magical indeed. Lois Murphy has never been a member of Congress and thus was unable to cast votes on military spending bills. Or any bills whatsoever. Comcast thankfully pulled the ad from television, but only after it had been aired.

Sorry. It's easy to digress when discussing GOP lies. Lies, though, are the only shot they have. Lying, cheating, stealing, subverting democracy. The usual bucket of rats. But it's enough to allow the president, in the face of two years of shit, to grin as if he's eating said shit. And it's that grin which ought to motivate you and I to get out the vote and make sure we have enough turnout to overcome their overconfidence.

Read More...

Summary only...