Print Page - Other Political News

SENATE GOP PLAN CALLS FOR $100 GAS REBATE
But if proposal is linked to Arctic drilling, intense opposition certain

By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Scrambling to respond to the public outcry about gas prices, Senate Republicans want to send taxpayers a $100 rebate check to help ease some of the pain at the pump.

But if GOP leaders stick with their strategy of packaging this proposal with a provision to open the Arctic National Wildlife to oil drilling, they will ensure the bill will face a bitter fight for survival.

"Even now, it will be hard to get this done," Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., conceded Thursday.

With gas prices at more than $3-a-gallon in many markets, Exxon Mobil Corp. reporting $8.4 billion in first-quarter profits and Democrats touting their plan for a 60-day gasoline tax holiday, Republicans responded by unveiling a package that would rescind tax breaks for oil companies and use that money to help consumers buy hybrid vehicles.

Their plan would create a federal law banning price gouging, clarify the Transportation secretary's authority to set fuel mileage standards for passenger cars and provide incentives for construction of new oil refineries.

"Americans today are unfairly being asked to empty their wallets at the gas pump," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Frist said he would like to move forward with a bill "in the very near future."

The Republican proposal came two days after Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., announced a plan to suspend the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax for 60 days to help motorists.

Menendez estimates his plan would save U.S. consumers $100 million per day.

"While Exxon Mobil executives are popping champagne and celebrating their record profits, American families are popping antacids under the strain of soaring gas prices," Menendez said in a statement.

While lawmakers were busily raising voters' expectations that they might be able to do something to lower soaring pump prices, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a joint House-Senate panel: "Unfortunately there's nothing, really, that can be done that's going to affect energy prices or gasoline prices in the very short run."

The typical Houston motorist was paying $2.92 a gallon for regular unleaded Thursday, on par with the national average, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

No income, no rebate
The centerpiece of the GOP plan calls for Uncle Sam to send a $100 check by Aug. 30 to taxpayers who reported adjusted gross income of up to $145,950 for single filers and $218,950 for married couples on their 2005 tax forms.

Even those who reported only $5 worth of adjusted gross income for the year would qualify for the $100 rebate, proponents say. But poorer workers who pay no federal income taxes would not be eligible for the gas rebate plan.

"There could be a loophole of hundreds of thousands of people who would not be impacted," noted Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washigton-based tax watchdog group. "On a percentage of their income, they're the ones that are feeling (the cost increase) a lot, lot more. Some of us have been kicked, but they've been kicked in the teeth."

Many Democrats support slapping the oil companies with a new, windfall profits tax. But Bernanke warned Thursday that "profits taxes have the adverse effect of removing ... one of the major incentives of our market system."

A potential deal-killer in the Republican proposal is the measure that would allow the nation's oil companies to hunt for crude in a portion of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, which is thought to be the largest untapped oil deposit left onshore in the United States.

That provision, which has failed repeatedly, would spark fierce opposition by both Democrats in the Senate as well as moderate Republicans in the House.

House working on options
In the House, GOP leaders are crafting a more modest package that, among other things, would aim to reduce the number of "boutique" gasoline blends required around the country.

That concerns the nation's refiners, who have spent massive amounts of cash to configure their facilities to produce those fuels.

To highlight their proposals, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and other Republican leaders rode in hydrogen-powered cars to a BP station on Capitol Hill, where regular unleaded was selling for $3.10 a gallon.

Pointing to gas stations in the Dallas area that have run dry in recent weeks, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Ennis, has raised concerns about refiners' ongoing switch-over from MTBE-blended gasoline to fuel containing ethanol.

Refiners added methyl tertiary butyl ether to gasoline sold in Houston and other cities with the worst air pollution to help the fuel burn more cleanly. But MTBE has been blamed for fouling water supplies.

And after lawmakers refused last year to grant the industry protection from water contamination lawsuits, refiners opted to eliminate use of MTBE.

President Bush has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to waive environmental rules if needed to avoid supply disruptions that might arise during the transition.

But Barton wants to grant refiners liability protection on a temporary basis. That's sure to complicate passage of a bill, since Democrats are vehemently opposed to granting legal protections to MTBE makers.

__________________

This plan is no good for those on low income such as Social Security that have no taxable income. Yet these are the ones that need the gas break the most.

Gas Companies Face Surcharge In Senate Plan
Oil Giants Accused of 'Profiteering'

The Virginia Senate passed a new transportation plan Thursday but refused to abandon its months-long support for a new gas tax despite rising prices at the pump.

The senators' proposal includes a surcharge of 6 cents a gallon on gasoline companies, which they characterized as a populist effort to make big oil corporations share the cost of improving state roads and transit systems. Exxon Mobil, which has offices in Fairfax County, announced first-quarter profits of $8.4 billion even as senators voted on their bill.

Gas companies "don't mind sticking it to me and sticking it to every person in Virginia when we come up to that pump, and I don't mind repaying the favor," said Sen. R. Edward Houck (D-Spotsylvania). Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch (R-Henrico) said the tax is aimed directly at "profiteering" by the gasoline giants.

Members of the House, who oppose new taxes to finance transportation improvements, said drivers would suffer the consequences if the Senate plan were adopted with even higher fuel costs. House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) called the proposal "the silliest thing in the world." The state's sales tax on gas is currently 17.5 cents a gallon.

The Republican-led Senate and House have been locked in a fight over how much to spend on transportation since adjourning their legislative session with no budget March 11. A key part of the dispute has been the Senate's insistence on new gas taxes.

In January, senators proposed a 5 percent tax on wholesale gas. Last month, they passed a state budget that included the 6-cent-a-gallon fee on the terminals where tanker trucks fill up on the way to gas stations.

But as gas has risen above $3 a gallon in some areas, senators have been under increasing political pressure to drop any additional taxes on gasoline. On Tuesday, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) angered his allies in the Senate by saying that he believed that a tax on gas was not the way to solve the dispute between the Senate and House.

"The right way to solve this problem is to do it without a gas tax," the governor said on Washington Post Radio.

But senators rejected a proposal to replace gasoline taxes with a statewide sales tax increase. After a full day of negotiations, a majority of senators of both parties stuck by the terminal fee, including it in a new bill that would also increase ticket fines for reckless drivers and raise the sales tax on cars from 3 percent to 3.75 percent.

The Senate also passed three other bills to allow local governments to raise taxes for regional transportation projects, including one that would give Northern Virginia wide new powers to raise money for local needs.

All told, the Senate bills would raise almost $750 million a year for transportation across the state and as much as $388 million each year for Metro, Virginia Railway Express and new roads in Northern Virginia.

Local governments in the Washington area would be allowed to add a half-cent to the sales tax and raise car registration fees and the tax on home sales.

"Let me tell you, if we do nothing . . . we're about four or five years away from where you're going to need an appointment to get on the Beltway in Northern Virginia," said Sen. Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax).

Delegates have complained that senators have held up a resolution to the stalemate by embedding their transportation tax increases in their $72 billion budget document, which also funds schools and public safety and health.

With the bills passed Thursday, senators said they had responded to the criticism by approving separate legislation on transportation. They challenged delegates to accept the bills or offer alternatives to infuse new cash into traffic-clogged roads if they dislike the Senate's.

"We all love to talk . . . but we only act by passing legislation," said Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach). "Talk's cheap. I would encourage the House of Delegates and the governor to stop talking about transportation and start acting to solve transportation."

Delacey Skinner, Kaine's communications director, called the Senate action "a strong move towards reaching a solution."

"It's about time to reach a conclusion on this," she said. "We're very encouraged by what the Senate did today."

But delegates reiterated calls to first agree on spending in other areas, ensuring that a budget is written before the new fiscal year begins July 1. Then, delegates reasoned, the chambers could return to Richmond to talk about transportation.

"What's important is that we get a budget out so law enforcement, education know there's money there to run their programs," said House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem).

"My guess is [the bills] won't be received well," he said.

FEMA's future
With hurricane season barely a month away, Senate report declares federal emergency relief agency a bureaucratic disaster zone.

Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

NEARLY eight months have passed since Hurricane Katrina ripped into the Gulf Coast and graphically exposed the inability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cope with catastrophe. While the holes torn in the physical and social fabric of New Orleans are on the mend, the problems afflicting FEMA persist.

In an alarming draft of a report with 86 recommendations, a bipartisan Senate inquiry concluded that the agency remains so flawed it should be scrapped and replaced by a newly organized National Preparedness and Response Authority equipped with a head who reports directly to the president during an emergency.

"The United States was, and is, ill-prepared to respond to a catastrophic event of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina," the report states. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Susan Collins, R-Maine, bluntly declared that "we have concluded that FEMA is in shambles and beyond repair and that it should be abolished."

The report faults federal, state and local leadership and criticizes the Bush administration for failing to adequately fund disaster preparedness while staffing top positions at FEMA with appointees without the necessary experience. Although the report stops short of recommending that disaster management be removed from the Department of Homeland Security and restored to its pre-2003 Cabinet level status, several bills pending in Congress would do just that.

The full report, "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared," will be released to the public next week, but the draft summary released to the media does nothing to reassure coastal residents facing another storm season. It is the product of extensive hearings analyzing the myriad failures of government in coping with a disaster that took more than 1,300 lives and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage.

The report also recommends creation of regional response teams, a government-wide emergency operations center and increased funding for relief operations. Disaster preparedness and response, which Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff separated in a FEMA reorganization after the hurricane, should be rejoined.

Homeland Security officials, who have been criticized by House and White House probes of the botched storm relief effort, dismissed the latest critical findings. A spokesman, Russ Knocke, responded that "it's time to stop playing around with the organizational charts and to start focusing on government, at all levels, that are preparing for this storm season."

It's a valid point. Whether FEMA or its successor is reinstated in a stand-alone position or is left within Homeland Security, many of the major changes called for in the Senate report likely cannot be implemented in the midst of this year's hurricane season. Like it or not, we're stuck with the existing agency for the near future.

FEMA must receive adequate funding and strong leadership to do its job, even as its future is debated. A primary lesson of Katrina is that during such an emergency, a capable disaster management executive must have access to the president with the facts and recommendations necessary for him to make swift, life-saving decisions. That shouldn't take an act of Congress.

BP and Shell join oil majors facing Senate tax check

BP and Shell are about to be dragged into the latest row over high petrol prices after a US Senate committee demanded to see tax returns from the 15 largest oil companies as part of an inquiry into industry profits and soaring prices.

"I want to make sure the oil companies aren't taking a speedpass by the tax man," said Senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate finance committee, meaning that they were not dodging their taxes, as he asked the Internal Revenue Service to hand over records for the past five years.

The recent surge in oil prices has pushed up pump prices and delivered multi-billion dollar profits to the oil majors. President Bush, usually a fierce advocate of the oil industry, described high petrol prices as a "hidden tax on the working people". He has stopped filling the US strategic reserve in an attempt to get more oil on the open market.

BP, which blames high prices on speculators and hedge fund managers, said it had nothing to hide. "As far as our taxes are concerned, everything is transparent and above board." A spokesman said the company was trying to educate the public "to make people understand how the market works and why prices are where they are".

But Senator Grassley, a long-time critic of big oil who has balked at the high salaries and pensions earned by executives, said: "We all know there can be a slip between cup and lip on corporate profits made and taxes paid." He also berated former ExxonMobil boss Lee Raymond for his $400m (£220m) compensation package which he said "may have been subsidised in part by the taxpayers".

The Senate's request is highly unusual. The last time it asked to see tax records was in 2001 when looking into the collapse of Enron.

However Senator Max Baucus said: "It's relevant to know what the real financial picture is for this industry."

Many politicians are considering measures that would see oil companies stripped of $2bn in tax breaks, created when Washington wanted to encourage exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Also being discussed is a provision to change accounting rules for oil inventories that would force the five biggest - ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips - to pay $4.8bn more in taxes over the next five years.

Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, slated the proposed changes as "equivalent to a windfall profits tax". BP results showed it paid over $7bn in overseas taxes, while Exxon paid $8bn in total.

The inquiry came as rising oil and gas prices pushed ExxonMobil's profits to a record $8.4bn in the first quarter, prompting a Texas judge to call for a boycott of the company's filling stations. Exxon says it has invested more money over the past 15 years than it has earned.

Critics of the Senate said it was unlikely to uncover any wrongdoing and that politicians were grandstanding in an attempt to be seen to be acting ahead of important mid-term US elections this year.

Nadler Says Control of Congress Key

West Side congressman argues gay rights can only move if GOP grip on agenda broken

Ask Congressman Jerrold Nadler a question that assumes the Democrats will take control of the U.S. House of Representatives this fall and he begins his answer with, “Your mouth to God’s ears.”

In Nadler’s view, a Democratically-controlled Congress could assure that legislation desired by progressives gets on the agenda and, for the queer community, having Democrats in charge is the only way that gay-friendly laws will advance.

“I’d be surprised if this Congress would do anything for gay rights in any way,” Nadler said during a nearly two-hour interview at his Manhattan office. The Republicans are more likely to use the gay community as an issue to turn out their conservative base in November’s midterm elections.

“This Congress, before this election, they’re getting desperate,” Nadler said on April 21. “When you get desperate you look for wedge issues. I expect them to bring back gay marriage.”

In polls, Republicans from the president to senators and representatives are viewed unfavorably by voters and they are seen as leading the nation in the wrong direction. Whether that means that voters are unhappy with their individual senators or representative is unclear. Even Nadler will not guarantee a Democratic victory on November 7.

“I think it’s at least a 50-50 chance,” was as far as he would go on the question.

Nor would such a victory mean that gay-friendly laws would sail through Congress. There are Democrats, like Nadler, who have long been allies of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Nadler has consistently won a 100 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign, the nationwide gay lobbying group.

Most recently, Nadler sponsored the Uniting American Families Act that would require that U.S. immigration law treat same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples equally, the Anti-bullying Campaign Act that would “assist states in establishing... anti-harassment programs” and includes protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and the Equal Access to Social Security Act that would grant same-sex couples the same Social Security benefits that are given to opposite-sex married couples.

Then there are Democrats who talk a good gay game, but oppose same-sex marriage and support the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

“People like me, who have sponsored these kinds of bills, will sponsor them,” Nadler said. “I assume we’ll get at least a hearing and a vote. I won’t guarantee that we’ll win all the votes... I guarantee you we won’t be going backwards... It will be a much friendlier atmosphere.”

Friendlier because the Democrats will control the agenda and that is the game on Capitol Hill.

“Ninety-nine percent of what occurs in Congress does not occur because there’s a vote,” Nadler said. “It occurs because you control the agenda. Ninety-nine percent of the bills that are defeated are defeated not by losing on the floor, but by never being put on the agenda.”

But are the Democrats doing enough to win back the House and the Senate?

“I think so,” Nadler said. “We are offering real alternatives. Unfortunately, it’s not getting out into the press very much... When you don’t have the president in that bully pulpit or the majority in either house it’s very hard to get heard.”

Nadler will certainly win easily. As of March 31, he has just under $750,00 in cash for his reelection campaign in the fall, according to the Center For Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based group that tracks campaign financing. Nadler won his 2004 race with 80 percent of the vote.

First elected in 1992, Nadler represents New York’s Eighth Congressional district that stretches from Manhattan’s Upper West Side, down through Lower Manhattan, and into Brooklyn where it includes neighborhoods such as Borough Park, Coney Island, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst. He was elected to Congress after serving 16 years in the state Assembly.

Nadler could serve as a model for some of those other Democrats. He represents some of the city’s most liberal voters and voters who are more culturally conservative. He believes the party is advancing.

“We are moving the party along here,” he said. “I think it’s come a long way... In 1988, the Democratic candidate for president, Mike Dukakis, wouldn’t support adoption by gay couples. Most liberal Democrats thought that people who raised that issue were wrong to raise it... Today, you couldn’t get a self-respecting candidate for president on the Democratic side who wouldn’t advance that issue.”

The priorities concerning gay-friendly legislation in a Democratic Congress are not yet clear.

“I would certainly sit down with the national gay groups, with the national women’s groups, and discuss with them what they think the priorities should be,” Nadler said. “Probably, off the top of my head, having not really thought about this because we have to win first, probably either the civil rights bill or the American families act or maybe both.”

Repealing DOMA or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, two Clinton-era policies that are seen as particularly noxious in the lesbian and gay community, might not happen for some time.

“I’ll think we undo Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell before we undo [DOMA],” Nadler said. “I don’t think there is any great pressure to undo [DOMA] until something comes up in court.”

Aside from lobbying, voting, and volunteering, the queer community’s job is “visibility at home,” Nadler said. It is what legislators hear from the voters back home that makes the difference.

Nadler said “Anybody who is active in anything at home who goes to see their Congressman... and says ‘By the way Congressman, take another look at the gay rights bill’ is having an impact.”

Plano School District Settles in Bible Club's Religious Freedom Lawsuit

(AgapePress) - One pro-family attorney believes a recent settlement of a free-speech case involving a student-led club and a Texas public school district should serve as a wakeup call for public school officials nationwide.

Earlier this week, trustees with the Plano (Texas) Independent School District (PISD) voted to change the district's policy and allow Bible study groups the same rights as other student-led organizations. The group, known as Students Witnessing Absolute Truth (SWAT) had filed a lawsuit after information about the club was removed from a middle school Internet site.

In the official ruling, the federal judge presiding said the issue at hand in the case was "the flagrant denial for equal access guaranteed to SWAT." He found that the harm done to the group "is irreparable because it inhibits the exercise of Plaintiff's First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion." The judge also granted the Christian club a preliminary injunction against the school district, placing a sanction against the district to cease its discrimination against the student-led religious group for the duration of the suit.

On Thursday, SWAT formally accepted an offer of settlement from PISD to resolve the federal lawsuit once and for all. Under the settlement agreement, the school district will allow the Christian club to post information on the school website and will extend to the group the same privileges granted to other non-curricular clubs.

Hiram Sasser is with Liberty Legal Institute, which filed the suit on the Christian students' behalf. He says the law is "very clear" in favor of the Bible clubs, and yet legal actions like SWAT's lawsuit continue to be necessary.

"There are plenty of school districts that just either don't get it or refuse to follow the law," Sasser explains, "and we have to go district by district enforcing the law. Just like it was with segregation, as some school districts held out from complying with the law, so do we have school districts that are refusing to end their religious discrimination."

The Liberty Legal Institute spokesman says PISD officials could easily have avoided a lawsuit in this case. "From the very beginning, they could have just simply changed their policy and done the right thing," he asserts. "Instead, they showed up to the courthouse and made really bogus arguments about why their discrimination is justified."

The court ordered PISD to pay $100 in damages to SWAT and its founder and to pay the plaintiff's attorney fees. Sasser says the court "could not have been clearer" in its decision, and he is pleased with the outcome of the case, which is actually the second religious-freedom lawsuit filed against the Plano school district.

Courts, Governors Siding with Ten Commandments Displays
Christian Attorney Sees Tide Turning Against ACLU's War on Decalogue

(AgapePress) - A Christian attorney says he's confident that public displays of the Ten Commandments will continue to be more acceptable in the legal arena.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed a bill permitting the display of God's sacred laws in public buildings. And the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Ten Commandments display in Elkhart County, Indiana v. Brooks. Mat Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, says courts are approving historic rulings when it comes to the public display of the Ten Commandments.

"It not only is certainly upholding the Ten Commandments in these huge victories, one after another, but it is also a major shift in the court interpretation in the church-state understanding to be more close to the original understanding of the First Amendment," Staver offers. "We literally are witnessing a major change in the process. It's been a long time in coming."

Earlier this month, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher also signed a bill that would place a Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds. And last week, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 19-5 to uphold the "Foundations of American Law and Government" display at a Kentucky courthouse. In addition, a federal district court in Ohio -- as well as the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals -- upheld stand-alone Ten Commandments displays.

Staver says cases like these prove that persistence pays off. "As Christians and people of faith, we've got to show up, whether it's in the classroom or the courtroom," the attorney says. "And when we do -- when we persist and we continue to make our case over time -- we can make a difference. And I think we are seeing it right now."

The Liberty Counsel president says "the tide is turning" against the ACLU's war on the Ten Commandments. Both the courts and history, he says, are working against that group's efforts to eliminate God's Word from the public arena.

Bush Says Anthem Should Be in English

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer 50 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The national anthem should be sung in English — not Spanish — President Bush declared Friday, amid growing restlessness over the millions of immigrants here illegally.

"One of the things that's very important is, when we debate this issue, that we not lose our national soul," the president exclaimed. "One of the great things about America is that we've been able to take people from all walks of life bound as one nation under God. And that's the challenge ahead of us."

A Spanish language version of the national anthem was released Friday by a British music producer, Adam Kidron, who said he wanted to honor America's immigrants.

When the president was asked at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish, he replied: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

He made his remarks on the matters during a wide-ranging briefing with reporters.

"I think people who want to be citizens of this country ought to learn English," Bush said.

The president's comments came amid a burgeoning national debate — and congressional fight — over legislation pending in Congress, and pushed by Bush, to overhaul U.S. immigration law.

Bush called on lawmakers to move forward on legislation — now stalled — that would revamp immigration laws.

"I want a comprehensive bill," Bush said that includes enforcement as well as giving temporary worker status to some illegal immigrants.

Large numbers of immigrant groups have planned an economic boycott next week to dramatize their call for legislation providing legal status for millions of people in the United States illegally.

"You know, I'm not a supporter of boycotts," Bush said. " I am a supporter of comprehensive immigration ... I think most Americans agree that we've got to enforce our border. I don't think there's any question about that."

His remarks followed release of the Spanish language version of the song, called "Nuestro Himno" or "Our Anthem."

Bush Says Anthem Should Be in English (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060428/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_national_anthem;_ylt=ApkGCJfJroiDPIsDNammYeOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-)

Bush Rejects Tax on Oil Companies' Profits

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Friday rejected calls in Congress for a tax on oil company profits, saying the industry should reinvest its recent windfalls in finding and producing more energy.

"The temptation in Washington is to tax everything," Bush said in an exchange with reporters in the White House Rose Garden. Rather than for the government to reap the benefit from oil company profits driven by the recent surge in global oil prices, he said, "The answer is for there to be strong re-investment."

"These oil prices are a wakeup call," Bush said. "We're dependent on oil. We need to get off oil."

With gasoline topping $3 a gallon in some areas, Bush said energy companies should use their increased cash flows to build more natural gas pipeline, expand refineries, explore "in environmentally friendly ways," and invest in renewable sources of energy.

"That's what the American people expect. They also expect to be treated fairly at the pump," he said.

In a hastily arranged news conference to tout strong economic growth figures, Bush also criticized efforts to sing the national anthem in Spanish. "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English," he said.

_Rejected calls in Congress to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "The lessons of Katrina are important. We've learned a lot here at the federal level," Bush said. "We're much more ready this time than we were the last time."

_Criticized efforts by the Sudanese government to thwart efforts by the U.N. and other multinational organizations to take a firmer control of fighting atrocities in the Darfur region. "My message to them is we expect there to be full compliance with the international desire for there to be peace in the Darfur region," he said.

- Sidestepped a question on whether recent staff changes at the White House could help reverse his presidency's slump in the polls. "I think it's necessary to continue doing -- achieving results for the American people. We've got big challenges for this country, and I've got a strategy to deal with them," he said.

- Said "the world is united and concerned" about Iran's suspected desire to build nuclear weapons and that he will work with other countries to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

_Endorsed yet again a temporary worker program as a way to enforce border security.

Sweden nixes special laws for Muslims

The Swedish government and moderate Muslims on Friday sharply rejected demands by an Islamic leader to enact special laws for Muslims living in the Scandinavian country.

Mahmoud Aldebe, head of Sweden's largest Islamic organization, SMF, said Muslims should be given time off work for Friday prayers and Islamic holidays and that imams should approve all divorces between Muslim couples.

His proposals, presented in a letter Thursday to Sweden's parliamentary parties, were rejected as "completely unacceptable" by Sweden's Integration Minister Jens Orback.

They also elicited a flood of criticism from moderate Muslims who said they were content with living under Swedish laws.

"If we are going to live here, we should adapt to the laws that exist - we should not have a separate law just because we have a different faith," said Mariam Osman Sherifay, a Muslim lawmaker with the governing Social Democratic Party.

Aldebe's letter also called for laws reserving public swimming pools to women one night a week, as many Muslim families forbid their daughters from bathing with boys for "ethical and religious reasons."

"Many Muslim girls finish their high school education without knowing how to swim at all," Aldebe wrote.

Other demands included giving imams the right to teach religion to Muslim children in public schools, and providing special burial grounds for Muslims.

Aldebe, whose organization has 70,000 members, backtracked on his proposal Friday, telling Swedish Radio he only meant Swedish laws should be adjusted to make Muslims feel safe in society.

Many Swedish Muslim leaders distanced themselves from Aldebe's demands, saying they had little support among Sweden's estimated 400,000 Muslims.

"He is lucky if he speaks for 70 of his members," said Abd al Haqq Kielan, an imam who heads the Swedish Islamic Society, one of five national Islamic organizations.

Kielan called the proposals "absurd," adding that they would lead to "a sort of Mullah-rule that people are scared of."

"If you open the gate for separate laws for different minorities, where will it end?" he said. "We have to have one law for all citizens. That is so obvious that I don't understand how he can come up with such an idea."

Bush dismisses gas 'rip-off' charges

President Bush yesterday rejected calls from Capitol Hill to levy a tax on oil-company profits and said there is "no evidence" of price gouging.
He urged the industry to increase oil exploration and to reinvest billions in earnings from high gasoline prices to build new refineries.
"I have no evidence that there is any rip-off taking place," Mr. Bush said at a morning press conference in the White House Rose Garden. "But it's the role of the Federal Trade Commission to assure me that my inclination and instinct is right."
Mr. Bush said calls to tax the oil industry's profits would take money that should be reinvested in refineries, pipeline construction for natural gas deliveries and exploration in "environmentally friendly ways."
"Look, the temptation in Washington is to tax everything, and they spend the money -- 'they' being the people in Washington," said the president, who has called on Congress to strip away tax breaks the corporations are enjoying amid record profits.
Mr. Bush said gasoline prices topping $3 per gallon and the rising cost of oil -- hovering above $70 a barrel, up from below $20 when the president took office in 2001 -- were "a wake-up call."
"We're dependent on oil, and we need to get off oil," he said. "And the American people have got to understand that we're living in a global economy, and so when China and India demand more oil, it affects the price of gasoline at the pump. And, therefore, it's important for us to diversify away from oil."
He blamed oil companies, who this week announced profits in the tens of billions of dollars, for squeezing supply by failing to reinvest profits to ease demand. On Thursday, Exxon Mobil, the nation's largest oil company, announced earnings climbed by 7 percent to $8.4 billion during the January-March period.
The president noted that no new refineries have been built since the 1970s, limiting the amount of crude oil that can be converted into gasoline, and has asked Congress to ease regulatory restrictions to allow oil companies to move swiftly.
"My attitude is that the oil companies need to be mindful that the American people expect them to reinvest their cash flows in such a way that it enhances our energy security," Mr. Bush said.
In the press conference -- which had been billed simply as a statement on the economy, Mr. Bush also:
• Rejected calls in Congress to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "The lessons of Katrina are important. We've learned a lot here at the federal level. We're much more ready this time than we were the last time."
• Criticized the Sudanese government's thwarting of efforts by the United Nations and other international organizations to take a firmer control of fighting atrocities in the Darfur region. "My message to them is, we expect there to be full compliance with the international desire for there to be peace in the Darfur region."
• Dodged a question about whether recent staff changes at the White House could help reverse his slump in the polls. "We've got big challenges for this country, and I've got a strategy to deal with them," he said.
• Urged Iran to give up its ambitions to build nuclear weapons, saying "the world is united and concerned."
Earlier this week, Mr. Bush ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, which are creating bottlenecks in U.S. gasoline markets, and suspended new purchases of crude oil for putting in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a small move to boost market supplies.
Analysts and Democrats predict that the actions will do little to dampen high prices this summer, even though crude oil and gasoline futures fell after Mr. Bush's announcement.
Motorists squeezed by high gas prices have begun to blame the Bush administration, according to some recent polls, about high gasoline profits. But others don't.
Democrats strategists see the issue as a winner in the November election, and again yesterday criticized the president for what they called his inaction to stem rising prices.
On Thursday, Republican leaders proposed giving drivers a $100 tax rebate, opening up oil exploration in a small plot -- the size of New York's Central Park -- in the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and tax relief and tax incentives to promote the use of hybrid cars.
Democrats, who mostly oppose drilling in the Arctic, quickly dismissed the Republican congressional package as the "same old, same old," and said pump prices topping $3 per gallon will be the last straw and cost Republicans their congressional majority.
"High gas prices are going to be the final nail in the GOP coffin this election year," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Medal of Honor Fakers Are Proliferating

FBI Agent Says Medal of Honor Fakers Outnumber Living Recipients; Stiffer Punishments Sought

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. Apr 30, 2006 (AP)— A proliferation of phony heroes is prompting such groups as The Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation to lobby for tougher laws to punish the impostors.

The organization reports that there are 113 living recipients of the nation's highest military award, but an FBI agent who tracks the fakes said impostors outnumber the true heroes.

"There are more and more of these impostors, and they are literally stealing the valor and acts of valor of the real guys," said Agent Tom Cottone, who also works on an FBI violent crime squad in West Paterson, N.J.

Some fakers merely brag about receiving the award and that's not illegal but some impostors wear military uniforms and bogus medals. The FBI has about 25 pending investigations of such phony heroes, said Cottone.

Anyone convicted of fraudulently wearing the Medal of Honor faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. But there's no such penalty for other medals.

The Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation and other veterans groups are looking to change that. They've enlisted the help of U.S. Rep. John T. Salazar, D-Colo., who is sponsoring the Stolen Valor Act to penalize distributors of phony medals and those who pretend to be decorated veterans.

Salazar's legislation would make it illegal to make a false public claim to be a recipient of any military valor award, such as the Medal of Honor, a Silver Star or Purple Heart.

"It is about more than punishing people," said Salazar. "It's about preserving the history and honor of those medals."

World War II Medal of Honor recipient Charles Coolidge of Signal Mountain, Tenn., got flimflammed out of his medal at a military reunion of all places when someone offered to help recondition it and gave him back a fake version of the award.

Cottone tracked down Coolidge's real Medal of Honor from a man who was selling and trading medals in Ohio.

"It was a big surprise to me to get it back," said Coolidge, 84.

Coolidge received the Medal of Honor for leading an outnumbered section of heavy machine guns during four days of fighting against German infantry and tanks in France in 1944.

Cottone said he recovered two fake Medals of Honor at a New Jersey gun show. Both were made by HLI Lordship Industries Inc., a former government contractor for the Medal of Honor.

The company, based in Hauppauge, N.Y., was fined $80,000 in 1996 and placed on probation after admitting 300 fakes were sold in the early 1990s for $75 each.

"If we don't maintain the integrity of these military awards, the real ones won't mean anything," Cottone said.

Puerto Rican schools, government offices close

The government of Puerto Rico ran out of money Monday, forcing the U.S. commonwealth to close public schools and shut down government offices, putting almost 100,000 people out of work.

The legislature and governor failed to reach a last-minute accord that would have averted the first-ever partial shutdown of the government in island history.

All 1,600 public schools on the island were closed two weeks before the end of the academic year, and 43 government agencies were shut down after negotiations between lawmakers and Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila failed.

Acevedo blamed "legislative inaction" for the shutdown.

"As of 8 a.m. this morning, I don't have in hand a single legislative proposal that resolves this crisis," he told reporters.

The closure gave an unplanned holiday to 500,000 students and threw almost 100,000 government employees -- including 40,000 teachers -- temporarily out of work. The governor has said essential services, such as police and hospitals, would continue during the shutdown.

Unions planned protests outside the capitol in San Juan and elsewhere to protest the shutdown. Municipal governments, which provide services such as garbage collection, kept functioning.

Outside an elementary school in the Rio Piedras area of the capital, a sign advised parents to monitor news reports to learn when classes would resume. Juan Marrero, a shop owner near the school, said the shutdown would curtail his business.

"They have to solve this quickly," Marrero said.

Puerto Rico has a $740 million budget shortfall because the legislature and the governor have been unable to agree on a spending plan since 2004.

Overnight, the Senate leader offered a compromise that would create a 5.9 percent sales tax, which he said would raise enough money to pay off an emergency $532 million line of credit the government needs to finish the fiscal year.

But that proposal failed to gain traction in the House of Representatives, where leaders said they opposed any sales tax above 5.5 percent -- with 1.5 percent earmarked for municipalities.

Both proposals fell short of the 7 percent that Acevedo said was necessary to pay for an additional $640 million loan and avoid a partial government shutdown. Anything less that 7 percent would only postpone the crisis until July 1, when the next fiscal year begins, the governor said.

The island currently has no sales tax.

Members of the New Progressive Party, which controls the legislature, have blamed the governor for the crisis. The two sides never agreed on the 2005 or 2006 budgets, and the government is using the 2004 budget to operate as debts pile up.

The government is Puerto Rico's largest employer, with some 200,000 workers. Salaries make up about 80 percent of the government's operational costs.

In recent days, Puerto Ricans held protest marches aimed at spurring the politicians to reach an agreement.

"I think it's sad that it came to this, but I think they'll come to their senses after a few days of playing this game," said Hector Aguilo, 24, who lives in Guaynabo, just outside San Juan.

"There are too many angry people who would be without their paychecks."

Quote from: Pastor Roger on May 01, 2006, 10:46:27 AM

PR, this is very sad. One of those who lost his job is my youngest brother, he is an English teacher. He is also the one who will be having heart surgery sometime this week. I won't know for sure until I can talk to him.

Langevin remains 'hopeful' on stem cell bill

WASHINGTON --U.S. Rep. James Langevin says he's still "hopeful" Congress will approve a bill he championed to strengthen the government's role in embryonic stem cell research.

The Rhode Island Democrat, a quadriplegic since he was hurt in a gunshot accident at age 16, was a key backer of a bill passed by the House nearly a year ago to allow research on additional stem cell lines. A similar measure is stalled in the Senate.

Langevin and other advocates are pressing for a vote before Congress leaves for its summer recess.

They say embryonic stem cell research could help speed cures and treatments for spinal cord injuries and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Langevin believes it could help him walk again someday. But opponents contend research using stem cells extracted from embryos destroys human life.

As the one-year anniversary of House passage of the bill nears this month, Langevin is still waiting for Senate action.

"I'm hopeful it will be sooner rather than later," Langevin said in a recent interview. "I believe the bill will pass the Senate with strong bipartisan support."

President Bush, however, has vowed to veto the legislation. It is unclear if Congress would have the votes to override a veto.

"The President has said he will veto the bill, but we need to press ahead notwithstanding," Langevin said.

Langevin wants expanded federal support for research on stem cell lines derived after Aug. 9, 2001. Under his proposed legislation, only excess embryonic stem cells derived from in vitro fertilization and slated for destruction could be used for research. He also backs government oversight to ensure ethical research procedures.

Bush in 2001 set stricter limits on government-funded embryonic stem cell research.

Last May, the House defied Bush's veto threat by easing limits on the research. The 238-194 vote was far shy of the two-thirds majority necessary to overcome a Bush veto.

Still, support for the measure seemed to be growing last summer after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., announced he would support expanded stem cell research.

But a tight Senate legislative calendar and a host of other contentious issues have helped to put off a stem cell showdown. Frist spokeswoman Amy Call said Monday no date has been set for a vote.

Langevin and fellow stem cell advocates hope to step up pressure for Senate action in the coming weeks as the May 24 anniversary of the House bill's passage approaches.

The congressman said compromise will likely be necessary to push a final bill through Congress.

Senate panel recommends scholarship bill

MONTPELIER, Vt. --Senators proposed a downpayment Monday toward the governor's cherished college scholarship program, but it was dismissed by the administration as "fig leaves" designed to ease political pressure.

The initiative was one of the last major bills that legislative leaders believe is needed to finish the Legislature's work so they can aim toward adjournment by the end of the week.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also recommended spending $400,000 to pay for the coming week's meeting of the Legislature. Funding for the regular session ran out last week.

But it's not clear that lawmakers will be able to wrap up their work this week and the college scholarship debate illustrated how much work remains to be completed. The bill drafted by the Senate does not come close to meeting the objectives set out by the governor.

Instead of the $175 million, 15-year plan proposed by Gov. Jim Douglas in his annual State of the State address, the Senate Appropriations Committee recommended putting $5 million toward college assistance.

Senators would leave it to a 12-member committee to determine how to pay for the program over the long term and whether the aid should come in the form of scholarships, loan forgiveness or something else. A report would be due to the Legislature by Jan. 15, 2007. The initial seed money could not be spent until those issues were addressed.

"I think that's enough money to show we're really serious about it and committed to it," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille.

The issue all along has been how Douglas would pay for the scholarships. Lawmakers say the state can't afford the plan proposed by the governor because the boost in payments through the master settlement agreement of the national tobacco lawsuits already is promised to health care and programs to stop smoking.

The administration accused the Legislature of trying to advance a bill merely to respond to the political pressure Douglas has been putting on it.

"This is not time for studies and fig leaves," said Douglas press secretary Jason Gibbs. "It's time for bold action."

The administration has been threatening for several weeks now to veto the 2007 state budget if lawmakers don't adopt the governor's scholarship plan. His vision requires a long-term program that would get money into the hands of students who will be graduating from high school next spring and heading to college. Without those provisions, the budget still could be in jeopardy, even though the Senate's latest bill is separate from the appropriations bill.

"Gov. Douglas wants to put scholarships into the hands and savings accounts of a thousand families for the next year so they can be absolutely certain those resources exist when they decide where they're going to go to college," Gibbs said. "The Senate proposal is nothing but a stall tactic that fails to deliver what working families need."

Senate GOP backs off from oil tax increase

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, under pressure from business leaders, retreated Monday from a plan that would have used a tax increase on oil companies and other businesses to fund a $100 gasoline rebate for millions of motorists.

Frist, the Tennessee Republican, had proposed an accounting change that would have required oil companies to pay more taxes on their inventory of crude as a way to pay the one-time rebate which GOP leaders rolled out last week as they scrambled to find ways to ease public anger over soaring gasoline prices.

In a statement, Frist said he will still push the rebate, but abandoned the accounting change and said the Senate Finance Committee planned a hearing on the issue in the near future.

Frist gave no indication how the rebate, estimated to cost about $10 billion, will be paid for, although he said he still planned to "find a way to bring our proposals to the Senate floor for a vote."

The rebate proposal, meanwhile, seemed to have little appeal among motorists who would benefit.

Aids to several Republican senators, including some who support the proposal, said Monday they have received generally negative feedback from the public in telephone calls and e-mails.

"There are some who say this is a Band-Aid and they want a real solution. .... There are people who say, `Do you think I can be satisfied so easily,'" said Don Steward, an aide to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. He said almost all of the comments received about the rebate - which Cornyn has characterized as "a theatrical response" - have been negative.

Another Senate staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the senator was among those who have been pushing the GOP energy package, said voters know that with gas costing more than $3 a gallon the rebate likely will pay for only a couple of tanks of gas.

"It's probably one fill-up for a Sequoia," added the aide, referring to the Toyota SUV that gets 15 miles to the gallon in city driving.

But Frist said the rebate "will help people who are emptying their wallets at the pump. ... We've got to help those who are feeling pain ... as quickly as possible." Single taxpayers earning up to $145,950 and married couples earning up to $218,950 would get the rebate in August under the Frist proposal.

The Energy Department reported Monday that the average cost of regular grade gasoline nationwide had increased to $2.92 a gallon with many parts of the country showing prices at more than $3 a gallon.

The tax accounting change involving inventories was the most substantial tax hit Congress has been seriously considering in response to the huge oil industry profits at the time of soaring costs at the pump. The change, applying only to five of the largest oil companies, had been approved by the Senate, but faced strong opposition in the House.

Oil companies waged an intense lobbying effort to block the change.

Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., at an energy conference Monday, called it "nothing more than a backdoor windfall profits tax" and a "very dangerous and very poorly thought out step to take." The change was estimated to increase taxes for the five major oil companies by $4.3 billion over five years.

Frist would have expanded the tax to other industries, which prompted a chorus of protests, prompting his retreat from the proposal. The National Association of Manufacturers and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among others, made known their strong opposition to the inventory taxing change.

Senate Republicans said the rebate is an attempt to counter the Democrats' push for a suspension of the 18.4 cent a gallon gasoline tax for 60 days.

A gasoline tax "holiday" has been proposed by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and embraced by the Democratic leadership as a short-term response to counter the sudden run-up of gas prices.

While one GOP senator, John Thune of South Dakota, introduced his own tax holiday bill, most Republicans oppose the idea.

They argue there's no assurance the tax break - which is collected from refiners - will be passed on to consumers at the pump. If the lost revenue from a tax suspension - estimated at $6 billion - is made up by imposing additional taxes on oil companies, as Democrats envision, there's incentive for companies not to pass the savings on to retailers, said critics of the plan.

Senate panel to weigh regulatory relief Thursday

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - A Senate panel on Thursday will debate a long-anticipated bill aimed at easing oversight of the financial services industry but which excludes many provisions contained in a similar bill approved by the House.

The Senate Banking Committee on Monday said it would hold its mark-up session, where panel members consider various provisions of proposed legislation, on May 4. Any planned amendments to the bill must be submitted by Tuesday afternoon.

While thinner than legislation advanced by the House of Representatives in March, the Senate bill from Republican Michael Crapo of Idaho includes a host of provisions affecting banks, credit unions and savings associations. Many are supported by both the industry and its federal regulators.

The bill would, for example, increase to $500 million from $250 million the asset threshold that qualifies a small bank to be examined every 18 months rather than every year. That would still be below the threshold some regulatory agencies sought.

The Senate bill also would clarify state regulators' authorities.

It would underscore that state regulators have authority for the institutions chartered in their states. Those regulators, known as home state regulators, have primary responsibility for assuring the safety and soundness of financial institutions in their states, under the bill.

Host state regulators -- those in states where banks have a presence but are not based -- must enter cooperative agreements with the bank's home state in order to examine the institution for compliance with host-state laws, under the bill.

Crapo's bill, however, does not include other provisions hoped for by industry, such as a measure that would reduce the number of cash transaction reports that banks must file under the Bank Secrecy Act.

Instead, the Senate legislation would require the U.S. Comptroller General, head of the Government Accountability Office, to study the volume of those cash transaction reports and make recommendations for changes to the filing system.

Another study on the cost and overall regulation of financial services would also be required under the bill.

Industry lobbyists said they expected few amendments would be proposed on Thursday. If advanced out of committee, the legislation would have to be cleared on the Senate floor and then House and Senate negotiators would work out the differences between their bills.

Senate GOP Backs Off From Oil Tax Increase

WASHINGTON

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, under pressure from business leaders, retreated Monday from a plan that would have used a tax increase on oil companies and other businesses to fund a $100 gasoline rebate for millions of motorists.

Frist, the Tennessee Republican, had proposed an accounting change that would have required oil companies to pay more taxes on their inventory of crude as a way to pay the one-time rebate which GOP leaders rolled out last week as they scrambled to find ways to ease public anger over soaring gasoline prices.

In a statement, Frist said he will still push the rebate, but abandoned the accounting change and said the Senate Finance Committee planned a hearing on the issue in the near future.

Frist gave no indication how the rebate, estimated to cost about $10 billion, will be paid for, although he said he still planned to "find a way to bring our proposals to the Senate floor for a vote."

The rebate proposal, meanwhile, seemed to have little appeal among motorists who would benefit.

Aids to several Republican senators, including some who support the proposal, said Monday they have received generally negative feedback from the public in telephone calls and e-mails.

"There are some who say this is a Band-Aid and they want a real solution. .... There are people who say, `Do you think I can be satisfied so easily,'" said Don Steward, an aide to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. He said almost all of the comments received about the rebate _ which Cornyn has characterized as "a theatrical response" _ have been negative.

Another Senate staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the senator was among those who have been pushing the GOP energy package, said voters know that with gas costing more than $3 a gallon the rebate likely will pay for only a couple of tanks of gas.

"It's probably one fill-up for a Sequoia," added the aide, referring to the Toyota SUV that gets 15 miles to the gallon in city driving.

But Frist said the rebate "will help people who are emptying their wallets at the pump. ... We've got to help those who are feeling pain ... as quickly as possible." Single taxpayers earning up to $145,950 and married couples earning up to $218,950 would get the rebate in August under the Frist proposal.

The Energy Department reported Monday that the average cost of regular grade gasoline nationwide had increased to $2.92 a gallon with many parts of the country showing prices at more than $3 a gallon.

The tax accounting change involving inventories was the most substantial tax hit Congress has been seriously considering in response to the huge oil industry profits at the time of soaring costs at the pump. The change, applying only to five of the largest oil companies, had been approved by the Senate, but faced strong opposition in the House.

Oil companies waged an intense lobbying effort to block the change.

Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., at an energy conference Monday, called it "nothing more than a backdoor windfall profits tax" and a "very dangerous and very poorly thought out step to take." The change was estimated to increase taxes for the five major oil companies by $4.3 billion over five years.

Frist would have expanded the tax to other industries, which prompted a chorus of protests, prompting his retreat from the proposal. The National Association of Manufacturers and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among others, made known their strong opposition to the inventory taxing change.

Senate Republicans said the rebate is an attempt to counter the Democrats' push for a suspension of the 18.4 cent a gallon gasoline tax for 60 days.

A gasoline tax "holiday" has been proposed by Sen. Bob Menendez, D- N.J., and embraced by the Democratic leadership as a short-term response to counter the sudden run-up of gas prices.

While one GOP senator, John Thune of South Dakota, introduced his own tax holiday bill, most Republicans oppose the idea.

They argue there's no assurance the tax break _ which is collected from refiners _ will be passed on to consumers at the pump. If the lost revenue from a tax suspension _ estimated at $6 billion _ is made up by imposing additional taxes on oil companies, as Democrats envision, there's incentive for companies not to pass the savings on to retailers, said critics of the plan.

Vermonters deliver impeachment resolutions to Congress

By Shay Totten | Vermont Guardian

WASHINGTON — An effort that began in March culminated Monday when three Vermont communities delivered a message to House Speaker Dennis Hastert: Start the process to impeach Pres. George Bush.

Six Vermont towns passed resolutions on Town Meeting Day calling for Bush’s impeachment. On Monday, Ellen Tenney, a bookstore owner from Rockingham, hand delivered petitions to Hastert, an Illinois Republican.

Neither Hastert nor his chief of staff was there when the office opened, as many members of Congress are not in Washington on Mondays. Tenney described the meeting with Hastert’s staff members who were in the office as “bland and not very friendly.”

She said it should have been no surprise that the petitions would be delivered.

“I had called and told him that we were coming, but I couldn’t get anyone to call me back to set up an actual appointment,” said Tenney, who was joined by representatives from AfterDowningStreet.org and ImpeachPAC.org, two web-based organizations that have been encouraging Bush’s impeachment. She was also joined by Julia DeWalt, daughter of Newfane Selectman Dan DeWalt, and a chief author of that town’s resolution, which sparked interest by other towns in Vermont.

Julia DeWalt handed the first of the petitions, that of Newfane’s, to Hastert’s staff.

“It feels like my child's first steps,” Dan DeWalt told the Guardian, “simultaneously a huge event, and painfully reflective of the enormous distance yet to go.”

After meeting with Hastert’s staff, Tenney delivered copies of the resolutions to Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, and Rep. John Conyers, D-MI, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, where an impeachment probe must originate in Congress.

Tenney said she paid those visits to ensure others in Congress knew of the Vermont towns’ intentions, and to keep them apprised of the process from here.

She hopes to enlist volunteers in the coming weeks to deliver copies of the resolutions to every member of Congress.

Messages left by the Guardian with the offices of Hastert, Conyers and Sanders were not immediately returned.

Tenney said no major media outlets covered the event at Hastert’s office, even though one news organization, Reuters, had said it would send a reporter and photographer.

“In some ways it might have been better to have waited until we had them all in hand, but I think it might be better to have them trickle in from all over the place instead of one big bang, and as the numbers get larger as more resolutions get passed, perhaps the press will start turning their heads,” said Tenney.

She added that she did not expect “wild” or “massive” press coverage. “But, this is the little people, this is the grassroots and going to Conyers office symbolized the coming together of the grassroots with the people on the inside,” she added.

Earlier this year during Town Meeting Day votes, Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro, Newfane, Putney and Brattleboro approved measures calling for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush. Not all were identical, but all were modeled after Newfane’s resolution.

Dan DeWalt said he has hopes of delivering the other Vermont resolutions later this month. Both he and Tenney are working with activists around the country to keep more resolutions coming.

In a separate statement (see below), Dan DeWalt called the petitions “our declaration of independence and battle of Bunker Hill. If the speaker of the House is on the run, let’s give him something to run from and keep a barrage of resolutions and declarations coming his way.”

On Sunday night, Tenney visited the Jefferson Memorial, ceremoniously laying the petitions at the feet of Thomas Jefferson. Many of those calling for Bush’s impeachment are using the Jefferson Manual of rules for the U.S. House of Representatives, which allows state and local governments to initiate impeachment proceedings by submitting charges to Congress.

Aside from these town-level resolutions, measures have been introduced in three state legislatures — California, Illinois and Vermont —calling on Congress to draft articles of impeachment against Pres. Bush.

In Vermont, Rep. Dave Zuckerman, P-Burlington, the lead sponsor of the measure, was joined by 23 of his colleagues, all Progressives and Democrats except for one independent. The bill was introduced on April 25. The bill is currently in the House Judiciary Committee.

Zuckerman’s resolution lays out a broad case for impeachment, ranging from wiretapping U.S. citizens to lying about reasons for going to war in Iraq. It is modeled, in part, after recent resolutions approved by county Democratic committees.

Vermont Democrats earlier this month sidestepped the Legislature in response to a grassroots effort among various county committees to get lawmakers to initiate such proceedings. All 13 county committees voted to support some form of impeachment resolution — eight supported calling on the Legislature to act, four counties voted for an impeachment resolution to go directly to Washington, and one voted to support the censure effort of Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI.

In addition, a letter written by state Rep. Richard Marek, D-Newfane, which was signed by 56 members of the House and 13 members of the Senate, none of them Republicans, also asks the House Judiciary Committee to begin impeachment proceedings. That letter was sent to Hastert last month.

The members of Vermont’s congressional delegation, who are not enthusiastic about impeachment, support hearings that could lead to possible censure.

Statement from Dan DeWalt on the delivery of Vermont’s petitions to impeach Pres. George W. Bush

Mrs. Tenney went to Washington, and the speaker of the House ran for cover

By Dan DeWalt

Three years ago, Pres. George W. Bush stuffed some padding in his pants, flew dramatically onto an aircraft carrier anchored a few hundred yards offshore, and declared “mission accomplished.”

Today, in memory of the thousands who have since died in Iraq, and fulfilling their obligations as citizens to protect the U.S. Constitution, Ellen Tenney and Julia DeWalt presented the first three Vermont town resolutions calling for Congress to impeach the president to the U.S. speaker of the House. Except the speaker was afraid to meet them.

He was afraid to face the naked truth that Congress will now have to be dealing with the wrath and determination of forthright U.S. citizens who are calling their government to accountability. Congress now has to answer to a public that does not rely on timid political advisors, repeating the same outdated and losing conventional wisdom, worrying about potential “backlash” to ideas that are true and to demands that are just.

The night before her scheduled meeting with the speaker, Tenney went to the Jefferson Memorial and laid the petitions at his feet. It is, after all, section 603 of Jefferson’s manual that gives towns the right to bring impeachment resolutions to Congress. From the memorial, Jefferson looks directly at the White House, and we can be assured that he doesn’t like what he sees. Section 603 is a natural outcome of his distrust of an all-powerful executive branch of government. America had just freed itself from the tyranny of King George, and Mr. Jefferson was determined to prevent another one from taking his place.

We see that the so-called opposition politicians, as well as their supporters in the popular and news media, are unwilling to take seriously their duty to uphold the Constitution.

Therefore, we must step into the breach and take action before the nation sinks under the weight of corruption, corporate domination and creeping fascism. Some nations have proud histories of “peoples’ revolutions” wresting power from corrupt governments from the Philippines to South America to Eastern Europe. Tens of thousands would take to the streets and stay there. Or most of the nation would go on strike, or as www.therudeguy.com puts it, they all call in “well,” saying I’m not sick, but I’m not working until you and your lousy government are out of here.

For whatever reason, America today is not ready for those sorts of mass actions. When massive protests greeted the Iraq war, they were met with a collective yawn and a few dismissive jokes by the government and the media. Protests just aren’t seen as part of the process.

Impeachment however, is absolutely part of the process. Correctly worded impeachment resolutions must be passed from the speaker to the Judiciary Committee. If only one member of the House brings one of these resolutions to the floor, the House must debate it. Thanks to Jefferson we have the power to force this conversation. The time for a constitutional People’s Revolution is at hand.

The March town meetings followed by The May 1 delivery of the petitions/resolutions are our declaration of independence and battle of Bunker Hill. If the Speaker of the House is on the run, let’s give him something to run from and keep a barrage of resolutions and declarations coming his way.

Now is the time to take your senators and House representatives to task for not upholding their obligations to the country and its Constitution. Now is the time to write letters to the editor demanding that we begin a national conversation about the rule of law. Now is the time that we demand that morality and truth take center stage in our governance.

Thomas Jefferson said that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants. Charlie Parker said, “Now’s the Time.”

Japan, US agree to US troop realignment by 2014

TOKYO, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Japan and the United States agreed on a sweeping plan to realign the U.S. military presence in Japan by 2014, though no overall expense was released, Kyodo News reported from Washington on Monday.

The U.S.-Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation, providing details and timelines for implementing a package of realignment steps, was announced after a meeting in Washington between Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso, Defense Agency Director General Fukushiro Nukaga and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The plan notes that Japan will bear all construction and other costs for facilities for the realignment unless otherwise specified, while the U.S. side will bear the operational costs. However, the plan does not include a figure for the total expense.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was in Ghana on a visit, expressed satisfaction with the new agreement, saying it will serve to reinforce the bilateral alliance.

According to the roadmap, 8,000 of some 18,000 U.S. Marines in Okinawa and their 9,000 family members will be moved to Guam by 2014, with Japan shouldering 6.09 billion U.S. dollars, or 59 percent, of the estimated 10.27 billion dollars.

An airfield with two 1,800-meter runways will be built in Nago also by 2014 in order to realize the stalled relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station's heliport functions from downtown Ginowan, both in Okinawa, though no exact date was given for closing down Futenma.

Besides, U.S. carrier-borne aircraft will be relocated from Atsugi Air Base in Kanagawa prefecture just outside Tokyo to Iwakuni Air Base in Yamaguchi prefecture by 2014 to disperse the burden of flight drills. Iwakuni will also be the host for KC-130 air tankers from Futenma.

The U.S. Army Japan's headquarters in Camp Zama in Kanagawa prefecture will also be upgraded to a joint task force-capable command by September 2009 and its Ground Self-Defense Force counterpart command will be moved to the same camp by March 2013.

The plan also included specifications as to the shared use of U.S. bases by the Self-Defense Force (SDF) for training as early as beginning this year and the sharing of data after the U.S. military sets up an X-band radar system for ballistic missile early warning at an SDF air base in Aomori Prefecture.

American troops have been stationed in Japan since the end of World War II in 1945. Currently, there are about 50,000 U.S troops located in Japan. Local residents have long complained of crime, noise and crowding associated with the U.S. military presence.

Tokyo and Washington preliminarily approved an overall realignment package on the U.S. military presence in Japan in October 2005. However, disagreements on cost sharing and others have kept them from nailing down the whole implementation plan before a March 31 deadline, as decided in October 2005.

Details of some issues mentioned in the October accord, such as the return of some 1,500 hectares of land from U.S. bases in Okinawa, are yet to be finalized, according to Kyodo.

Students suspended for 'anti-gay' shirts
Considering lawsuit over message 'Homosexuality is sin'

A dozen high school students suspended for wearing T-shirts expressing their religious beliefs are considering filing a lawsuit.

The students at Oakmont High School in the Sacramento, Calif., suburb of Roseville were participants in an event Thursday at more than 700 high schools across the nation to counter the homosexual-activist "Day of Silence," called the "Day of Truth."

The Oakmont students came to school Thursday with shirts emblazoned with the message: "Homosexuality is sin. Jesus can set you free."

School officials gave them an ultimatum: Remove the shirts or face disciplinary action. Thirteen students decided to keep their shirts on and were suspended for two days.

Kathleen Sirovy, principal of Oakmont High School, insisted the school's actions were justified as many students "were upset" because the shirts "were rude."

The non-profit legal group representing the students, Pacific Justice Institute, or PJI, said the school "did not address whether religious students might have been equally offended by pro-homosexual expression connected with the Day of Silence."

The 12 students have filed appeals of their suspensions with school district officials and are considering filing a lawsuit, PJI said.

Kevin Snider, the group's chief counsel, said PJI is committed "to providing a vigorous defense of these students' First Amendment rights."

Students at other area schools were suspended for similar actions, PJI said, including at Mira Loma High School in Sacramento and San Juan High School in nearby Citrus Heights.

Some supporters of the "Day of Silence" also questioned whether school officials were justified in silencing the opposition.

Lance Chih, a high school student and co-chairman of the Sacramento Regional Gay Straight Alliance, told the Sacramento Bee newspaper, "If they're stating their own belief that homosexuality is wrong, that's not promoting hate or violence against us. If I want to promote my civil rights, I can't tell another group of students that they can't do it."

PJI President Brad Dacus said "tolerance must be a two-way street."

"Our society cannot afford the suppression of religious viewpoints just because some people disagree with or don't like those views," he said.

The number of participants in the "Day of Truth" has doubled over last year, according to the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which sponsored the event.

ADF President, CEO and General Counsel Alan Sears sees the "Day of Truth" as an opportunity to express a different perspective than the "Day of Silence," promoted by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educational Network.

"Allowing the communication of one viewpoint and claiming it's the only viewpoint is advocating, not educating," Sears said.

Meanwhile, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a lower-court ruling against a San Diego-area high school student who wore a T-shirt displaying the messages: "Homosexuality is shameful" and "Our school embraced what God has condemned."

In his majority opinion, Judge Stephen Reinhardt ruled the student's constitutional rights were not violated because the message on his shirt was offensive to homosexual students. Reinhardt has been involved in other controversial rulings, deciding last year parents have no "fundamental right" to exclusively provide information to their children about sexual matters and in 2002 concluding the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because of its reference to "under God."

Post Office Proposes 3-Cent Rate Increase

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Postal Service said Wednesday it wants to raise the price of a first-class stamp by 3 cents - to 42 cents - and suggested a "forever" stamp that people could use as hedge against future rate inflation.

The changes would take effect in the spring of 2007 if approved by the independent Postal Rate Commission.

"A forever stamp would help ease the transition to any future price adjustments," board Chairman James C. Miller III said.

Postmaster General John E. Potter said the agency would not be making a rate change if it were not necessary.

"The Postal Service is not immune to the cost pressures affecting every household and business in America," Potter said.

For example, each penny increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline costs the post office $8 million, and payroll, health expenses and other costs also have been rising.

And, unlike private delivery companies, the post office cannot simply add a fuel surcharge to its rates.

The forever stamp would help soften the blow of a rate increase by allowing customers to stock up. As originally proposed it would sell for the first class rate and, once purchased, the special stamp would remain valid for whatever the first-class rate is when it is used, regardless of future increases.

Once the post office proposes a rate change, including the new stamp, the matter goes to the Postal Rate Commission, which holds hearings and has 10 months to consider the matter before responding.

The earliest a change would take effect would be May 2007.

The cost of a first-class stamp went from 37 cents to 39 cents in January. Before that, the price had been unchanged since 2002.

The proposed increase would boost the price of mailing a letter to 42 cents.

The increase in January was required so the post office could place some $3 billion in an escrow account, a step required in law.

The House and Senate have both passed bills to eliminate that requirement and efforts are under way to resolve differences between the two versions, but it also faces the threat of a presidential veto.

Since that increase went into the escrow account, the Postal Service still must cover rising costs of fuel, salaries, equipment and other expenses.

In addition to its own fuel expenses, the post office has about 70,000 employees who use their own vehicles and are reimbursed for fuel costs, and there are some 17,000 contractors whose rates are adjusted for rising fuel costs.

Overall, the Postal Service expects to finish this fiscal year about $2 billion in the red.

While a 3-cent increase in first-class stamps would be the most visible change, rates will change for other types of mail also.

For example, it currently costs 63 cents to mail a two-ounce first-class item whether it's a letter, large flat envelope or package. But the post office makes more than 30 cents on the letter, 10 cents on the flat and loses money on the package.

That means the agency will be looking at shape as well as weight in setting new rates, officials have said, particularly in the face of a decline in first-class mail as more people pay bills and send messages via the Internet.

Congress mandated the escrow requirement in 2003 when it passed a law reducing the amount of money the agency has to pay into its retirement system, which auditors said was being overfunded. Instead, Congress ordered the money to be used to reduce debt and, when that was done, to be put into the escrow fund.

The White House has opposed the release of the money from the fund because placing it there counts as income for the federal government and releasing it would have the effect of raising the deficit.

Bill to ban 'mom, dad'
from texts advances
California law would remove sex-specific terms
from books, mandate pro-homosexual lessons

A bill requiring students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society and that would remove sex-specific terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks has passed another hurdle on the way to becoming the law of the land in California.

Having already been approved by the state's Senate Judiciary Committee, SB 1437, which would mandate grades 1-12 buy books "accurately" portraying "the sexual diversity of our society," got the nod yesterday of the Senate Education Committee.

The bill also requires students hear history lessons on "the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America."

"This bill is the most extreme effort thus far to transform our public schools into institutions of indoctrination that disregard all notions of the traditional family unit," said Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Institute. "SB 1437 seeks to eliminate all 'stereotypes' of the traditional family so that young children are brainwashed into believing that families with moms and dads are irrelevant."

SB 1437 not only affects textbooks and instructional materials for kindergarten and grades 1-12, it also affects all school-sponsored activities.

"School-sponsored activities include everything from cheerleading and sports activities to the prom," said England. "Under SB 1437 school districts would likely be prohibited from having a 'prom king and queen' because that would show bias based on gender and sexual orientation."

England also says the bill would likely do away with dress codes and would force the accommodation of transsexuals on girl-specific or boy-specific sports teams.

England says the measure amounts to unneeded social experimentation.

"SB 1437 disregards the religious and moral convictions of parents and students and will result in reverse discrimination," she said.

Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl – a lesbian actress best known for playing Zelda in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in the 1960s – the legislation would add "gender" (actual or perceived) and "sexual orientation" to the law that prohibits California public schools from having textbooks, teaching materials, instruction or "school-sponsored activities" that reflect adversely upon people based on characteristics like race, creed and handicap.

"We've been working since 1995 to try to improve the climate in schools for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids, as well as those kids who are just thought to be gay, because there is an enormous amount of harassment and discrimination at stake," Kuehl explained. "Teaching materials mostly contain negative or adverse views of us, and that's when they mention us at all."

"In textbooks, it's as if there's no gay people in California at all, so forget about it," she added.

Did another Kennedy
get another road pass?
Patrick blames wreck on prescription drug,
bar hostess says congressman was drinking

WASHINGTON – Has another Kennedy received special treatment by police after another suspicious car wreck?

That's the question on everyone's lips in the nation's capital today following a report that Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., wrecked his car while admittedly under the influence of a prescription drug.

As Kennedy tells the story, "I never asked for any preferential treatment." Asked whether he received it, he said "that's up for the police to decide."

He also says he had taken a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness, but consumed no alcohol, before crashing his car near the Capitol.

However, a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill bar, the Hawk 'n' Dove, told the Boston Herald she saw Kennedy drinking in the hours before the crash.

"He was drinking a little bit," said the woman, who would not give her name.

Late last night as he left his office, Kennedy refused to say whether he had been to the Hawk 'n' Dove the night before, the paper reported.

A Herald reporter who visited bars where Kennedy is known to socialize said a bartender at the Tune Inn, next to the Hawk 'n' Dove, also said Kennedy was spotted in the Hawk 'n' Dove Wednesday.

The bar's manager, Edgar Gutierrez, said Kennedy is a regular, according to the Boston paper. Gutierrez said he was working Wednesday night but did not see the congressman.

In a statement explaining his actions, Kennedy said the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestines.

Kennedy said that after working Wednesday evening he went home and took "prescribed" amounts of Phenergan and Ambien, another drug that he sometimes takes to fall asleep.

In his statement, Kennedy said he was apparently disoriented from the drugs when he got up a little before 3 a.m. Thursday and drove to the Capitol thinking he needed to be present for a vote.

"Following the last series of votes on Wednesday evening, I returned to my home on Capitol Hill and took the prescribed amount of Phenergan and Ambien," Kennedy said. "Some time around 2:45 a.m., I drove the few blocks to the Capitol Complex believing I needed to vote. Apparently, I was disoriented from the medication."

"At no time before the incident did I consume any alcohol," said Kennedy, going on to address questions about why he was not asked to take a sobriety test. "At the time of the accident, I was instructed to park my car and was driven home by the United States Capitol Police. At no time did I ask for any special consideration, I simply complied with what the officers asked me to do."

"I have the utmost respect for the United States Capitol Police and the job they do to keep Members of Congress and the Capitol Complex safe," he continued. "I have contacted the Chief of Capitol Police and offered to meet with police representatives at their earliest convenience as I intend to cooperate fully with any investigation they choose to undertake."

But some are questioning the incident and the way it was handled by police.

Louis P. Cannon, president of the Washington chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, who was not on the scene, said the congressman had appeared intoxicated when he crashed his Ford Mustang into a barrier on Capitol Hill.

"The officers on the scene, it is my understanding, smelled alcohol. And based on his demeanor and their experience, believed him to be intoxicated," Cannon told CBS News.

Cannon also says officers at the scene were instructed by an official "above the rank of patrolman" to take Kennedy home.

A letter written by Capitol Police officer Greg Baird to Acting Chief Christopher McGaffin said Kennedy appeared to be staggering when he left the vehicle after the crash about 3 a.m. The letter was first reported by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper.

Baird wrote McGaffin that two sergeants who responded to the accident conferred with the watch commander and were ordered to leave the scene.

He said that after the officers left, Capitol Police officials gave Kennedy a ride home.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., is still remembered for his famous Chappaquiddick driving accident in 1969 in which Mary Jo Kopechne was killed when the car the senator was driving went off a bridge.

No autopsy was ever performed to determine her exact cause of death.

At the time, Kennedy claimed he tried several times to swim down to reach Kopechne to no avail. He came under fire for not reporting the incident to authorities until the next morning. In the interim he reportedly made an effort to call a family legal adviser.

Study: U.S. double-billed for Katrina work
Democrats blame Corps of Engineers for lax oversight of contractors

WASHINGTON - Contractors who were paid billions of dollars for post-Hurricane Katrina cleanup double-billed the government for debris removal, overstated mileage claims to get extra fees and inflated prices by improperly mixing debris, a Democratic study revealed Thursday.

Rep. Henry Waxman, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, compiled the report and blamed the U.S. Corps of Engineers for lax oversight of contractors.

The Corps’ director of civil works, Maj. Gen. Don Riley, defended his agency’s performance, telling a committee hearing that the Corps deployed the auditors who found the problems and are trying to recoup the money.

The report said contractors sometimes billed twice for removing the same debris and, in other cases, took advantage of extra payments of $2 per cubic yard for debris carried more than 15 miles. Auditors found mileage was overstated in more than 50 percent of the 303 trips they examined.

Contractors fraudulently mixed green waste with construction and demolition debris to inflate their billings by $2.84 per cubic yard, the report said.

Other instances of fraud found by auditors, Waxman’s report said, included double billing for housing trailers and abuse of government-issued credit cards.

In blaming the Corps, the report said the Army’s officials “regularly credited contractors with hauling more debris to dumps than they actually carried.” Auditors found that the Corps’ assessments of contractor performance were “overly generous,” “unusually high,” “more on the liberal side,” “often very liberal” and “consistently on the high side.”

The Corps also was blamed for allowing inflated charges in more than $300 million in contracts for temporary roof repairs using blue plastic sheeting.

Contractors indicted for fraud
Riley, of the Corps, said such problems were “exactly what I asked our auditors to find.” He said payments were withheld until the charges could be verified and the government has indicted several contractors on fraud charges.

Waxman asked Matt Jadacki, special inspector general for Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery, whether Corps officials were doing their jobs to prevent fraud.

“We found some cases where there were no monitors,” Jadacki said.

Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., said that Congress approved more than $63 billion for disaster relief, and ultimate recovery expenses may top $200 billion.

Davis said many of the contracts were awarded without competition, but government officials at the hearing said these contracts are being replaced with competitive awards.

Davis said the sole-source contracts allowed an “unprecedented opportunity for fraud and mismanagement.”

Senate panel approves flag-protection amendment

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel yesterday advanced a proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. The amendment reads: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

The measure was approved on a 6-3 vote of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, led by Kansas Republican Sam Brownback.

The House already has passed the amendment. Assessments differ on how likely the full Senate is to pass it. Although the 58 Senate co-sponsors are nine short of the two-thirds majority required to send constitutional amendments to the states, additional senators are likely to vote for the flag amendment, possibly putting it on the verge of passing.

Once a constitutional amendment is sent to the states, approval by three-fourths of the state legislatures is needed for ratification. All 50 state legislatures have already signaled they would approve such an amendment.

When the Senate last voted on a similar measure in 2000, 63 members voted in favor and 37 against, just four votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed. Brownback said he was not sure whether enough lawmakers would support the measure this time.

The Supreme Court in 1989 issued the first of two 5-4 decisions declaring that flag desecration amounts to free speech protected by the First Amendment. (The 1989 decision was Texas v. Johnson; the second ruling was 1990's U.S. v. Eichman.) Free-speech advocates say a constitutional prohibition on flag-burning would be censorship.

"Make no mistake, we are talking here about modifying the Constitution of the United States to permit the government to criminalize conduct that, however misguided and wrong, is clearly expressive and sometimes undertaken as a form of political protest," said Sen. Russ Feingold, ranking Democrat on the panel.

But Brownback defended his push for passage of the amendment, saying a prohibition against desecration of the flag "merely prohibits certain types of conduct, not a particular idea."

Rep. Patrick Kennedy to Enter Drug Rehab

By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Rep. Patrick Kennedy said Friday he was entering treatment for addiction to prescription pain drugs after a middle-of-the-night car crash near the Capitol that he said he had no memory of. "That's not how I want to live my life," he declared.

Kennedy, D-R.I., the son of Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), said he would seek immediate treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

His one-car accident about 3 a.m. Thursday was the talk of the capital, with police saying he appeared to be intoxicated but Kennedy saying later that day that he had had nothing to drink.

For Kennedy, who said he has suffered from depression and pain-medication addiction for years, the trip to the Mayo Clinic was his second in less than five months. He went there over Christmas and said he returned to Congress "reinvigorated and healthy."

"I've been fighting this chronic disease since I was a young man, and have aggressively and periodically sought treatment so that I can live a full and productive life," he said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

"Of course, in every recovery, each day has its ups and downs, but I have been strong, focused and productive since my return," Kennedy said.

Kennedy said he realized he needed to seek treatment again after he crashed his car. Capitol Police cited him with three traffic violations and said Friday their investigation was continuing. Kennedy promised to cooperate with police.

The accident sparked allegations that Kennedy was drinking and had received special treatment by police. He said he could not recall the accident.

"I simply do not remember getting out of bed, being pulled over by the police, or being cited for three driving infractions," Kennedy said. "That's not how I want to live my life. And that's not how I want to represent the people of Rhode Island."

Kennedy, 38, a nephew of President Kennedy, was elected to Congress in 1994. As he left the lectern Friday, he shook his head no when asked if he might resign. "I need to stay in the fight," he said. He did not take other questions.

As a high school senior, the congressman was treated at a drug rehabilitation clinic before he went to Providence College. He has said he wants to end the stigma of mental health problems, and he has been praised by mental health professionals for being open about his struggles with depression, alcoholism and substance abuse.

"I hope that my openness today and in the past, and my acknowledgment that I need help, will give others the courage to get help if they need it," he said Friday.

The congressman's father issued a statement saying he was proud of his son for admitting his problem and taking steps to correct it.

"He has taken full responsibility for events that occurred ... and he will continue to cooperate fully with any investigation," the elder Kennedy said.

According to the police report, Patrick Kennedy drove his green 1997 Ford Mustang convertible into a security barrier near the Capitol. The officer listed alcohol influence as a contributing factor in the crash and noted that Kennedy was "ability impaired," with red, watery eyes, slurred speech and unsteady balance.

However, Kennedy said that he took a sleeping pill and another drug that can cause drowsiness before the accident but had not been drinking alcohol.

Kennedy told the police officer he was "headed to the Capitol to make a vote," the report said. He was cited for failure to keep in the proper lane, traveling at "unreasonable speed" and failing to "give full time and attention" to operating his vehicle.

Kennedy spokeswoman Robin Costello acknowledged the police report but said in an e-mailed message, "The congressman has not been presented with those traffic tickets."

Louis P. Cannon, president of the Washington chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, who was not on the scene, said the officers involved in the accident were instructed by an official "above the rank of patrolman" to take Kennedy home and that no sobriety tests were conducted at the scene.

"I never asked for any preferential treatment," Kennedy told reporters as he left his congressional office Thursday night.

It was Kennedy's second auto crash in three weeks. His car struck the rear passenger door of a car while he was making a left turn from a roadway into a pharmacy in Portsmouth, R.I., according to a police report on the April 15 accident. No injuries were reported and Kennedy was not cited.

In the Capitol Hill accident, police observed Kennedy's car, with no headlights on, swerve into the wrong lane and strike a curb. Kennedy nearly hit a police car, the report said, and did not respond to the officer's efforts to pull him over. He continued at a slower speed before hitting a security barrier head-on, the report said.

Kennedy said that he'd gone home Wednesday evening after work and had taken "the prescribed amount" of Phenergan, a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness, and Ambien, a sleep medication.

The attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on May 2 to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestines. According to the drug's label, Phenergan can increase the effects of sleep medicines such as Ambien.

Kennedy was prescribed Ambien on April 25 for insomnia, according to a statement from Dr. John F. Eisold, the attending physician for Congress. Kennedy's office released the statement.

Ambien comes with a warning to patients that it can cause confusion, strange behavior and hallucinations. Also, it is to be taken only when patients have time for a full eight hours of sleep, allowing its effects to wear off, according to its Food and Drug Administration-approved label.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy to Enter Drug Rehab (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060505/ap_on_go_co/patrick_kennedy;_ylt=AoRdjsnQ84oqW34iabU7dFwb.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-)

Congress Opposes Ethanol Tax Change

WASHINGTON — Farm-state lawmakers say they're prepared to fight vigorously any attempt to remove the 54-cent tariff on imported ethanol even though demand for the additive is growing as refiners use more of it in gasoline.

President Bush made clear his desire to boost ethanol supplies _ and to try to generate more imports _ at a meeting on energy with a bipartisan group of lawmakers this week.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said that while the administration "will continue to consider" ways to boost imports, including removing the tariff, "it's largely a congressional matter."

"The president has encouraged Congress to examine all alternatives for increasing the available supplies of ethanol, and we will continue to do that," Bodman said.

Oil companies have attributed part of the recent increase in gasoline prices _ as much as 8 cents a gallon, according to some estimates _ to refiners shifting from MTBE as a gas additive to corn-based ethanol.

MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, has been found to contaminate water supplies, which prompted a rash of lawsuits. Congress last summer required a ramping up of ethanol use to 4 billion gallons this year and 7.5 billion gallons by 2012.

The sudden switch caused some ethanol supply concerns from refiners _ and, in turn, more talk about finding ways to increase imports, which totaled 135 million gallons last year.

"Congress can bring down prices by cutting the tax on imported ethanol," Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., maintains. He has introduced a bill that would suspend the 54-cent import tax for the rest of the year.

Congress seems in no mood to tamper with the tax, which is strongly supported by farm-state lawmakers, including some of the most powerful on Capitol Hill.

"It's a step in the wrong direction," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Friday. He is chairman of the Finance Committee, which would consider any change in the tariff. "It would send a signal that we're backing away from our own efforts to seek energy independence."

The panel's top Democrat, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., also said that a change in the tax would be a mistake. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., whose state has the biggest ethanol producer, Archer Daniels Midland, also opposes a tax change.

If the administration tries to move on its own, says Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., whose state is another center of ethanol production, "they would run into a big fight in Congress."

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said that at the White House and in some corners of Congress "there's positive sentiment" for finding ways to get more ethanol imports but "nothing precise."

A leading producer of ethanol is Brazil, which presumably would be the source of more supply. But Brazil has its own gasoline supply concerns and it's not certain how much additional fuel it would be able to provide.

Many energy experts also believe that the ethanol concerns are temporary and that the problems have had less to do with a shortage of the additive than other factors associated with the switch.

It "required changes all along the supply chain, different suppliers, different transportation, and different locations for blending. Normally, a change like that is done over several years," says energy consultant Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research.

Yergin predicted that the transition _ and any resulting price impact _ of the ethanol shift is likely to be over before the heavy summer driving season sets in.

"Right now we don't seem to be having any problems," said Charles Drevna, executive vice president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. He said the group hasn't taken a position on the ethanol import tax.

The ethanol industry says there's plenty of the fuel and that more is on the way with new plants to come on line this year.

"We don't need increased imports," said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents the ethanol producers.

Hartwig said that nearly 5 billion gallons of ethanol will be produced this year and that the industry capacity is expected to approach 6 billion barrels by the end of the year, more than enough to meet refinery demands.

Congress member signs bill against Pentagon's gay policy

California Democratic Representative, Susan Davis has signed on as a co-sponsor of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a bill to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members.

Ms Davis, whose district includes parts of San Diego, became the 115th Member of Congress to co-sponsor the legislation.

"Congresswoman Davis's support is especially noteworthy because of her large military constituency," said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN).

"San Diego is home to more than 21,000 lesbian and gay veterans and more than 317,000 military personnel. Congresswoman Davis carries enormous respect with military leaders in her district. Her sponsorship of this legislation sends a clear message that repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is in the best interest of our armed forces."

The Military Readiness Enhancement Act was introduced in March 2005 by Massachusetts’s Democratic Representative Marty Meehan. It is currently pending at the House Armed Services Committee, where Congresswoman Davis is a member.

"While reviewing this bill, I examined the issue of gays and lesbians in the military closely and consulted with the diverse stakeholders in this important topic," she said in a statement.

"As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I also take my responsibility to ensure the highest level of military readiness very seriously. Over the course of the last year, I questioned high-ranking members of the armed forces, active duty military personnel, veterans, military families, members of the LGBT community, my congressional colleagues and other interested groups.

“These exchanges helped me to understand and ultimately dismiss the argument that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military would negatively impact military readiness, as some have stated. After consulting this diverse sounding board, it is clear to me that the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy is a political invention that does not serve the real needs of our armed forces and should be repealed."

Court rules for librarian fired over Sunday work
Argued her religious beliefs prevented her from coming in that day

A federal district court ruled in favor of a Christian librarian who was fired after she requested to have Sundays off because of her religious beliefs.

A jury awarded Constance Rehm of Missouri damages for back pay, according to the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund

"This ruling is very important in making sure that people of faith are not treated as second-class citizens," said ADF Litigation Counsel David LaPlante.

LaPlante said employers "have a responsibility to respect the religious beliefs of their employees and to make reasonable accommodations."

"This decision, along with the award of monetary compensation to the Christian librarian who lost her job, is very encouraging," he said.

As WorldNetDaily reported, ADF and the Christian Law Association filed the case against the Rolling Hills Consolidated Library in August 2004 after Rehmm was fired the previous May.

Library officials claim they made an attempt to accommodate Rehm by allowing a part-time employee to volunteer to work for her on Sundays, in return for her working on Saturdays.

But her attorneys called it a "smokescreen," arguing the library did not allow sufficient time for other employees to volunteer.

The library also stated, the lawyers pointed out, that even if someone volunteered, the request wouldn't necessarily have been approved.

Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act states an employee's request for accommodation based upon a sincere religious belief can only be denied if the employer can demonstrate that the request would cause undue hardship.

The lawsuit claimed the library has not made its case for denying Rehm’s request and went too far in firing her for insubordination.

"Not only did the library fail to make its case for denying this librarian's request, library officials crossed the line in firing her for insubordination," said LaPlante.

He said the library "should not require an employee to violate her conscience, effectively forcing her to choose between her religious beliefs and her job."

McClellan: 'Don't know facts' about Kennedy crash
Spokesman also declines comment on Navy chaplain facing court-martial

Today, presidential press secretary Scott McClellan, at the last White House press briefing of his tenure, had little to say about the accident Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., had yesterday morning on Capitol Hill.

Kennedy said today he is departing this afternoon for Minnesota's Mayo Clinic to receive treatment for an ongoing addiction – this after questions were raised about his possibly receiving special treatment by police after the suspicious car wreck.

WND was the only reporter in a packed briefing room to ask about the Kennedy controversy.

Asked WND: "There are reports of further misconduct by Congressman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island including driving at night with car lights off, nearly colliding with a police car, smashing a security barrier, emerging from the vehicle staggering, and telling officers he's a congressman late to a vote at 2:45 a.m., six hours after the House had adjourned. As spokesman for the nation's chief law enforcement, why wasn't this congressman subjected to sobriety testing since he was involved in another car accident two weeks before in Rhode Island?"

Responded McClellan: "I think that's a matter to refer to the appropriate law enforcement officials or the congressman's office."

"But the chief law enforcement, you're his spokesman," pressed WND.

"We don't know the facts. We do not know the facts relating to this, Les," said the spokesman.

Kennedy said this afternoon he is suffering the "reoccurrence of an addiction problem," which can be "triggered by things that happen in everyday life" such as taking the anti-nausea drug he requires for a chronic illness. The lawmaker said he did not remember getting in his car and driving to the Capitol.

WND also asked McClellan about the case of Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, a Navy chaplain who has been charged with disobeying orders after wearing his uniform at a press conference outside the White House.

"Yesterday, the president prayed with those gathered inside the White House for the National Day of Prayer," WND said, "yet Chaplain Klingenschmitt faces a possible court-martial for attending a press conference outside the White House in uniform in which he prayed. And my question, will the president ask the secretary of the Navy to dismiss the charge against the chaplain so he can freely pray –"

Interrupted McClellan: "Les, I think this gets into area of chain of command matters of which I cannot get into. … There are rules in place when it comes to issues like this relating to the military. So I don't think I can comment further on that matter."

Gay couple can't contest marriage definition

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court today dismissed a challenge by two Orange County men to a law denying federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples, saying a couple that isn't legally married under state law has no right to contest the federal definition of marriage.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached the result urged by gay-rights groups, which opposed the federal suit because they are trying to overturn California's marriage law in state court.

The appeals court also refused to consider the constitutionality of the state's ban on same-sex marriage, saying it should be addressed first by the California courts.

The central issue in the case was the validity of the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton. The law reserved federal marriage benefits -- joint tax filing, Social Security survivors' benefits, immigration status and numerous other marital rights -- to opposite-sex couples. Another provision allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages that were performed in another state or a foreign nation.

Both the federal law and the state law were challenged in a 2004 suit by Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer of Mission Viejo after they were twice denied a marriage license. The men, both 46, have been together since 1997. They argued that the laws violate their constitutional rights of equal protection, privacy and freedom of association.

A federal judge upheld the federal law last June after ruling that Smelt and Hammer had the legal standing to challenge the law because they had registered as domestic partners with the state. Unbeknownst to the judge, however, the two had notified the state in December 2004 that they were dissolving their domestic partnership and wanted to be recognized as a married couple.

The suit has drawn protests from organized supporters of same-sex marriage -- Equality California, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, as well as the city of San Francisco. They fear that federal court litigation could lead to an early and unfavorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reinforces current marriage laws. Those groups and the city are awaiting a hearing before a state appeals court in San Francisco on the constitutionality of the California law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

In today's ruling, the appeals court panel said a court can decide the constitutionality of a federal law only if it is being challenged by someone who can show he or she is being harmed by the law. That's not true of Smelt and Hammer, the court said, because their own state does not define their relationship as marriage.

"Their attack on (the Defense of Marriage Act) ... is one that every taxpayer and citizen in the country could theoretically bring on the basis that the definition does not include some favorite grouping within the definition of marriage,'' said Judge Ferdinand Fernandez in the 3-0 ruling. If an unmarried couple has the right to sue because they are denied federal marriage benefits, he said, any two friends, a single person or even a corporation would also have standing to file the same suit.

The ruling leaves the federal marriage law in place. But Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights -- which opposes the federal law as well as the California marriage law -- said his organization was "pleased and relieved'' that the court ordered the suit dismissed.

Minter said Smelt and Hammer should drop the suit and "join in the effort to keep educating Californians and keep making progress on the issue in California.'' But the couple and their lawyer have indicated that they were prepared to take their case to the Supreme Court.

City to consider taking land from Wal-Mart
Prime bay property could be seized by eminent domain

The Hercules City Council will consider whether to use eminent domain to wrest a 17-acre property from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after the nation's largest retailer rejected a city offer to buy the site with views of San Pablo Bay, city officials said Thursday.

The council asked that a "resolution of necessity'' be brought to it for discussion, City Manager Mike Sakamoto said. The matter has been put on the council's May 23 agenda. Efforts to reach council members about Thursday's announcement were unsuccessful.

Wal-Mart bought the property overlooking central Hercules in November after another developer received city approvals for a neighborhood shopping center.

In February, city planners recommended denying Wal-Mart's proposal for a big-box store on its property, saying the plan was not in keeping with what had been approved for the location, which commands a view of one of the Bay Area's most vaunted New Urbanist communities, with pedestrian-oriented streets and large open-space set-asides, as well as sweeping views of the bay.

The company withdrew its application before it went to the city Planning Commission. In response, the City Council voted to make an offer for the land for an undisclosed amount of money.

On March 31, however, Wal-Mart submitted a new application that it said substantially conforms to city requirements. The same day the company submitted its revised proposal, Councilwoman Charleen Raines was hardly welcoming, although she said she had not read it.

"What the council has said is that we want to buy the property,'' she said, describing the tussle with Wal-Mart as a "David and Goliath'' struggle. "At this point, we're concerned about moving ahead on this property. It's been hanging over us for a long time.''

Wal-Mart's new proposal, which is still hotly opposed by some residents, calls for a general retail and grocery store, as well as a pedestrian plaza, two outdoor dining areas and other small shops and general merchandise stores, including a pharmacy.

"We're disappointed that the city is really playing politics with the future of Hercules rather than looking at the big picture,'' company spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said.

"Many residents of the city who we've talked to are frustrated and anxious for this much-needed retail project to move forward.''

Bush Turns to Gen. Hayden to Lead CIA

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush chooses Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to lead the embattled CIA on Monday despite criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike about a military officer taking over the helm of the civilian spy agency.

"Mike Hayden is extremely qualified for this position," Bush said in the Oval Office, with Hayden at his side. "He knows the intelligence community from the ground up."

Earlier Monday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley defended the decision to tap a military officer to head the CIA.

"He'll be reporting to the president of the United States, not Don Rumsfeld," the secretary of defense, said Hadley. Other military officers have led the CIA, Hadley said. "So the precedents are clear."

To balance the CIA between military and civilian leadership, the White House plans to move aside the agency's No. 2 official, Vice Admiral Albert Calland III, who took over as deputy director less than a year ago, two senior administration officials said. Other personnel changes also are likely, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the changes are not ready to announce.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was concerned that Hayden's nomination would detract from the real issue of intelligence reform.

"The debate in the Senate may end up being about the terrorist surveillance program and not about the future of the CIA or the intelligence community, which is exactly where the debate needs to be," Hoekstra said on CBS'"The Early Show."

"This is about whether we still have alignment and agreement between the executive branch and Congress as to where intelligence reform needs to go," he said.

Hadley made the rounds of morning television shows to defend Hayden's selection. "We think the issue is getting the best man for the job and the president has determined that Mike Hayden is the best man for the job," Hadley told The Associated Press.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Hayden would be the fifth CIA chief in uniform. "He has been viewed as a non-comformist and an independent thinker," Bartlett said.

Hadley said that any nominee to lead the CIA would face questions about the controversial domestic surveillance program by the National Security Agency and that Hayden, the former director of the agency, was the best man to answer those questions.

If Hayden were confirmed, military officers would run all the major spy agencies, from the ultra-secret National Security Agency to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Hoekstra's sentiment was echoed by Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, who said that Hayden's military background would be a "major problem," and several Democrats who made the rounds of the Sunday television talk shows. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Hayden could leave agents with the impression that the CIA has been "just gobbled up by the Defense Department."

Some lawmakers, like Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, suggested that he might think about resigning his military post if he were going to head the CIA. But Hoekstra and Chambliss were among those who said that wouldn't solve the problem.

"Just resigning commission and moving on, putting on a striped suit, a pinstriped suit versus an Air Force uniform, I don't think makes much difference," Chambliss said on ABC's "This Week."

Talk of Hayden's possible nomination has reignited the debate over the Bush's administration's domestic surveillance program, which Hayden used to oversee as the former head of the National Security Agency.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would use a Hayden nomination to raise questions about the legality of the program and did not rule out holding it up until he gets answers. "I'm not going to draw any lines in the sand until I see how the facts evolve," Specter said on Fox.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., defended Hayden.

"In all due respect to my colleagues - and I obviously respect their views - General Hayden is really more of an intelligence person than he is an Air Force officer," McCain said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "I think that we should also remember that there had been other former military people who have been directors of the CIA."

Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, who headed the CIA during the Carter administration, said he did not think Hayden was a good choice.

"I happen to think not because I happen to think the wiretapping was illegal and we need to clarify that for the whole American public, and the debate of his nomination will do that, I believe," Turner said on CBS'"The Early Show."

'Divine Strake' delayed? Agency says, 'no'
In question: Critic says Justice Department lawyers told him the explosive test won't take place as early as planned

Divine Strake, the massive explosion experiment planned next month for the Nevada desert, may be delayed.
Attorney Robert Hager said Justice Department lawyers for the Pentagon and the U.S. Energy Department told him Thursday the test would be delayed until as late as June 23, three weeks after the detonation was originally scheduled for.
A spokeswoman for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, one of the agencies behind Divine Strake, denied the claim.
"No," said Irene M. Smith. "Divine Strake's date has not been changed."
She noted that new information was released Friday with a revised environmental assessment from the National Nuclear Security Administration, the second agency involved.
But Hager pointed out the updated version still lacks critical details needed to determine whether the test could be safe, such as what type of test was used to check for radioactivity surrounding the explosion site and what the results were.
Hager and other critics have complained for weeks about the two agencies' failure to provide data showing the test will be as safe as they say. Environmental officials in Utah and Nevada also have clamored for more detail on how much debris might be dispersed in the blast's 10,000-foot tall mushroom cloud and whether that debris could contain worrisome levels of radiation from past atomic tests.
"It's 'Take-our-word-on-it' that caused tens of thousands of cancers in Utah and Nevada and all over the United States," said Hager, whose clients include the Winnemucca Western Shoshone Indians and downwinders, a group of people who say fallout from atomic tests made them sick.

Hager's ultimate goal is to get Divine Strake scratched.
The federal government, meanwhile, describes the test as a means of understanding how 700 tons of explosives would affect a deep tunnel, like those believed to be used to shield leaders and military equipment in nations like Iran, North Korea and other potential U.S. enemies. While the detonation involves conventional material - its ammonium nitrate-fuel oil mix fueled the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing - some critics fear Divine Strake is a precursor to the testing of nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert once again.
U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, both Utah Republicans, and U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, have asked for better proof that Divine Strake won't hurt their state. All three sent aides to survey the site nearly two weeks ago and said they wanted more detailed information about it.
"We'll see if the government can produce the data and the documentation required to make the case that this test is necessary," said Steve Erickson, one of Hager's Utah clients.
"This test is not a done deal yet"

Foggo Out at CIA

No. 3 Man at CIA Resigns Amid Growing Corruption Allegations

ABC News has learned that Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the hand-picked executive director of the CIA under Porter Goss, has resigned — the same day as his boss's replacement was announced by the White House.

Foggo is at the center of a swirling storm of corruption allegations — and there are suggestions that the scandal, which involves poker parties, sweetheart contracts and prostitutes — could spread, further tainting the agency. His resignation may serve to tamp down some of the damage to the agency itself as an FBI criminal probe and a CIA inspector general's investigation continue.

Earlier today, the White House announced that Gen. Michael Hayden had been picked to replace Goss, whose resignation came at the end of last week.

ABC News' Christopher Isham reported today that a respected veteran CIA officer — Stephen Kappes — had already been asked to return to the agency as Hayden's right hand. Kappes had left the agency when Goss was appointed as its head. Insiders told ABC News that the news of Kappes' expected return is likely to be a huge boost to morale.

Goss had refused to remove Foggo from his powerful post after Foggo came under investigation by the FBI and the CIA inspector general.

A CIA official said Foggo's resignation would be "pretty normal" following the resignation of Goss as director.

The choice of Foggo to run the agency's day-to-day activities has been cited as an example of Goss' mismanagement of the spy agency.

Before being handpicked by Goss, Foggo had been written up for insubordination by his supervisor, the highest-ranking African-American woman in the CIA.

A CIA official confirmed the incident but said the insubordination report was never formally filed.

The supervisor, Jeanette Moore, resigned shortly after Foggo was promoted by Goss.

Foggo recently admitted that he attended Washington, D.C., poker parties that figure in a widening corruption scandal involving a defense contractor, Brent Wilkes, who is a longtime friend of Foggo.

Federal officials are investigating whether Wilkes also provided prostitutes at the parties. Foggo has denied seeing any prostitutes at the parties he attended.

The FBI and the CIA inspector general are both investigating whether any of the CIA contracts awarded to Wilkes were handled improperly.

Foggo has strongly denied any impropriety involving CIA contracts.

Oh, Say Can You Sing ... the National Anthem?

'Nightline' Asks Beltway Lawmakers to Belt Out 'The Star Spangled Banner'

"The Star Spangled Banner" — our national anthem — is under attack. Or so you would think by the rush to defend it on Capitol Hill last week.

As millions marched for immigration rights, the U.S. Senate introduced a resolution to ensure that the national anthem would be sung only in English. A day later a similar measure was introduced in the House of Representatives.

The latest assault on the English-only anthem was launched last month — with less than a rocket's red glare — when a group of Hispanic vocal artists released a Spanish-language version of the song. And while the State Department Web site does post Francis Scott Key's 1814 rendition in other languages not all Americans are in favor of a multilingual version.

President Bush weighed in on the subject in a Rose Garden ceremony on April 28, saying, "I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English. And they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

On Monday, May 1, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., rose bravely on the floor of the U.S. Senate to defend the anthem from those who would sing it in Spanish, saying "We should always sing it in our common language — English."

It's a song that's not exactly pure in its origins. Adopted as the national anthem in 1931, the lyrics come from a 1814 poem by lawyer Francis Scott Key, who was inspired by the American flag flying over Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor during a British naval bombardment. So moved was Key by the sight that he lifted the music from a British composer.

The tune — and its notoriously archaic lyrics — have been mangled by singers ever since. A recent poll revealed that 61 percent of Americans cannot correctly recite the lyrics, much less sing them.

So on a glorious spring day last week, we went to Capitol Hill and — armed with a cheat sheet of lyrics printed on a piece of paper — we marched up to tourists, school groups, tour guides and our elected officials and posed the question: Oh, say can you sing — the national anthem?

A Chorus of Excuses

Right away we thought we might have arrived at the home of the brave as Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, sweetly sang the entire song beginning to end with gusto, gesturing broadly over the final stanza to the gleaming dome of the U.S. Capitol building. But alas, she was the last to solo.

One congressman, Rep. Gene Green, R-Texas, sang the anthem along with a group of students from Houston's Herrera Elementary School. But most of the other dozen or so House members we approached suddenly had important business to conduct and fled after offering lame excuses.

"I can probably sing it with a group," said Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala. "If I was in a group, I would sing it."

"I'm not that good," said Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., as he begged off.

And Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio, a reported target in the ongoing federal probe of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, waved us off claiming, "I'm on the phone with my wife."

The often-partisan bickering on Capitol Hill was absent on this issue: Every member of the House or Senate we approached insisted that the national anthem should be sung only in English. Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., said, "It's an insult" to use a foreign tongue.

One technique several congressmen used to demonstrate their lyrical knowledge of the "The Star-Spangled Banner" without having to perform it was to offer arcane facts about the song as they walked away.

"Francis Scott Key," shouted Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., as he rushed to the House floor. "In the harbor. The flag still standing."

"Oh, say can you see ABC?" mocked Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio.

Across the Capitol Plaza, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., had an important lunch to attend and so wouldn't sing along. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas., said, "I can't sing," but Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., offered a spirited version unique to fans of the Baltimore Orioles who emphasize the "Oh!" at the start of baseball game renditions.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sang the first stanzas so robustly we weren't about to challenge his knowledge of the rest. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham was gentlemanly when we put him on the spot, saying, "I am like 61 percent of Americans. If I had to get up and recite the national anthem, I would fail miserably."

We came upon a woman dressed as a fish — she was lobbying for clean water — and she sang it with just a minor flub. A group of chiropractors whirled around and sang it backward. Get it? Backward.

Finally, we came upon a quintet of soldiers out on a training run carrying rucksacks on their backs and dressed in T-shirts, shorts and combat boots. We offered to sing the song with them, but they declined any help when we asked them to sing the national anthem. One soldier confidently said, "I don't think that will be a problem."

3rd Infantry Speaks Up for Old Glory

The five soldiers lined up in a semicircle and harmoniously provided the best rendition of the day of the difficult-to-sing song. The singers, it turns out, were ringers of a sort. These particular soldiers were members of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry, the Old Guard, stationed at Fort Myer, Va., the unit that was originally made up of Gen. George Washington's handpicked personal troops. And the five troops we happened upon comprised the unit's Color Guard. They routinely carry Old Glory at White House ceremonies, state funerals and at Arlington National Cemetery.

Whether you salute the Stars and Stripes with your hand over your heart or by singing in English or Spanish or any other language, "The Star-Spangled Banner," it seems, is in safe hands.

US Senate takes up small business health bill

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday took up controversial health legislation that aims to help small businesses insure their workers but avoid state regulations on mandatory health benefits and policy costs.

The bill has strong support from Republicans but Democrats are likely to use Senate procedural rules to block it later in the week. Democrats express cautious optimism about blocking the legislation, although they said some last-minute negotiations could lead to a close vote.

The concept, strongly backed by such groups as the National Federation of Independent Business, is to let small businesses form purchasing pools across state lines to have the same clout in the marketplace as big corporations.

Many of the nearly 46 million people in the United States who have no health insurance either work for small businesses or are family members of small-business employees.

But the bill, sponsored by Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi, would exempt these small business health plans as well as other policies from many state laws and mandates that govern both benefits and pricing.

The AARP retirees group, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Cancer Society, among others, have been pushing hard to stop the Enzi bill, saying it could erase 20 years of progress in health coverage by eroding benefit requirements.

They say it also would distort insurance pools by allowing younger and healthier workers to pay much less than older and sicker ones -- some of whom could then find themselves uninsured if policies are priced out of their reach.

"This unravels the insurance system as we know it," said Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow.

But Enzi, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and his fellow Republicans say the critics are missing the point -- that even a health plan that doesn't come with all benefits is a step in the right direction for the uninsured.

"Those very same people today have no coverage whatsoever," said Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican. "So isn't some kind of coverage better than no coverage at all?"

Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, a moderate, said she was trying to strike a compromise by offering an amendment that would require the small-business plans to include any coverage mandate that is law in 26 of the 50 states. That would include mammograms, prostate screening, alcoholism treatments, diabetes supplies, emergency services and other benefits but would still omit some common state requirements.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Snowe's amendment was a "fig leaf."

Most Democrats back an alternative put forth by Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas that would instead allow small businesses to join a national insurance pool similar to the program that covers federal employees.

Democrats also were angry that Senate Republicans designated this as "health week" but only brought up the Enzi bill and legislation that would limit damages in malpractice lawsuits. The malpractice bills were blocked Monday evening.

The Democrats wanted to debate extending next Monday's deadline for signing up for the Medicare drug benefit, federal funding of stem cell research, and other health topics.

Republicans Reach Agreement
On $70 Billion Tax-Cut Bill
By BRODY MULLINS

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Republicans unveiled the final version of a five-year, $70 billion tax bill that extends lower tax rates on investments, blocks the expansion of the alternative minimum tax and offers a range of tax breaks to special interests from General Electric Co. to the University of Texas.

To help pay for the bill, tax-writers scaled back tax incentives for oil companies to search for oil and gas reserves, costing the industry $189 million over 10 years. Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc. and other large U.S. exporters were dealt a $500 million blow when Republicans repealed a tax break for U.S. exporters that had drawn the ire of the European Union.

The final compromise was ironed out Tuesday and should be on its way to the White House by the end of the week. House Republicans would like to vote on the bill Wednesday with the Senate following suit Thursday. (See a summary of the provisions.)

The centerpiece of the legislation, which was a year in the making, would extend the 15% tax rates on capital gains and dividends from the end of 2008 through 2010. Republicans say the lower rates, first enacted by President Bush in 2003, are a key engine of investment and economic growth.

The bill also would exempt 15.3 million taxpayers from paying higher taxes under the AMT. Couples earning less than $62,550 and individuals making less than $42,500 would be exempted from paying the tax.

The AMT was enacted decades ago to make sure that wealthy Americans don't escape income taxes by taking advantage of deductions. Because the tax wasn't indexed for inflation, a growing number of middle-income Americans would be ensnared by the tax unless Congress approves yearly exemptions.

To help pay for some of the tax cuts, the bill allows wealthy Americans to convert their retirement savings from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs. Since investments in Roth IRAs are taxed when deposited -- rather than when the funds are withdrawn at retirement -- the change would raise money for the Treasury. Critics call the change a gimmick that would raise money in the short term, but cost the government far more in the future because the Treasury won't be able to tax the retirement savings down the road.

Oil companies were dealt a glancing blow when tax-writers required the companies to write-off certain costs of exploring for oil and gas over five years. The companies currently can write off the costs over two years. The change will cost them $189 million over the next decade. Industry lobbyists were heartened that they beat back an attempt by senators to repeal the incentive entirely at a cost to the industry of $700 million.

In a surprise move, Republican tax-writers responded to the European Union by moving to reduce a tax benefit for U.S. exporters that E.U. leaders opposed. The bill is designed to roll back a provision in a 2004 international tax law that allowed U.S. manufacturers to continue receiving an outdated tax credit on long term sales contracts inked before 2004.

In a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas of California earlier this month, E.U. Ambassador John Burton said the union "cannot accept the grandfathering of sales contracts 10 to 15 years into the future as these involve products which have not yet been manufactured and exported." The change would cost large U.S. manufactures about $500 million over 10 years.

Other provisions would:
• Raise $420 million by cracking down on abuses by charitable organizations. But the final tax bill excludes legislation authored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa that would have offered tax incentives to Americans to donate to charities.

• Exempt the foreign subsidiaries of General Electric Co., Citicorp and other large U.S. financial services companies from paying U.S. taxes on certain income earned abroad. The provision, which extends a similar law already on the books, saves the industry about $5 billion over two years.

• Permit the University of Texas offer more bonds backed by assets of the school system.

• Allow songwriters to pay capital gains tax rates on sales of their songs, rather than higher personal income tax rates.

Congress finishes work on veterans’ bill

Better late than never, congressional negotiators have completed work on a veterans’ benefits bill that was supposed to pass last year.

Two key benefits changes are included in the compromise bill, which is expected to come to a final vote next week.

Work on the bill ground to a halt last year when the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees were unable to reach a compromise on unrelated legislation related to information technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs. An agreement still has not been reached on the information technology bill, which was a priority for Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman.

The Veterans’ Housing Opportunity and Benefits Improvement Act of 2006 expands the range of grants to modify homes for severely disabled veterans. It allows more than one payment in a lifetime and allows payments if the veteran lives in a home owned by a family member, but not by the veteran. A new lifetime cap of three grants is allowed under the compromise, with a total value up to $50,000 for a severely disabled veteran and $10,000 for those less severely disabled.

Grants for adaptive housing apply to veterans with locomotion impairment, blindness or the loss of the function of both arms.

Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage would be extended for two years after separation from the service rather than the current one year for those totally disabled. The extension would apply to totally disabled veterans released from active duty one year before the bill is signed into law.

The two-year extension, however runs only through Sept. 30, 2011. Beginning on Oct. 1, 2011, post-separation coverage would be reduced to 18 months.

To help pay for the increases, negotiators from the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees approved a modest, limited and temporary increase for the repeated use of the VA home loan program. For those who have already had a home loan and are getting subsequent loans without making a down payment, the loan fee would be 3.35 percent of the loan value from Oct. 1, 2006 through Sept. 30, 2007, a .05 percentage point increase.

The benefits bill also slightly expands the list of diseases presumed under law to be related to a veteran’s experience as a prisoner of war for those who were interned a minimum of 30 days. Atherosclerotic heart disease, hypertensive vascular disease, complications from those two diseases, stroke and complications from stroke would be added.

Negotiators did not include a Senate-passed plan requiring standardized assessments for post-traumatic stress disorder claims, another Senate provision allowing a stillborn child to be covered as an insurable dependent under the military life insurance program, nor a House-passed provision permanently authorizing six Parkinson’s disease research centers.

Senators 'progress' on immigration bill

The U.S. Senate is heading towards agreement over a new bill to check the immigration status of workers.

A section in the Senate's bipartisan immigration overhaul bill that would require employers to check the immigration status of their workers is rapidly gaining support from industry groups and immigrant advocates alike, CongressDaily reported Monday.

Title Three of a revised bill that Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., plans to bring to the Senate floor would establish an electronic employment verification eligibility system under which employers would be required to verify that workers they hire are legally able to be employed, the report said.

The system would also give the Homeland Security Department access to information in Social Security Administration databases, something that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently said is critical for investigations. Crafting Title three are Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and the committee's ranking member Max Baucus, D-Mont., along with Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Barack Obama, D-Ill, CongressDaily said.

Industry groups and immigrant advocates are throwing their support behind the emerging Senate proposal, as opposed to requirements in the House border security bill passed last December.

"We don't like the House bill at all," said Laura Foote Reiff, a lawyer at Greenberg Traurig and co-leader of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a group of businesses and trade associations, told CongressDaily.

Major differences between the House and Senate proposals include compliance deadlines, employer penalties, privacy protections, redress processes for correcting errors, and employer liability protections, Reiff said.

For example, the House bill would require employers to verify the immigration status of all their workers. The Senate version would only require employers to do checks on newly hired workers, sparing from scrutiny any illegal aliens already in the workforce.

The White House is now responding to the 9 News exclusive story first reported on wusa9.com.

How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him? Turns out, he wouldn't have had to pay a dime. All he had to do was go through the trash early Tuesday morning.

It appears to be a White House staff schedule for the President's trip to Florida Tuesday. And a sanitation worker was alarmed to find in the trash long hours before Mr. Bush left for his trip.

It's the kind of thing you would expect would be shredded or burned, not thrown in the garbage.
Randy Hopkins could not believe what he was seeing.

There on the floor next to a big trash truck was a thick sheaf of papers with nearly every detail of the President's voyage.

“I saw locations and names and places where the President was going to be. I knew it was important. And it shouldn't have been in a trash hole like this,” he said.

Hopkins works in sanitation. He's an ex-con, and he's worried about fallout from talking to us, so he's asked us not to say exactly where he's employed. But he also felt it was his civic duty to tell somebody about what he'd found.

“We're going through a war, and if it would have fell into the wrong hands at the right time, it would have been something really messy for the President's sake,” he said.

The documents details the exact arrival and departure time for Air Force One, Marine One and the back up choppers, Nighthawk 2 and Three.

It lists every passenger on board each aircraft, from the President to military attaché with nuclear football. It offers the order of vehicles in the President's motorcade.

We faxed a copy to the Secret Service, which as usual rule declined to say much, other than insisting that it was a White House staff document, not a Secret Service document.

A spokesman traveling with President Bush says officials are still trying to learn more about the papers. The White House confirms the 9 News story and says many White House offices have "burn bags" that are used to discard sensitive documents like the schedule. However, it appears this one ended up in the general trash.

While it is marked official the Secret Service says it is NOT classified. But you don't have to be in Presidential security to figure out the big mistake here.

What do you think the message is that comes out of this? Shred the important papers.

Some of this information in the document goes out to the media before every Presidential trip. But we're always told not to publish it.

And there are a whole lot of details in it that we do NOT get.

Town rejects National Day of Prayer banner
Reversed itself after accepting fee, allowing group to buy sign

Despite initial acceptance, a Michigan town rejected a street banner promoting the annual National Day of Prayer.

An employee of the city of Ludington, Mich., took a $100 fee from the local National Day of Prayer organizers, but only a few days before the May 4 commemoration, the city refused to hang the banner, reported the Ludington Daily News.

The group paid $350 for the sign, which was made after getting the city's OK.

In the wake of the controversy, Ludington has enacted a new policy making it clear any banner must specify an event rather than state a cause.

The National Day of Prayer banner read "National Day of Prayer, first Thursday in May."

City councilors said the sign would have been allowed if it had included the word "rally" or something similar, or had more detail about where and when events would be held.

The Mason County National Day of Prayer organizers, represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, argued the city "has created a limited public forum by allowing the display of banners of private persons and organizations for the purpose of advertising local events of benefit to the community."

City Attorney Roger Anderson disagreed, saying if it's a public forum, "that'll be the end to banners."

The city, Anderson said, won't discriminate which organizations can place signs, but instead set a policy that allows groups to promote events of general interest to the community.

Local NDP representative Melissa Thompson said the city should have delayed its decision and read the ACLJ's opinion.

She pointed out the group had the $350 banner made only after the city accepted it and cashed the fee check.

The banner had no space for additional wording, Thompson insisted.

"It's frustrating," she said.

The NDP organizers also were rejected in 2003 when the city attorney sent a written denial in April. The group took no action because they felt there was not enough time before the first Thursday in May.

The group tried again this year, making the request in early February. But the rejection didn't come until April 26.

The new policy, approved by a 5-4 city council vote, states, "It is not the intent of the city to create a forum or location for public speech. Thus, banners that are primarily for the purpose of advocating particular political, religious or other points of view, candidate for office, or advertising a product or service are not permitted.

CIA Official's Home, Office Searched

WASHINGTON (AP) - Law enforcement officials executed search warrants Friday on the house and office of the CIA's outgoing executive director, the FBI said.

The agency's third ranking official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, has been under investigation by the FBI, IRS, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the CIA's inspector general, said FBI spokeswoman April Langwell in San Diego.

Under a sealed warrant, officials searched Foggo's Virginia home and his office at the CIA's Langley, Va., campus, Langwell said. She could provide no other details.

The FBI and other agencies have been investigating whether Foggo improperly intervened in the award of contracts to a San Diego businessman and personal friend, Brent Wilkes, who has been implicated in a congressional bribery scandal.

In a statement, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck also confirmed the searches of his home and office on Friday morning.

"The agency is cooperating fully with the Department of Justice and the FBI," she said. "Agency leaders outside of the (inspector general's office) were informed just prior to the execution of the search warrants, in keeping with standard law enforcement procedures."

This week, Foggo announced his retirement from the agency after more than 25 years serving around the world.

In a statement on Foggo's behalf, the CIA said he denied any improprieties. "Mr. Foggo maintains that government contracts for which he was responsible were properly awarded and administered," the agency said last week.

Wilkes has been described in court papers as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to bribe then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican who is now serving time in a federal prison for taking $2.4 million from government contractors.

FBI agents also have been investigating whether Wilkes provided Cunningham with prostitutes, limousines and hotel suites.

Foggo has acknowledged participating in the poker parties at the hotel rooms, but he has said there was nothing untoward about that. "If he attended occasional card games with friends over the years, Mr. Foggo insists they were that and nothing more," the CIA statement said.

Unions threaten consumer boycott
to dry up campaign contributions
California labor groups warn national retailers:
Oppose Reiner initiative, you'll be blackballed

Union supporters of a California ballot measure promising "Preschool for All" have threatened several national retailers with a nationwide boycott if their companies or major shareholders make contributions to the opposition campaign.

Representatives for the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic – major mall-based clothing retailers – were sent letters last week from the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees warning that a national action against all their stores would be taken if the Gap, its affiliates or any member of the Gap's founding family made a contribution to the No on Proposition 82 campaign, reports the Sacramento Bee.

Don Fisher, who founded the Gap, and his family also own Old Navy and Banana Republic.

"It is our hope that you come to the conclusion that opposing preschool for every child in California is bad for kids and bad for California," the letter, signed by SEIU's and AFSCME's presidents and SEIU's secretary treasurer, said. A donation of $25,000 by John Fisher, son of Gap's founder, to an anti-initiative group was noted, although he is not a member of the Gap board.

Nationally, SEIU and AFSCME represent 2.7 million members – a number that could grow if Proposition 82 passes, since it would permit collective bargaining for those employed by the new preschools.

Proposition 82's primary sponsor, "All in the Family" actor Rob Reiner, came under fire earlier this year for spending taxpayer funds on a television ad campaign to promote preschool for 4-year-olds.

The First 5 California Children and Families Commission, chaired by Reiner, launched the $23 million ad blitz just as Reiner began touting his "Preschool for All" campaign. The commission even titled its own campaign "Preschool for All."

Three of First 5's political consultants, who received $200,000 without a contract, later transferred to the Proposition 82 campaign.

After major newspapers in the state called for his resignation for benefiting his initiative effort with "one of the largest state-funded advertising campaigns ever in California," Reiner resigned. The Long Beach Telegraph called the expenditure a "self-aggrandizing, crony-coddling political campaign that is wrong and either is illegal or should be."

Proposition 82 would add a 1.7 percent tax on individual incomes over $400,000 and couples' incomes over $800,000. It is projected to raise $2.4 billion a year to fund voluntary preschool for all 4-year-olds.

Opponents argue the initiative would subsidize parents already paying for private preschool and create another costly mandate for California's troubled school system. Once established, the program would have to be fully funded by law, even during lean budget cycles.

The California Chamber of Commerce's analysis indicates less than 10 percent of the program's funding would be used to enroll new "at risk" children who aren't already served by existing preschools.

While a spokeswoman for the Gap said the company has taken no position on the initiative, made no contributions and has no plan to be involved in the campaign, the unions point to Don Fisher's involvement with the California Business Roundtable.

"He's not been outspoken publicly," "Yes on 82" campaign spokesman, Nathan James said of Fisher. "But in donor circles ... he's committed to fighting it by raising money against it."

After John Fisher's $25,000 contribution several months ago, Proposition 82 supporters began handing out leaflets at Gap stores around the state in an effort to send a message to other potential corporate donors – oppose us an you'll be picketed, too.

"The strategy for us was ... that perhaps it would slow down the money," John Jackson, one of the demonstrations' organizers said.

Proposition 82's supporters have raised over $9 million for the June measure, including $1.6 million from the two unions threatening to boycott the Gap.

"The Gap has to decide if they want to continue to play the part of corporate villain and continue to put children in harm's way," said a SEIU spokeswoman. "Or they can show their corporate leadership, reconsider their position and put California kids first."

Alabama candidate for AG disputes Holocaust, is coming to NJ

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A Democratic candidate for Alabama attorney general denies the Holocaust occurred and said Friday he will speak this weekend in New Jersey to a "pro-white" organization that is widely viewed as being racist.

Larry Darby concedes his views are radical, but he said they should help him win wide support among Alabama voters as he tries to "reawaken white racial awareness" with his campaign against Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson.

The state Democratic chairman, Joe Turnham, said the party became aware of some of Darby's views only days ago and was considering what to do about his candidacy.

"Any type of hatred toward groups of people, especially for political gain, is completely unacceptable in the Alabama Democratic Party," said Turnham.

Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, Darby said he believes no more than 140,000 Jewish people died in Europe during World War II, and most of them succumbed to typhus.

Historians say about 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis, but Darby said the figure is a false claim of the "Holocaust industry."

"I am what the propagandists call a Holocaust denier, but I do not deny mass deaths that included some Jews," Darby said. "There was no systematic extermination of Jews. There's no evidence of that at all."

Darby said he will speak Saturday near Newark, N.J., at a meeting of National Vanguard, which bills itself as an advocate for the white race. Some of his campaign materials are posted on the group's Internet site.

"It's time to stop pushing down the white man. We've been discriminated against too long," Darby said in the interview.

New Jersey's Democratic State Committee chief on Friday decried Darby's planned visit, and said in a statement that denying the Holocaust was "historical blasphemy."

"Hate and prejudice are destructive qualities that are not welcome in New Jersey and should be condemned wherever they occur," said party Chairman Joe Cryan. "Mr. Darby should turn around before crossing the Jersey stateline and then give thought to turning his abhorrent attitudes around as well."

A poll published last month indicated the Democratic race for attorney general was up for grabs. The survey showed 21 percent favored Tyson to 12 percent for Darby, but 68 percent of respondents were undecided.

Darby, founder of the Atheist Law Center and a longtime supporter of separation of church and state, said he has no money for campaign advertising and has made only a few campaign speeches.

Tyson said aside from his views on race and the Holocaust, Darby also has publicly advocated legalizing drugs and shooting all illegal immigrants.

"I am astonished as anyone has ever been that anyone is running for public office in Alabama on that platform," said Tyson. "I do not take him as a serious candidate."

Turnham said the party began an investigation last week after hearing about some of Darby's comments in a television interview. While the party supports the free-speech rights of any candidate, Turnham said some of Darby's views appear to be in "a realm of thought that is unacceptable."

"We have Holocaust survivors and families of Holocaust survivors here in Alabama, and many of them are members of the Democratic Party," said Turnham.

The winner of the Democratic primary on June 6 will face either Republican Attorney General Troy King or Mark Montiel, who is opposing King in the GOP primary.

Prof quits to protest Rice invite
Says Boston College commencement speaker a 'liar'

An adjunct professor is resigning his post at Boston College in protest of the Catholic school's decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be its commencement speaker and receive an honorary degree.

In an open letter published in the Boston Globe, Steve Almond, a professor of English, charged "Rice's actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive."

Almond, writing to Boston College President William Leahy, said his objection is not only the war in Iraq.

"My concern is more fundamental," he wrote. "Simply put, Rice is a liar."

Almond claimed Rice has "lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly, often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy."

The professor said that during the build-up to the war, Rice "made 29 false or misleading public statements concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida, according to a congressional investigation by the House Committee on Government Reform."

Almond, however, is referring to a partisan report prepared by Democratic staff members.

He cites as an example, "Rice repeatedly asserted that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapon, and specifically seeking uranium in Africa," and says that later these claims were disproved.

The famous claim of Iraq's interest in pursuing "yellow cake" uranium ore in Niger, however, has not been disproved. Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson declared in a July 2003 New York Times column that his trip to investigate the claim revealed the Iraq-Niger connection was dubious, but his oral report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence actually corroborated the controversial "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Almond says, nevertheless, "Like the president whom she serves so faithfully, [Rice] refuses to recognize her errors or the tragic consequences of those errors to the young soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq. She is a diplomat whose central allegiance is not to the democratic cause of this nation, but absolute power."

The professor said he found it "most reprehensible" that Boston College "would entrust to Rice the role of moral exemplar."

Almond insisted his judgment is based on issues of character, not on her intellectual and academic abilities or "her potentially inspiring role as a powerful woman of color."

"Honestly, Father Leahy," he wrote, "what lessons do you expect her to impart to impressionable seniors? That hard work in the corporate sector might gain them a spot on the board of Chevron? That they, too, might someday have an oil tanker named after them? That it is acceptable to lie to the American people for political gain?"

Almond said he cannot, "in good conscience, exhort my students to pursue truth and knowledge, then collect a paycheck from an institution that displays such flagrant disregard for both."

He offered an apology to his students and urged them "to investigate the words and actions of Rice, and to exercise their own First Amendment rights at her speech."

The Globe's note on Almond said he's the author of the story collections ''The Evil B. B. Chow" and ''My Life in Heavy Metal," described by Amazon.com as being "populated with hookups, drunken kisses, failed passes, and souring relationships. And though it's an aggressively sexual affair (when it comes to getting it on in the bedroom –or on the bathroom sink, for that matter – Almond doesn't believe in fading to black), at its core it's a collection with heart."

San Diego sued for discrimination against churches
Federal judge blocks city's attempt to dismiss case

A federal court denied San Diego's request to dismiss a lawsuit by a church accusing the city of discrimination for charging churches higher rental fees than similar community groups.

Canyon Ridge Baptist Church, represented by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, rents a city-owned facility, the Kearny Mesa Recreation Center, for its Sunday worship services.

"A landlord – especially when it's the government – shouldn't treat Christian tenants any differently than other tenants," said ADF attorney Tim Chandler.

A city, he explained, "cannot single out religious organizations for unequal treatment in comparison to other similarly situated groups."

The city provides the recreation center at no cost or for a nominal fee to many governmental and community groups. But San Diego officials charge religious organizations its highest rate, which is up to 21 times higher than what other community groups are charged.

"Enforcing different fee schedules based on a group's speech is clearly unconstitutional," Chandler said.

The lawyer contends his case is "founded on well-established legal precedent, and we look forward to making sure this church is not mistreated by the city."

ADF attorneys filed suit against the city last December in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

The public-interest legal group says it has been involved in a number of significant victories involving government entities that have charged religious organizations higher fees than other groups, including Gentala v. City of Tucson, Ariz.

A copy of the court's order denying the city of San Diego's motion to dismiss the case can be read here.

Chandler will argue before the court Monday in favor of a motion for preliminary injunction.

As WorldNetDaily reported, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled Nov. 17 the city of New York's board of education could not prohibit a Bronx church from holding worship meetings on school grounds. The court issued a permanent injunction following a 10-year fight to allow the church equal access to public facilities.

'Do-Nothing Congress' Raises Critics' Ire

What Would Harry Truman Say About This Group of Legislators?

Members of Congress know the Washington-area airports very well. Most members use them twice a week, arriving for work late Tuesday and scurrying back to their home states on Thursday. Congress is on schedule to meet fewer days this year than any Congress since 1948 — the year President Harry Truman campaigned against what he called the "do-nothing Congress."

"They call it the Tuesday to Thursday Club," said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. "That means you get here Tuesday night, you have a few easy votes, you vote on Wednesday and then you go back home Thursday afternoon. And that, believe it or not, is considered a work week in Washington."

Rank-and-file members of Congress earn $165,200 a year, and this year for the first time they took off for a St. Patrick's Day holiday.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, said voters wonder why he spends so much time in Houston instead of Washington. "I've been hearing from people saying they see me more than they do their city council member," Green said.

He said that is one reason Congress is held in low esteem, adding, "poll numbers for Congress are dismally low, in fact lower than the president's." A recent Associated Press poll found that only 25 percent of the country approves of the job Congress is doing.

"What first caught my attention was seeing that the House was going to take the entire month of January off and then be here basically three days in February," Congress-watcher Norm Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute said.

He added, "It's stunning to see how much time off there is, how little time is being spent in Washington doing any of the people's business."

Even members from Hawaii jet home for long weekends, unthinkable not so long ago. Under both Democratic and Republican leadership, the work schedule has gradually decreased: In the '60s and '70s, Congress met on average 162 days a year; in the '80s and '90s, 139 days. This year the House is expected to meet 71 days.

Of course, some voters think that is a good thing. "For those who really believe in limited government, then there's virtue in being away from Washington," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. "It's not all bad that we spend less time here. A lot of what we do and a lot of the disdain people have for Washington is because we do too much, not too little."

Flake broke into a hearty laugh when he said, "I still believe that if people understood exactly what we do here, they'd probably demand we take more time off."

Enough Time for Oversight?

But even the conservative Flake said Congress has failed to spend the time needed for oversight of federal agencies. He worries that in the rush to get out of town each week, Congress does not pay enough attention to how the government spends the taxpayers' money.

Ornstein also said he believes Congress is failing in its oversight responsibilities. He said if Congress had paid more attention to FEMA in recent years, then the disaster agency would have been more prepared to deal with Hurricane Katrina.

Important bills are now rushed through Congress, resulting in sloppy legislation, Ornstein said. Among the examples of such legislation, he said, are the Medicare prescription drug bill that perplexed many senior citizens and the bankruptcy reform bill that has come back to haunt Katrina victims faced with ruin.

Ornstein and other critics also believe the government's failure to deal efficiently with Katrina can be blamed partly on congressional haste in setting up the new Department of Homeland Security, which had overall responsibility for disaster relief.

"When I go back home to the Rotary Club and tell them we're meeting so few days, sometimes they think that's good news," said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. "But it's really bad news for America because we're simply not doing our jobs. They're paying us full salaries, but we're not working full time."

Many in Congress point out that they do some work when they go back home — they meet with constituents and learn what the voters really want. But as money has become more important in election campaigns, many House members and senators also spend a great deal of time in their states raising funds for re-election.

Nothing 'Worth a Toot'

Congress has accomplished some things this year, perhaps most notably this week passing tax cut legislation. But all in all, this has not been a productive year, leading to Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott's recent comment, "We haven't done anything worth a toot in three months."

Because Congress spends less time in Washington, members spend less time with one another. Gone are the days when members from rival parties and factions had plenty of time to socialize together, perhaps in the evening to partake of a little "bourbon and branch water." Those informal get-togethers were often crucial to reaching compromises on important, sometimes historic, legislation.

This Congress can still avoid the "do-nothing" label. But it has precious little time to do it. An immigration bill is a top priority for President Bush and many on Capitol Hill.

The trouble is finding a compromise that can pass both houses and get the president's signature. That is a time-consuming process, but so far Congress is sticking pretty much to its three-day-a-week routine. And Congress does not want to deal with complicated legislation this fall because this is an election year.

Green said voters will be watching. "They would like to see our work product improved," he said, "and if that includes an extra day a week, so be it."

Real ID ban dead
Senate, House lock horns on bill

State lawmakers yesterday ended a nationally watched attempt to keep New Hampshire from participating in stricter federal drivers' licensing rules. As a result, New Hampshire will likely become a testing ground for the new program, known as Real ID, which requires states to verify drivers' birth certificates, addresses and immigration status and to enter that information into a shared database.

Congress designed the system last year to reduce illegal immigration and deter terrorists, but opponents believe it's an invasion of privacy and the first step towards a national identification card.

After a complicated series of votes and hours of debate, lawmakers rejected two versions of a bill that would have barred New Hampshire from participating in Real ID. Lawmakers have been at odds for weeks over the plan: The Senate wanted to accept a $3 million federal grant in exchange for trying out the program. The House, meanwhile, was gaining national attention for trying to pass a law against it.

Yesterday, the Senate won, but victory came at a cost: The demise of a bill that would have granted the health commissioner broad emergency powers in the event of a pandemic.

"This is a classic case of legislative chicken between the House and the Senate,"said Rep. Neal Kurk, before leading his colleagues through a parliamentary gamble aimed at getting the Senate to change its opinion of Real ID.

Kurk, a Weare Republican, has been among the most vocal opponents of Real ID. When two-thirds of the House voted in favor of bucking the program, he earned the praise of privacy advocates, those who favor limited government and a group of Christians who believe a national ID card is the Biblical "mark of the beast" and, thus, a harbinger of the Apocalypse.

Real ID has also upset the National Governor's Association and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, who predict it will be too costly and time-consuming for many states.

At the same time the Real ID opposition was gaining furor in the House, senators were crafting a bill to help the state prepare for a health emergency, such as a pandemic flu. The proposal would have allowed the health commission, with the governor's approval, to seize and ration drugs, close buildings and prohibit public assemblies.

When the Senate voted to send the Real ID bill to a study committee instead of condemning the program, Kurk decided to use the pandemic proposal as an insurance policy. Yesterday, Kurk persuaded the House to vote down the pandemic bill in an effort to force the Senate to negotiate over Real ID. But the Senate called his bluff and refused to budge.

"A message was sent to the Senate, and a message was sent to the people of New Hampshire that their representatives have heard them," Kurk said. "This is not an extremist position. This is where, I believe, the heart of America is, not just New Hampshire."

Once the speeches were over and the dust had settled, both bills were dead, and plenty of lawmakers were unhappy. Top Senate Republicans chastised Kurk for putting privacy concerns over public safety, and they accused him of siding with groups like the Free State Project, a movement of libertarians who are migrating to New Hampshire to lobby for small government.

"He chose the Free-Staters over the health of the citizens of New Hampshire," said Majority Leader Bob Clegg, of Hudson. "That's wrong."

Clegg stressed that, before accepting the federal money, the state's Fiscal Committee would likely examine how to preserve privacy while tightening security. New Hampshire, like other states, has until 2008 to comply with the federal guidelines, which will be issued by the Department of Homeland Security this summer.

"There is nothing that stops us from forming an ad hoc committee," Clegg said.

Senate Democrats, who also oppose Real ID, said the House was forced into an impossible situation by senators who are out of touch with their constituents. Sen. Peter Burling, a Cornish Democrat, warned that the $3 million grant would cover just a fraction of the cost of Real ID. The federal law, he said, allows the government to change the rules, and could eventually to lead to licenses with computer chips or a national database of citizens.

"New Hampshire has no defense against the onset of Real ID," Burling said. "It was nothing but Republican votes that killed our defense."

Cheney's gay daughter hits Bush stance on gay marriage

The lesbian daughter of US Vice President Dick Cheney hit out at President George W. Bush's support for a constitutional amendment proscribing gay marriage.

Mary Cheney, 37, told Fox News Sunday that the idea, which was backed strongly by Bush's Republican Party during his 2004 re-election campaign and continues to be promoted by many conservatives today, was "a bad piece of legislation".

"I think that is what the federal marriage amendment is, it is writing discrimination into the constitution.

"It is writing discrimination into the constitution and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong."

"I would also hope that no one would think about trying to amend the constitution as a political strategy," she added.

Cheney, who worked on her father's campaign staff in 2004, said she very nearly quit the reelection effort over the issue.

In the wake of controversial moves to make same-sex marriage legal in California and other states, conservatives pushed strongly to have the constitution amended to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman.

The effort failed in mid-2004, but a number of individual states passed their own initiatives to restrict marriage to traditional male-female couples.

Cheney, who has just published a book, "It's My Turn", covering in part her experience during the campaign, said she was troubled by the stance of the party she was backing.

"President Bush obviously feels very strongly about this issue ... Quite honestly, it was an issue I had some trouble with, as I talk about in the book. I came very close to quitting my job on the re-election campaign over this very issue."

But she said she was also "very angry" when Bush and Dick Cheney's opponents in the campaign, Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, challenged the Bush stance by publicly pointing out that Mary Cheney was a lesbian.

"It was a cheap and blatant political ploy" when Edwards used her as an example in debating the issue with her father, Mary Cheney said.

Speaking separately on Fox News Sunday, Bush's wife Laura noted the issue of gay marriage still sparked debate across the country.

"I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously," she said.

"But I do think it's something that people in the United States want to debate. And it requires a lot of sensitivity to talk about the issue, a lot of sensitivity."

Pro-Family Supporters Frustrated Over Stalled Broadcast Decency Bill
Also, CWA Applauds ICANN's Rejection of Proposed .XXX Porn Domain

(AgapePress) - Congressman Fred Upton's broadcast decency bill (HR 310) passed in the House with a vote of 389-38 last year, but the Senate version has faced delay after delay in getting through the other chamber of Congress. And now, supporters of the measure fear it may be close to death as Senate rules have the legislation, S 193, bottled up in committee.

The bill, sponsored by Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, would increase the maximum fines levied by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from $32,500 to $325,000 per violation. Support for increasing the penalties has grown ever since the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show broadcast, when a performance by singers Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson ended abruptly in a now notorious instance of indecent exposure due to a so-called "wardrobe malfunction."

According to the Los Angeles Times newspaper, similar legislation has overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House of Representatives twice and the Senate once. However, the Times reports, such broadcast decency regulation measures have lately been derailed in Senate by parliamentary procedure and by objections from influential senators. Also, members of the broadcast industry have voiced strong resistance to the idea of higher fines and have lobbied hard in opposition to them.

Lanier Swann of Concerned Women for America (CWA) says several senators are against the idea of increasing fines for decency violations. "Majority Leader Frist had hoped to hotline that bill and bring it to the floor for a vote by a unanimous consent," she notes, "but unfortunately, a number of senators placed a hold on the bill."

Many pro-family groups thought Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens of Alaska was purposely holding up the bill, but Swann says, "We know now that Chairman Stevens agreed to the hotline vote with the Majority Leader. So what we have now are a number of unnamed senators who have come forward and held up this bill."

The CWA spokeswoman points out that Senate rules allow senators to put a hold on bills they dislike anonymously, which is the case here. "Now what we're working on is trying to find a way that we can see final passage out of both chambers on any type of legislation that would simply increase the FCC fines," she says.

Swann says it is "high time" lawmakers crack down on "the garbage that comes through the airwaves" by increasing penalties against those broadcasters that air material that defies federal decency standards. She urges citizens to contact their representatives in Congress and voice support for legislation aimed at raising fines against broadcast decency violators.

ICANN's Nixes .XXX Domain Idea
But although the progress of Representative Upton's broadcast decency bill through Congress has been slow and frequently stalled, CWA has been monitoring another fight in which the pro-family group is seeing some encouraging progress. Recently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected a special .xxx domain for pornography sites on the World Wide Web.

The 9-5 decision by the private agency that oversees Internet operation reverses its preliminary approval last June of a domain name for voluntary use by the adult entertainment industry. CWA's chief counsel Jan LaRue is calling the vote "a win against a multi-million dollar, six-year effort on behalf of the porn industry." She says the vote demonstrates the power "regular folks" can have by raising their voices against "the power-brokers who think they can run the universe without opposition."

Last year LaRue met with officials at the Department of Commerce to express vehement opposition to the new .xxx domain. CWA urged its members and supporters to contact government officials and voice their disapproval of the idea as well.

After the Department of Commerce received thousands of e-mails voicing similar objections, the Bush administration announced its opposition to the creation of the domain. Opposition letters were also sent to Paul Twomey, CEO of ICANN, who later told media that the ICANN board was "certainly very conscious" of the controversy, although its decision to reject the .xxx domain was not driven by political considerations.

LaRue says the pro-family group objected to the porn domain for several reasons, but the most obvious concern was that, under this plan, porn site operators would be free to keep all their current domains while adding the new .xxx domain. "Anybody who thinks that would help parents protect kids from porn on the Internet has crashed in the cranium," she says.

CWA's chief counsel considers the decision by ICANN a major victory indicating the power of the pro-family public, and she is hopeful that this turn of events will send a clear message to U.S. lawmakers. "Now that ICANN has had the good sense to listen to the American people," she asserts, "those in Congress who are proposing legislation to create a porn domain need to take a virtual reality check."

The special .xxx porn domain was a bad idea for many reasons, LaRue contends. Among these, she contends, is that the domain would appear to legitimize the porn industry and its creation would mean, in effect, allowing an industry that violates federal obscenity laws with impunity to regulate itself.

Calif. Senate passes 'gay history' textbook bill, sends to assembly; governor silent

A landmark bill that would require public school textbooks in California to include "gay history" passed the California Senate May 11 by a mostly party-line vote of 22-15, and now heads to the Assembly.

The bill, S.B. 1437, would mandate that textbooks include "the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender to the total development of California and the United States." It would also prevent teachers from speaking "adversely" about homosexuality.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has not taken a public position on the bill.

Conservatives nationwide are watching the debate closely, since California is the nation's largest textbook purchaser, and conservatives fear the bill's passage eventually could impact the rest of the country.

All of the Senate's 14 Republicans voted against the bill. Twenty-two of the Senate's 25 Democrats voted for the bill, one voted against it and two did not vote. Democrats also have a majority in the Assembly.

Randy Thomasson, president of California-based Campaign for Children and Families, said it was ironic that that the bill passed days before Mothers Day -- a holiday traditionally focused on the natural, traditional family.

"By passing S.B. 1437, Democrat politicians have declared war on mothers and fathers and their children," Thomasson said in a statement. "This terrible bill forces local schools to go against parents by mandating transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual ‘education’ upon their impressionable children. Whose children are they, anyway? This mental molestation of kids as young as kindergarten is very wrong. Children deserve academics, not sexual indoctrination."

The bill was sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, a lesbian.

"All we're saying is let us also be reflected in history," Kuehl said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bill supporters said homosexuals should be reflected in history just as blacks and other minorities are. But state Sen. Bill Morrow, Republican, disagreed.

"If you are a black American, you can't help it, you were born that way," Morrow said, according to the San Jose Mercury-News. "There is not one scintilla of credible scientific evidence that suggests that homosexuality is biological in origin ... It is behavioral; it is not racial."

Hillary's dismissal in fraud suit appealed
Senator reportedly has false statement on file with IRS

Business mogul Peter Franklin Paul is appealing a California court's decision to dismiss Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., as a defendant in his lawsuit charging her husband, former President Clinton, with fraud.

Meanwhile, an election watchdog says Sen. Clinton has false campaign-finance statements on file with the Internal Revenue Service.

Paul – who says Sen. Clinton made false statements in two Washington Post articles to hide his million-dollar-plus contributions in 2000 – sued Bill Clinton for fraud for destroying his public company so the former president could renege on a $17 million deal in which he promised to promote Paul's public company in exchange for massive contributions to his wife's Senate campaign.

Paul's representative, the United States Justice Foundation, filed the appeal last week with the Appeals Court of California to challenge a trial court decision in April granting Sen. Clinton First Amendment immunity.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a judge in Los Angeles dismissed Sen. Clinton as a defendant in the civil lawsuit, but she will be deposed as a material witness in preparation for a trial set to begin March, 27, 2007.

Paul, claiming Sen. Clinton pulled off the biggest campaign-finance fraud in history, separately is preparing to file his second complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging the Democratic senator with submitting a false report – for a fourth time – that hides his personal multi-million dollar contributions to three Hollywood fund-raisers he hosted on her behalf, including the largest of her campaign, a Hollywood gala. Paul's first FEC complaint resulted in an admission last December that Sen. Clinton's campaign filed false reports with the FEC, hiding more than $720,000 of Paul's contributions.

USJF argues Clinton had no right to invoke California's Anti-SLAPP law, designed to protect candidates from being silenced by frivolous lawsuits during their election campaigns.

Paul says Clinton invoked that law only after her motion-to-dismiss was denied by the California Supreme Court. The Judge exercised his discretion to ignore that Clinton's Anti-SLAPP appeal was filed six months late, under California law.

"Hillary's cynical use of a law intended to protect resource-poor candidates whose freedom of expression during a campaign is challenged" shows "total disdain and contempt" for the Constitution, Paul said.

In a related development, the online election-finance watchdog PolitcalMoneyline says Sen. Clinton filed reports with the Internal Revenue Service identical to reports admitted as false by in her campaign's settlement with the FEC.

PoliticalMoneyline says, "Although the federal account of New York Senate 2000 has amended their reports with the Federal Election Commission, the non-federal account (a Section 527 organization) of the committee has not filed corresponding amendments with the IRS."

Paul is preparing a new complaint with the FEC that seeks to revoke a conciliation agreement in which Clinton's joint fund-raising committee, New York Senate 2000 and its treasurer Andrew Grossman agreed to pay a $35,000 civil penalty for not filing complete reports.

The fourth amended report, says Paul, misrepresents former business partner Stan Lee, the famed Marvel Comics creator, as a contributor of $225,000 to Sen. Clinton's campaign and wrongly attributes Paul's holding companies as making other donations totalling some $800,000.

Clinton's former campaign finance director David Rosen was acquitted last year of campaign fraud in a trial based on the donations, but the Justice Department told the jury the contributions were made by Paul personally.

Paul says, "I specifically advised Hillary in person and in a demand letter delivered to her Senate offices in 2001 that I personally made these donations."

He claims that because his sole interest was to influence a federal election and he never chose to apply contributions that exceeded the maximum, he must be refunded everything he donated over $25,000.

Paul says "the same false information Grossman admitted reporting to the FEC to hide my contributions remains uncorrected by Sen. Clinton's campaign."

"We intend to litigate that issue all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary," Paul said.

For the civil suit, Bill and Hillary Clinton head a list of potential witnesses that includes celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, Brad Pitt, Barbra Streisand, James Brolin, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, George Hamilton, Olivia Newton John, John Travolta, Diana Ross, Shirley McLaine, Michael Bolton, Toni Braxton, Paul Anka and Larry King.

Also on the list are former Vice President Al Gore, the Clinton's daughter Chelsea Clinton, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, former California Gov. Gray Davis, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terrence McAuliffe, CBS News reporter Mike Wallace and ABC News reporter Brian Ross.

Paul has compiled his charges, with documentation, on a website.

The Clintons' longtime attorney David Kendall has told WorldNetDaily he would not comment on the case.

In her declaration, Sen. Clinton admitted spending time with Paul on several occasions prior to the gala and during the event but refused to deny Paul's allegations outright, instead declaring that if there was any discussion of her husband's employment with Paul, she would have remembered it.

Paul stated in his declaration to the court, "Mrs. Clinton personally assured me she would specifically discuss with her husband, the President, my interest in making a post-White House business proposal to him. She told me her understanding that such a proposal would include my offer of substantial support for her Senate campaign as a good-faith advance on the business arrangement he would be agreeing to."

Senate Votes Twice for English Language

Whether English is America's "national language" or its national "common and unifying language" was a question dominating the Senate immigration debate.

The Senate first voted 63-34 to make English the national language after lawmakers who led the effort said it would promote national unity.

But critics argued the move would prevent limited English speakers from getting language assistance required by an executive order enacted under President Clinton. So the Senate also voted 58-39 to make English the nation's "common and unifying language."

"We are trying to make an assimilation statement," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of two dozen senators who voted Thursday for both English proposals.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that President Bush supports both measures.

"What the president has said all along is that he wants to make sure that people who become American citizens have a command of the English language," Snow said. "It's as simple as that."

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., disputed charges that making English the national language was racist or aimed at Spanish speakers. Eleven Democrats joined Republicans in voting for his measure.

The provision makes exceptions for any language assistance already guaranteed by law, such as bilingual ballots required under the Voting Rights Act or court interpreters. It also requires immigrants seeking citizenship to demonstrate a "sufficient understanding of the English language for usage in every day life."

The Homeland Security Department is in the midst of redesigning the citizenship test and some groups have been concerned about efforts to make the test more difficult.

Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo, offered the alternative. The only Republican to vote solely for Salazar's "common and unifying" language option was Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, whose home state's constitution prohibits discrimination on basis of inability to speak, read or write English or Spanish.

Both provisions will be included in an immigration bill the Senate is expected to pass and send to conference with the House, where differences will be resolved.

President Bush, who often peppers his speeches with Spanish words and phrases, had little to say about the Senate votes while visiting the Arizona-Mexico border. "The Senate needs to get the bill out," the president said.

Bush toured an unfortified section of the border in the Arizona desert Thursday, where he endorsed using fences and other barriers to cut down on illegal crossings. The Senate on Wednesday voted to put 370 miles of fences on the border.

Bush's border visit was part of his efforts to win over conservatives balking at his support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and a new guest worker program.

Bush asked Congress for $1.9 billion Thursday to pay for 1,000 Border Patrol agents and the temporary deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard troops to states along the Mexican border.

His request was not warmly welcomed by some key senators.

Sen. Judd Gregg, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, delayed a vote on Bush's promotion of U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman to White House budget director to show his displeasure. He said Bush's request calls for using money for proposed for border security equipment to pay for operational exercises.

Sen. Robert Byrd, the Senate Appropriations Committee's top Democrat, complained that he had offered amendments providing for border security nine times since 2002, only to have the Bush administration reject them as extraneous spending or expanding the size of government.

"If we had spent that money beginning in 2002, we would not be calling on the National Guard today," Byrd said.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers supporting the immigration measure continued to hold through the week. The group was able to reverse an amendment that denied temporary workers the ability to petition on their own for legal permanent residency, a step to citizenship.

Bill supporters restored the self-petitioning with the condition the federal government certifies American workers were unavailable to fill the jobs held or sought by the temporary workers.

Dodd Poised For Possible '08 Presidential Run

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd said today he has "decided to do all the things that are necessary to prepare to seek the presidency in 2008."

The Connecticut Democrat will hire staff, raise money and travel around the country in the next few months as he tries to enlist support.

Like other presidential contenders, Dodd said during a lengthy interview in his Capitol Hill office that he will not formally decide until early next year whether to make his bid official. At the moment, he joins about 10 other major Democratic Party figures who are considering a run.

Dodd came close to running in 2004 but never entered the race. Circumstances are different today -- he is not up for re-election to his Senate seat, and colleague Joe Lieberman is not running for president.

Dodd, who turns 62 Saturday, was elected by a wide margin to a fifth Senate term in 2004. He has never lost an election, but starts his White House effort as a long shot -- invisible in most presidential preference polls.

He is highly regarded among his Senate colleagues as a skilled backroom negotiator who has won passage of major legislation, notably the Family and Medical Leave Act, help for minority voters and huge budget boosts for Head Start and child care.

He has been able to get liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans to back such measures, yet he's known among Democratic insiders as an outspoken advocate for partisan causes.

Dodd came within one vote of being chosen Senate leader in 1994, and weeks later he became the Democratic National Committee's general chairman. He overcame early skepticism by many party leaders outside New England and proved to be a popular partisan speaker around the country, particularly with minority constituencies.

But a Dodd White House run would faces numerous hurdles. He lacks the name recognition of candidates such as 2004 ticket-mates John Kerry and John Edwards, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., and others. And the $2 million Dodd has on hand for a race is dwarfed by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's estimated $20 million and Kerry's estimated $17 million.

Dodd also will be scrutinized like never before -- facing questions about thousands of votes over the years, criticism of consistently high rankings by liberal groups, skepticism about whether a New Englander should head the ticket again and likely barbs about his days in the 1980s, when he was divorced and known as a ladies' man.

Dodd made it clear Monday that he has thought carefully about this undertaking. He spoke confidently and rapidly about his plans, and his tone was unusually serious. Dodd often injects humor or even gossip into his conversation. Not this time.

He explained that after weeks of talking with key advisers he decided to proceed last month during dinner with his wife, Jackie, at Jack's American Bistro and Wine Bar in Old Saybrook. Jackie Dodd, a savvy Washington player who was an executive at the Export-Import Bank and is now an international business consultant, told her husband he should lay the groundwork to run.

The Dodds have two young daughters, Grace, 4½, and 14-month-old Christina.

"They're young enough so that I can do this and still be with them," the senator said, adding that he wanted to be able to tell them that when he saw the problems the country faces today, he tried to make the future better.

Dodd turned to old friends who have advised him for years, including Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-3rd District, his first Senate chief of staff in the early 1980s; Douglas Sosnik, another former chief of staff who became President Clinton's political director; former Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C., an old friend who ran for president in 1984; former Minnesota Rep. Richard M. Nolan, and pollster Stanley Greenberg, DeLauro's husband and a longtime Dodd adviser.

DeLauro was unequivocal. "This is someone who is incredibly effective, a unifying person," she said Monday. Forget any concerns about being tagged as a New England liberal, DeLauro advised.

"He has traveled the length and breadth of the country," she said. "He has sat with families in their living rooms. He knows how to create change."

Dodd is known as someone who connects well with others but can also show a temper. And while he's a seasoned legislative negotiator, he is not considered a detail man.

Dodd ultimately had to decide whether he had the fire in the belly for a run. Sosnik said there was "no question about it … he's convinced he really wants to run."

Dodd also reached out to friends around the country, including Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., and Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker.

"He'd make a great president," Baker said Monday. He said that although Dodd's New England label could make some people leery, "once people look at his record and see he has support across the board, they will come to know him and where his heart is."

Dodd said he decided to pursue the candidacy because he constantly hears from constituents that the country is going in the wrong direction, yet politicians often seem blind to their concerns and focused instead on divisive wedge issues.

"Families are under incredible pressure. They're working less and paying more," he said. "There's a sense the challenges they face are unprecedented."

On global issues, Dodd, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he can bring a world view to fighting terrorism that he often finds lacking.

"It's going to be more than Iraq,'' he said of 2008 security issues. "After 9/11, the world was at our doorstep." Not anymore. Although the United States does not have to be liked, he said, it must re-establish its alliances and regain respect.

Dodd said he hopes his message of optimism and conciliation will transcend ideology and even partisanship.

But first he will have to escape the liberal tag, which can be political poison. Americans for Democratic Action, which rates lawmakers on their liberalism, gave Dodd a perfect score last year. Dodd's compromising skills may have won him respect from GOP senators as a voice of reason, but that's barely known outside the Capitol.

Dodd said he was unworried how others define him. "I don't run away from who I am and what I stand for," he said. "Campaigns are always about the future."

Dodd also will have to overcome his New England roots. The last time a non-Southern Democrat won the White House was 46 years ago, and party officials have struggled mightily to find candidates with appeal outside the Northeast, a region that is now considered reliably Democratic.

"I'll get out and get known," Dodd said, recalling that he heard the same criticism when he was nominated for party chairman, and it quickly faded.

A third problem may be his 1980s image as one of the tabloids' favorite senators. Though he has not had to endure such publicity for at least 20 years, a candidate's entire life is fair game in a presidential campaign.

Dodd professed to be unworried. "It's about the future," he said of the race. "Remember what this is about."

Dodd's Senate duties and demeanor could present another hurdle. Making the leap from the decorum and dignity of the U.S. Senate -- where members address one another as "gentleman" and "gentle lady" and rarely speak ill of their colleagues -- to a campaign bulldog can prove difficult. Modern presidential politics requires tartness and even nastiness, the ability to find a seemingly obscure vote or quote and use it as a dagger into the heart of an opponent's campaign.

Dodd contended that he may not need a scythe, saying his genial tone is just what people want. "I realize politics is a contact sport," he said, "but people are desperate for political leadership for the purpose of bringing people together."

For now, Dodd has the confidence of someone who has finally broken through and decided to make the effort. "This is the right time for me," he said. "This is the right thing to do."

Bill to Ban Gambling Online Gets 4th Chance

Online poker players will have to fold their hands if a Virginia congressman gets his way.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a bill introduced by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R) that would ban much online gambling, including bets on sporting events and games of chance -- namely poker, which has enjoyed a boom in recent years.

The legislation could get an unexpected boost from the Jack Abramoff scandal. The disgraced lobbyist was key to blocking one of Goodlatte's three previous attempts to ban Internet gambling, and backlash over corruption charges could help the current effort.

The bill would update the Federal Wire Wager Act, which prohibits gambling over telephone lines but may not apply to Internet gambling because not all Web traffic travels over phone lines. It also would force banks to block transactions related to online gambling and would empower law enforcement agencies to force Internet service providers to remove or disable links to gambling sites.

"I am a big advocate of opening up the Internet to all kinds of legitimate uses," said Goodlatte, who is co-chairman of the Congressional Internet Caucus. "But we don't want the Internet to become the Wild West of the 21st century." Goodlatte said he opposes gambling because it leads to "a whole host of ills in society."

The bill effectively would prevent state lotteries from taking their games online, because technology does not exist to keep gambling within a state. Fantasy sports leagues would be exempt. Goodlatte said his bill is neutral on parimutuel horse wagering, which has an online component that is the cause of an ongoing struggle between Congress and the Justice Department.

The legislative fight over an earlier version of Goodlatte's bill was at the center of the Abramoff lobbying scandal, which led to guilty pleas by Abramoff and four former associates, including three former congressional aides. Abramoff's client, a gambling services company, opposed the bill, and the lobbyist funneled $50,000 of the client's money to the wife of a key aide to former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). The aide, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty to charges that he conspired with Abramoff to corrupt public officials and defraud his clients. Questions about DeLay's role contributed to DeLay's decision to leave Congress.

The current bill is backed by religious groups such as the Southern Baptist Convention, professional sports leagues such as the NFL and online-auction giant eBay Inc. On the other side are members of Congress from casino-supported Nevada, who introduced rival legislation; casinos; an organization of small banks that says its members do not have the manpower to block all gambling transactions; and a group that hopes not to get dealt out, the Poker Players Alliance.

Poker players argue that their pastime should be excluded from Goodlatte's ban because it is a game of skill, not chance. Last month, three World Series of Poker champions visited a House office building to defend their game against attempts to ban it online.

"We don't believe that simply putting the word 'Internet' in front of 'poker' should make the game suspect," said Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance. "Poker is a skill game. You can influence events. The original cards are random, but you can influence your success or failure throughout the hand" by learning betting patterns of fellow players, bluffing and other techniques, he said.

Bolcerek said he prefers a weekly sit-down poker game with buddies to playing online.

Goodlatte, who said he played poker as a young man but never for money, disagreed. Poker is "absolutely a game of chance," he said.

Both sides estimate that about $12 billion a year is spent in online gaming.

Three House members from Nevada -- Jon Porter (R), Shelley Berkley (D) and Jim Gibbons (R) -- yesterday introduced legislation for an 18-month study of online gambling and whether games could be regulated and taxed, as they are in Britain. Goodlatte said such regulation could not exist here because gambling is regulated at the state, not federal, level.

The Independent Community Bankers of America, a group of about 5,000 small banks that opposes Goodlatte's bill, said previous attempts got bogged down in complications and had little chance of passing. But Stephen J. Verdier, senior vice president for congressional affairs for the small bankers, said the Abramoff scandal "has raised the political saliency" of Goodlatte's bill. "It's kind of got us a little worried, frankly," he said.

Though banks have the right to examine all transactions and block them if required by law, they are in the business of making customer payments as quickly and accurately as possible, Verdier said, "not trying to decide if you're a good person or a bad person."

Arnold to veto bill
nixing 'mom,' 'dad'
Homosexual-rights measure removes
'sex-specific' terms from schoolbooks

Breaking a policy of not commenting on pending bills, a spokesman for Arnold Schwarzenegger says the California governor will veto at least one of three controversial education measures related to sexual orientation.

The governor opposes a measure passed by the Senate and pending in the Assembly that would remove "sex-specific" terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks and would require students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society, the Sacramento Bee reported.

SB 1437 passed the Senate May 11 with a 22-15 vote.

"The governor believes that school curriculum should include all important historical figures, regardless of orientation," said Schwarzenegger's director of communications, Adam Mendelsohn, according to the Bee. "However, he does not support the Legislature micromanaging curriculum."

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, said he's pleased Schwarzenegger is listening to the concerns of parents.

He urges Schwarzenegger to veto two other "sexual indoctrination" bills, because "parents and grandparents are demanding it."

AB 606, would authorize the California Superintendent of Public Instruction to arbitrarily withhold state funds – about two-thirds of a school district's budget – from any district that does not adequately promote transsexuality, bisexuality or homosexuality in its school policies.

A third measure, AB 1056, would spend $250,000 in taxpayer dollars to promote transsexual, bisexual and homosexual lifestyles as part of "tolerance education."

Democratic state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the openly lesbian author of the measure Schwarzenegger plans to veto, expressed disbelief that the governor already has made up his mind on a bill that still hadn't been vetted by one house of the Legislature, the Sacramento paper said.

"He hasn't made up his mind, I don't care what some underling might have said," insisted Kuehl, who said she had not spoken with the governor yet about the bill.

Kuehl plans to initiate a conversation when the measure gets to the Assembly floor.

"For them to take a position on it, I think is precipitous," she said. "There's nothing controversial about it. The right wing has drummed up a lot of old fears. Once people understand what it really does, the response is usually OK."

Seth Kilbourn, political director for the homosexual-rights group Equality California, called the governor's indication of opposition "disappointing."

Kilbourn doesn't see any political benefit in the governor rejecting the bill, with June being "Gay Pride Month."

"This would not be the best time for him to be doing that if he wanted to appear more friendly," Kilbourn told the Sacramento paper. "He's passed more pieces of legislation benefiting the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered) community – except for gay marriage – than any other governor."

States move to validate use of deadly force

A campaign by gun rights advocates to make it easier to use deadly force in self-defense is rapidly winning support across the country, as state after state makes it legal for people who feel their lives are in danger to shoot down an attacker -- whether in a car-jacking or just on the street.

The law has spurred debate about whether it protects against lawlessness or spurs more crime. Supporters say it's an unambiguous answer to random violence, while critics -- including police chiefs and prosecutors -- warn that criminals are more likely to benefit than innocent victims.

Ten states so far this year have passed a version of the law, after Florida was the first last year. It's already being considered in Arizona in the case of a deadly shooting on a hiking trail.

Supporters have dubbed the new measures "stand your ground" laws, while critics offered nicknames like the "shoot first," "shoot the Avon lady" or "right to commit murder" laws.

At its core, they broaden self-defense by removing the requirement in most states that a person who is attacked has a "duty to retreat" before turning to deadly force. Many of the laws specify that people can use deadly force if they believe they are in danger in any place they have a legal right to be -- a parking lot, a street, a bar, a church. They also give immunity from criminal charges and civil liability.

The campaign is simply about self-defense, said Oklahoma state Rep. Kevin Calvey, a Republican and author of the law in his state. "Law-abiding citizens aren't going to take it anymore," he said.

"It's going to give the crooks second thoughts about carjackings and things like that. They're going to get a face full of lead," Calvey said. He introduced the bill at the request of the local National Rifle Association, and it passed with overwhelmingly support: The House agreed 83-4, the Senate 39-5.

Democratic Gov. Brad Henry signed it and said: "This act will allow law-abiding Oklahomans to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property."

Besides Oklahoma, the nine other states to sign on are Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Dakota, according to the NRA.

Critics say the NRA is overstating its success. Only six of those states expanded self-defense into public places, said Zach Ragbourn, a spokesman at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. There already is a presumption in law that a person does not have to retreat in their home or car, he said.

And there have been a few high-profile defeats, too.

In New Hampshire, the measure passed the legislature only narrowly and then was vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who was joined by police and prosecutors.

Police Chief Nathaniel H. Sawyer Jr. of New Hampton, N.H., said the legislation addressed a problem that does not exist. In 26 years in law enforcement, he has never seen anyone wrongfully charged with a crime for self-defense, he said.

"I think it increases the chance for violence," said Sawyer, also the president of the New Hampshire Association of Police Chiefs. "It increases the chance of innocent people being around the violence and becoming involved in it or hurt."

The bill would have allowed a person "to use deadly force in response to non-deadly force, even in public places such as shopping malls, public streets, restaurants and churches," Lynch said when he vetoed the legislation. Existing law already gives citizens the right to protect themselves, he said.

The NRA argues that victims wind up with an unfair burden if the law, as it does in New Hampshire, requires a duty to retreat, if possible. "That does crime victims little good when they have to make a split-second decision to protect their life from violent attack by a criminal," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive director.

"The only people that have anything to fear from this type of law is someone who plans on robbing, shooting or raping someone," LaPierre said.

That argument sounds good and it's winning supporters, said Florida state Rep. Dan Gelber, a critic of the law when it passed in his state last year and a former federal prosecutor. But he does not see any instances now or in the past of a victim being prosecuted for failing to retreat.

He sees the Florida law, and the national campaign, as an effort by the NRA to build support and keep its members riled up.

"The NRA is a victim of its own successes. No political party in Florida today is going to advance any serious gun-control agenda," said Gelber, a Democrat. "What's left is these little things which have no impact on every day life, but inspire and activate the base."

And, he argued, it gives defense attorneys a potential avenue to seek acquittal for crimes. In effect, criminals will benefit much more often than any innocent victim. "It's going to give the guy who's really looking for a fight, or does something totally irresponsible or venal, a defense he would not otherwise have."

Last week in Arizona, the state appellate court delayed the start of jury deliberations in the trial of a retired school teacher charged with second-degree murder for shooting a man on a hiking trail in May 2004. The court is deciding whether the new law applies to his claim of self-defense.

Purple Heart Stamp Reissued, Iraqi War Vets Honored

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, Va., May 26, 2006 – A new version of a postage stamp commemorating the Purple Heart and all those who have earned it was issued in a ceremony here today.

“Vile, offensive and organized protests have taken place around this country at funerals of fallen service members,” said Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman. The bill, he said, “will allow families to grieve for the loss of a loved one in peace.”

Buyer said he has been in discussions with the White House about the possibility of a Memorial Day signing for the bill, which has bipartisan support.

Under the bill, protests and demonstrations would be barred within 150 feet of the entry or exit from a national cemetery 60 minutes before and 60 minutes after a funeral. It covers Arlington National Cemetery or any of the other 124 national cemeteries.

Violating the law would be a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

The bill also recommends but does not require states to impose similar restrictions. Six states have enacted similar bans, and several others are considering restrictions. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the protest restrictions in one state, Kentucky.

“For the past few years, small bands of protestors have gathered at the funerals of fallen military heroes,” said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Ind., the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman. “The conduct of those protestors has been as outrageous as it has been unwelcomed.”

The main focus of the legislation is to block protests by a Topeka, Kan., church headed by the Rev. Fred Phelps, which has appeared at many funerals of U.S. combat casualties claiming the deaths are punishment for the lax attitudes about homosexuals. Phelps and his followers from the Westboro Baptist Church have carried signs saying, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.”

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who first introduced the bill, said he was not trying to inhibit free speech. He just wanted families to have the chance to “bury their American heroes with dignity and in peace,” Rogers said.

South again rising against federal rule?
GOP judicial candidates argue Alabama's right to ignore Supreme Court rulings

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — In a debate with powerful echoes of the turbulent civil rights era, four Republicans running for Alabama's Supreme Court are making an argument legal scholars thought was settled in the 1800s: that state courts are not bound by U.S. Supreme Court precedents.

The Constitution says federal law trumps state laws, and legal experts say there is general agreement that state courts must defer to the U.S. Supreme Court on matters of federal law.

Yet Justice Tom Parker, who is running for chief justice, argues that state judges should refuse to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedents they believe to be erroneous. Three other GOP candidates in Tuesday's primary have made nearly identical arguments.

"State supreme court judges should not follow obviously wrong decisions simply because they are 'precedents,'" Parker wrote in a newspaper opinion piece in January that was prompted by a murder case that came before the Alabama high court.

Parker is a former aide to Roy Moore, who became a hero to the religious right when he was ousted as Alabama's chief justice in 2003 for refusing to obey a federal judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state courthouse.

Parker's opponent, GOP incumbent Drayton Nabers, has rejected Parker's theory of federal-vs.-state authority as "bizarre" and warned it would "lead to chaos both in the nation and the state."

Similarly, John Carroll, a former federal magistrate who is now dean of the law school at Samford University in suburban Birmingham, called Parker's position "absolutely wrong and without any basis."

"This view would create absolute anarchy. If this became the practice ... we would not have any law," Carroll said.

Parker's ideas may be appealing to Alabama voters, however. A poll in April showed him in a close race with Nabers, though 55 percent were still undecided.

Bashing the federal courts has often been a winning political strategy in the South.

During the 1950s and '60s, Southern politicians — Alabama Gov. George Wallace foremost among them — railed against federal court decisions striking down segregation in schools and public transportation. Segregationists asserted state sovereignty and states' rights against what they decried as tyrannical interference from Washington.

More recently, then-Gov. Fob James threatened in 1997 to call out the National Guard to protect Moore's right to display a Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom.

There are nine seats on Alabama's Supreme Court, all now held by Republicans, and five are up for election.

The issue of the role of the U.S. Supreme Court has been boiling ever since Parker wrote the newspaper opinion piece criticizing his fellow justices in a murder case for following a decision by the high court that barred the execution of juvenile killers. Parker called the federal decision "blatant judicial tyranny."

"State supreme courts may decline to follow bad U.S. Supreme Court precedents because those decisions bind only the parties to the particular case," he wrote.

Alan Zeigler, a Birmingham lawyer running for Alabama's high court, said lower courts should follow direct orders of the Supreme Court in specific cases. But he said state justices have a duty to ignore precedent when the high court takes an unconstitutional position.

"What you'll have is what the founding fathers said we'd have — checks and balances," said Zeigler, who is making his first run for office. "It's getting back to something old, the Constitution."

Another candidate, Henry P. "Hank" Fowler, a member of Parker's staff, said conservative judges must stop surrendering to liberal Supreme Court opinions "without a word of protest." And lawyer Ben Hand said judges "can't just break the law and then point to the guy down the street in the black robe and say, 'He told me to.'"

For his part, Moore is running for governor against GOP incumbent Bob Riley, who has a big lead in the polls.

Democrat: 'You don't need papers for voting'
Candidate to replace Cunningham says she 'mispoke' before largely Latino audience

Busby on defense, says she misspoke

If an election can turn on a sentence, this could be the one: “You don't need papers for voting.”

On Thursday night, Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate for the 50th Congressional District, was speaking before a largely Latino crowd in Escondido when she uttered those words. She said yesterday she simply misspoke.

But someone taped it and a recording began circulating yesterday. After she made that statement at the meeting, Busby immediately said: “You don't need to be a registered voter to help (the campaign).”

She said that subsequent statement was to clarify what she meant.

The recording, which was played yesterday on Roger Hedgecock's radio talk show, jolted the campaign.

Busby, a Cardiff school board member, is in a tight race with Republican Brian Bilbray, a congressman-turned-lobbyist, who has based his campaign on a tough anti-illegal-immigration stance. Busby has focused her campaign on ethics reform. The two are vying to replace Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who was jailed after pleading guilty to taking bribes.

Busby said she was invited to the forum at the Jocelyn Senior Center in Escondido by the leader of a local soccer league. Many of the 50 or so people there were Spanish speakers. Toward the end, a man in the audience asked in Spanish: “I want to help, but I don't have papers.”

It was translated and Busby replied: “Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can all help. You don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help.”

Bilbray said at worst, Busby was encouraging someone to vote illegally. At best, she was encouraging someone who is illegally in the country to work on her campaign.

“She's soliciting illegal aliens to campaign for her and it's on tape – this isn't exactly what you call the pinnacle of ethical campaign strategy,” Bilbray said. “I don't know how she shows her face.”

The two later met in a debate in Carlsbad last night.

Earlier, San Diego Minutemen volunteer Anthony Porrello said he got the tape from an an anonymous Minuteman and passed it on to the news media and talk radio. News of the gathering had circulated among local Minutemen before the meeting, according to William Griffith, the independent candidate in the race who has been endorsed by the San Diego Minutemen.

He attended, but did not hear the statement. He said he was in the back of the room.

“I heard what I expected to hear from a Democrat who supports amnesty,” he said. Busby says she doesn't support amnesty, but backs the comprehensive plan pushed by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that includes opening a path to citizenship for people in the United States illegally if they pay penalties and abide by certain conditions.

Busby said that Republicans are now twisting her words. She does not in any way support or advocate that illegal immigrants vote, she said.

“I was clarifying the question that was being asked in Spanish and then stated that you do not have to be a registered voter to help the campaign because there were many people who appeared to be to be under 18 in the group who wanted to volunteer,” she said in a statement. “I'm not surprised that the Republican Party is making this last-minute, desperate ploy and it is absolutely false.”

Prayer dispute fails to disrupt Shelby County graduation
Some students pray, others wave American flags

In spite of tensions over school prayer, heavy security and an unusual number of reporters, Shelby County High School's graduation happened without major disruption.

At the beginning, some of the students stood and quietly prayed the Lord's Prayer, while others who opposed school prayer stood and waved American flags to show their support of the Constitution.

Then both groups sat and the ceremony proceeded as planned. For the most part, the more than 300 graduates and their guests kept any disagreements low-key and civil, and the tenor of the crowd was festive.

"The kids were well-behaved and the crowd was well-behaved," said Principal Gary Kidwell.

The controversy began when a graduating senior, Arshiya Saiyed, an American-born Muslim, objected to including official prayers in the ceremony.

After meeting with the school board and a lawyer, Kidwell announced there would be no official invocation or benediction as there had been at past graduations. Two of the scheduled student speakers talked about the need to value diversity, and a third quoted a verse from the New Testament to applause from the crowd.

Valedictorian Jacqueline Ward said that while Shelby County is still largely white, middle class and Christian, it has diversity -- and that students will encounter more diversity as they enter the world.

"Though we may not agree with them, we must fully respect them and their views," she told the audience at the Frankfort Convention Center.

"Simply because a person is of a different race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or simply has a different ideology, that does not give us the right to treat them with less respect."

Salutatorian Justina Ellis spoke about being diagnosed with diabetes and how it was a more challenging year than she ever expected. "It brought me closer to my Lord," she said.

She drew loud applause when she quoted, "I can do anything through Him who strengthens me."

When Saiyed walked up to receive her diploma, there were some cheers and one or two boos from the guest area -- but not from fellow graduates.

Before the ceremony, pro-prayer supporters passed out stickers reading, "Smile, God loves you," and as many graduates received their diploma and shook hands with Kidwell, they affixed the stickers to his jacket.

Last month a federal judge prohibited a Russell County High School student from leading a prayer at her graduation after another student objected through the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

But Russell County students rose on their own during the ceremony and recited the Lord's Prayer. And Megan Chapman, the student who had been designated to lead the prayer, included religious messages in her remarks to graduates.

Saiyed, who plans to study law after attending Centre College, said she first raised the issue of prayer in discussions with a graduation planning committee. When that didn't work, she went to the ACLU, which wrote a letter to the principal.

School staff strongly urged reporters not to interview students, and they kept the media in a roped-off area in the back of the convention center.

Before the ceremony, Heather Whortenbury, a graduating senior, called the situation "crazy."

"We should be able to pray because it's our graduation," she said.

A plane flew over the convention center pulling a banner that read, "Let us pray."

Saiyed's sister, Gulu Saiyed, who graduated from Shelby County High two years ago, said some people were shunning Arshiya, but "I'm so proud of her."

Her father, Taj Saiyed, who owns a hotel, said, "I'm proud of what my daughter has done. She's standing up for our Constitution. It's not a religious issue. It's a constitutional issue."

Also yesterday, a law firm representing Chapman announced that it had filed a motion to have the court order overturned. Even though the graduation is over, the group hopes to prevent similar rulings in future cases, said attorney Mathew Staver of the Florida-based Liberty Counsel.

The motion argues that Chapman should have had a chance to appear in court before being ordered not to pray. It also says she should have been allowed to pray if she chose because, after the lawsuit was filed, students elected her as a student speaker without officially designating her to pray.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that clergy-led prayers at high school graduations and student-led prayers at high school football games violate the constitutional ban on government-sponsored religion.

Conservative groups have argued that these rulings still leave room for individual speakers at graduations to pray, as long as they are not chosen to speak for that purpose.

Lili Lutgens of the ACLU of Kentucky declined to comment on the Shelby County case but said that in general, as long as a student speaker is chosen by neutral criteria, that student "gets to say whatever they want to say."

'Ten Commandments judge' has an uphill run

GALLANT, Ala. – Covered in dirt and sawdust, Roy Moore is spending Saturday not on the campaign trail, but restoring a dilapidated barn to house a horse for his wife.

Using an old bucket for a seat, Mr. Moore – known to millions outside Alabama as "the Ten Commandments judge" – explains that he doesn't really like politics. It's a peculiar statement from a man who wants to be his home state's next governor.

What Roy Moore likes is a good fight.

"I am firm about my convictions in right and wrong," he said.

The former state Supreme Court justice gained international attention in 2003, when he was removed from office after defying a federal court order to take down a Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama judicial building. Now, he's an underdog candidate in Tuesday's Republican gubernatorial primary, which most expect incumbent Gov. Bob Riley to win.

Mr. Moore's underfunded campaign focuses on no new taxes, criticism of the status quo, and, always, religion. The candidate, who calls himself a conservative Christian, refuses to recognize most modern judicial barriers between church and state.

"If you forget God, you have no national morality," he told a cheering audience of 2,000 last year in Longview, Texas.

Supporters on the religious right – one of whom likened Mr. Moore to "Huey Long with religion" – find such rhetoric inspiring. "He stands up for what he believes," said Len Gavin, a former executive director of the Alabama GOP who is working as a volunteer for Mr. Moore.

But that appeal doesn't appear likely to translate into a win. Polls have him trailing Gov. Riley 2 to 1.

During the fight over the Ten Commandments monument, his defiance of the federal courts cost him even among some ideological allies. One of his critics was Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"In defending the right to have the Ten Commandments in public places, I'm not willing to sacrifice the principle of the rule of law," Dr. Land said in 2003.

Some think Mr. Moore is better at rallying a vocal core of supporters than at assembling a broad political base.

As governor, "he'd be obsessed with what he was obsessed with before – trying to insert religion in public life," said Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which sued to remove the Ten Commandments monument.

Roy Moore was born in 1947 in the Appalachian foothills of northeast Alabama. He grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing. He bagged groceries to supplement his father's income as a construction worker.

He was admitted to the U.S. Military Academy, graduating in 1969. He served in the military police in Vietnam, where he would patrol at night with a sawed-off shotgun, searching for soldiers smoking pot or napping at their posts. Fellow officers dubbed him "Captain America" because of his rigid adherence to the rules.

"It wasn't meant to be flattering," he said.

He studied law at the University of Alabama and became a deputy district attorney in 1977. In 1982, he lost a bitterly contested election for circuit judge.

If he ever had a crisis of faith, it was then, he says. There didn't seem much for him in Alabama, so in his mid-30s he pulled up stakes. He bummed around Texas, kickboxing "to get the anger out." He drifted to Australia, where he worked as a cattle rancher.

After a couple of years, Mr. Moore went home, married and settled down to practice law. In 1992 he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the state circuit court. He took with him a wooden display of the Ten Commandments that had been in his law office and hung it on his courtroom wall. He opened court sessions with a prayer.

When the American Civil Liberties Union complained, Judge Moore called a news conference to say he was being religiously persecuted. The ACLU filed suit to get rid of the Ten Commandments. The suit was eventually thrown out, but not before it propelled the judge to statewide fame. In 2000, he was easily elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

His defining moment came when he placed a 5,200-pound granite Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the state judicial building. A federal judge ordered it removed, ruling that the chief justice's action violated the First Amendment prohibition against government establishment of religion. Justice Moore refused, calling the court order unlawful. On Nov. 13, 2003, Alabama's judicial ethics panel removed him from office.

Mr. Moore said the monument wasn't an establishment of religion but an "acknowledgment of God." The order to remove it, he said, represented "a misunderstanding of the First Amendment and the Constitution."

Campaigning, he criticizes special interests, taxes, political action committees, gay marriage and what he calls the tyranny of federal judges. He says it's wrong for Alabama to offer driver's license tests in multiple languages.

If elected, he said, he won't install a Ten Commandments monument in the Capitol.

"I think people know by now how I feel about the Ten Commandments," he said.

Capitol Hill scuffle may not affect McKinney's re-election bid

Two months after a scuffle between a Capitol Hill police officer and Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, it is unclear whether her actions may hurt or help her shot at re-election this year.

Some of her constituents and political experts agree the March 29 incident shouldn't matter much, and in fact the incident may give momentum to the fiery lawmaker known for her outspoken views and unconventional behavior.

"Everybody is still behind her 150 percent," said Parish Jordan, a 32-year-old Decatur car salesman, who says he plans to vote for McKinney in this year's elections.

"I was behind her from the beginning, and I'll be with her every step of the way," he said.

Supporters pointed to McKinney's character, her leadership and stands for seniors and ex-military personnel as evidence of her hard work, and to a bold, unapologetic and proud personality _ a trait some said explains why she argued with a police officer who did not recognize her as she entered a House office building.

Police said McKinney struck the officer as he tried to stop her, but the Democratic congresswoman countered she was acting in self-defense after the officer "inappropriately touched" her. In interviews, McKinney _ Georgia's first black woman elected to Congress _ has repeatedly blamed racial profiling for the incident.

"I was overwhelmed at what happened," Jordan said. "I thought it was very unfair to a woman."

McKinney's spokesman, Coz Carson, said she is no longer commenting on the matter. She has not responded to repeated interview requests and when approached at a constituent meeting Friday in Decatur, McKinney declined to comment on the matter.

Principal assistant U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips in Washington said a grand jury is looking into the scuffle to determine if criminal charges are warranted.

Hank Johnson, a Decatur lawyer challenging McKinney in the Democratic primary election on July 18, said what happened with McKinney was "a very unfortunate situation."

"We're forced to focus on this incident, at a time when we should be having a dialogue about the most pressing issues affecting our lives and those of our children ..." Johnson said. "I am hopeful that this matter will be resolved quickly so we can return to the issues that matter most to this district, our state and the nation."

While the March incident was a distraction, it may not be a deterrent for voters in McKinney's district just east of Atlanta, said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C.

"It would probably rally as many as it turned off. I don't see this is something that people are going to be all up in arms about," Bositis said.

He noted her strong base and showing in her 2004 return to the U.S. House of Representatives _ a seat she lost after five terms in 2002 to fellow Democrat Denise Majette, who campaigned on the premise that she would not embarrass the predominantly Democratic district as she claimed McKinney had.

"That's one of those tricks you can do once, but it usually doesn't happen again," Bositis said of McKinney's opponents' prior success in unseating her.

And her latest controversy doesn't seem to strike potential voters as "the same old Cynthia," who raised eyebrows when she accused former Vice President Al Gore of having a "low Negro tolerance level" and questioned the Bush administration's advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks.

As a retired law enforcement officer and Army veteran, Charles Wilson of Stone Mountain believes that in this case, the entire episode was little more than a misunderstanding.

"It could have been unintentional. I think her attitude could've been a little different after it happened," Wilson said. "But we all have regrets. ... We sit back and think about what we've said and done."

Wilson did not hestitate when asked if he plans to vote for McKinney in the fall.

"Most assuredly," he said. "She's helped a lot of seniors that I know. She's working on a disability case for me. I think she's done a lot for her district."

Tide turns against Prop. 82
For first time, plurality opposes universal preschool measure

In a dramatic shift, voters say they would reject a statewide initiative on Tuesday's ballot that would provide free preschool for all California 4-year-olds, a Field Poll released today shows.

Forty-six percent of those surveyed said they would vote against Proposition 82, while 41 percent said they would vote in favor, according to the poll. But the outcome remains uncertain because 13 percent of likely primary voters were still undecided on the measure.

The poll was the first since the Field Poll began its surveys on Prop. 82 five months ago, in which the measure -- dubbed the Preschool for All Act -- trailed among likely voters.

In February, 55 percent of those surveyed backed the measure -- a margin of 21 percentage points over those who opposed Prop. 82. The lead fell to 13 points in April, when 52 percent of those surveyed said they supported the measure.

Prop. 82 would impose a 1.7 percent tax increase on California's wealthiest residents, defined as individuals who earn $400,000 a year and couples who make $800,000 a year. The increase would generate an estimated $2.4 billion a year by 2010 to pay for half-day public preschool programs for the state's 4-year-olds.

It also would mandate stricter qualifications for preschool teachers, including a provision that they have bachelor's degrees, and would set curriculum standards.

The idea was proposed by Hollywood actor-director Rob Reiner and is backed by the California Teachers Association and other unions.

The California Chamber of Commerce and anti-tax groups oppose it, as do some existing preschool providers who fear the measure would create an unwieldy bureaucracy and put some of them out of business.

The Field Poll tracked the movement in voter support after both sides intensified their campaigns in the weeks leading to Tuesday's election. Nearly 3 in 4 voters reported some awareness of the initiative that has drawn national attention.

The trend doesn't spell doom for Prop. 82, since 13 percent of the voters polled said they were still undecided and the spread is within the poll's margin of error. But it does indicate the measure is in big trouble, said Mark DiCamillo, the Field Poll director. Most telling, he said, is that "there is an erosion of support among core constituents.''

For example, the poll found that enthusiasm has waned since April among Democrats and women, two voting blocs the pro-Prop. 82 campaign has banked on.

More than half, or 53 percent, of Democrats said they would vote for Prop. 82, while just 25 percent of Republicans said they would back it. Among nonpartisan voters, 45 percent said they were in favor. Looking at the gender breakdown, support among women stood at 45 percent and at 37 percent among men.

It fared best among Latinos and poorer people.

Support was strongest in the Central Valley, followed closely by the Bay Area, Los Angeles County and other parts of Northern California, but it plunged in Southern California counties outside of Los Angeles, the poll found.

The poll was conducted May 23-31 of 663 Californians who said they were likely to vote in the upcoming election. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

"We're all for preschool, we know its value, we're committed to it. It's just (Prop.) 82 does not deliver on its hope and promise,'' said Pamela Rigg, president of the California Montessori Council and a spokeswoman in the campaign that opposes the measure.

She said she was heartened by the latest poll numbers.

"This is the direction we had hoped for, that as the voters learn more and more about Prop. 82, the obvious flaws and long-term implications are being realized,'' she said.

But Nathan James, a spokesman for the "Yes on 82" campaign, said the measure's backers haven't given up hope.

"From the beginning, we always knew the election would come down to the wire, and we remain confident that Prop. 82 will pass,'' he said. "California voters consistently supported measures that improve education.''

Despite the poll findings, he predicted that the strongest supporters will be more inclined to vote in Tuesday's election because of the hotly contested race in the Democratic primary for governor. The leading Democrats in the race, Phil Angelides and Steve Westly, support the preschool initiative.
Field Poll results

The Field Poll released today also found:

-- In the contested Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Jackie Speier of Hillsborough was the choice of 30 percent of likely Democratic voters, trailed by state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi (25 percent) and state Sen. Liz Figueroa (8 percent). More than 1 in 3 voters were undecided.

-- In the Democratic primary race for state attorney general, Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown held a commanding lead (51 percent to 24 percent) over Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.

-- In the Republican primary battle for state controller, taxpayer advocate Tony Strickland was favored by 32 percent of likely GOP voters. He was trailed by business controller Abel Maldonado with 21 percent. The Democratic race for controller is much tighter, with 19 percent supporting Board of Equalization member John Chiang, and 18 percent backing state Sen. Joe Dunn of Santa Ana. In both races, more than 4 in 10 voters remain undecided.

-- The GOP primary for state treasurer is a close contest, with Assemblyman Keith Richman of Northridge (Los Angeles County) supported by 18 percent and Board of Equalization member Claude Parrish by 17 percent. Nearly 2 in 3 voters were undecided.

-- The Democratic primary for secretary of state put state Sen. Deborah Ortiz of Sacramento ahead of state Sen. Debra Brown of Marina Del Rey (Los Angeles County) 25 percent to 19 percent. A majority of voters were undecided.

Supreme Court to Hear Schools Race Case

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide the extent to which public schools can use race in deciding school assignments, setting the stage for a landmark affirmative action ruling.

Justices will hear appeals from a Seattle parents group and a Kentucky parent, ruling for the first time on diversity plans used by a host of school districts around the country.

Race cases have been difficult for the justices. The court's announcement that it will take up the cases this fall provides the first sign of an aggressiveness by the court under new Chief Justice John Roberts.

The court rejected a similar case in December when moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was still on the bench. The outcome of this case will turn on her successor, Samuel Alito.

"Looming in the background of this is the constitutionality of affirmative action," said Davison Douglas, a law professor at William and Mary. "This is huge."

Arguments will likely take place in November. The court's announcement followed six weeks of internal deliberations over whether to hear the appeals, an unusually long time.

In one of the cases, an appeals court had upheld Seattle's system, which lets students pick among high schools and then relies on tiebreakers, including race, to decide who gets into schools that have more applicants than openings.

The lower court decision was based in part on a Supreme Court ruling three years ago, written by O'Connor, which said that colleges and universities could select students based at least in part on race.

The court also will also consider a school desegregation policy in Kentucky. That case is somewhat different, because the school district had long been under a federal court decree to end segregation in its schools. After the decree ended, the district in 2001 began using a plan that includes race guidelines.

A federal judge had said system did not require quotas, and that other factors were considered including geographic boundaries and special programs.

A mother, Crystal Meredith, claimed her son was denied entrance into the neighborhood school because he is white. The Jefferson County school district, which covers metropolitan Louisville, Ky., and has nearly 100,000 students, was ordered to desegregate its schools in 1974.

The court will also consider whether Seattle's so-called integration tiebreaker system, which has been discontinued, is tailored to meet a "compelling interest" by the school.

A group called Parents Involved in Community Schools sued in July 2000, arguing that it was unfair for the school district to consider race, and Seattle halted the system.

Lawyers for the Seattle school district had told justices that it was not known what the district's new school board and new superintendent would do now.

Under the district's plan, the first tiebreaker was whether an applicant has a sibling already at the school. The second tiebreaker was race: which applicant would bring the high school closer to the districtwide ratio of whites to nonwhites, roughly 40 percent to 60 percent. The third tiebreaker was distance, with closer students getting preference.

Seattle has about 46,000 public-school students. The racial tiebreaker helped some whites get into predominantly minority schools, and vice versa.

The cases are Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, 05-908, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 05-915.

Roy Moore in governor vote today
'Ten Commandents judge' vies for Republican nomination

Alabama voters will decide today whether "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore continues his bid for the governor's mansion.

After gaining national attention for his ouster from the state Supreme Court over refusal to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse, Moore entered his name in the Republican primary. But he faces long odds as a recent poll puts him 40 points behind incumbent Gov. Bob Riley.

Moore has criticized Riley for beginning annual property tax reappraisals and contends the governor's administration has done little to curb an "invasion" of illegal immigrants.

But Riley's term has featured record lows in unemployment and highs in economic growth. He also boasts a tax cut he helped pass this year.

Moore downplays the tax cut as a relatively small one and promises to control the Democratic-dominated Legislature through "leadership," the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

"People will listen if you propose appropriate legislation in an appropriate manner," Moore said.

Moore says he will roll back property appraisals to every four years and offer tax vouchers for people to send their children to private schools.

Moore, despite rejecting cash from political action committees, has kept pace with Riley's fund-raising – each reporting $1 million – through smaller donations, many from out of state, Riley, however, already has $2 million cash in hand.

Former Gov. Don Siegelman and Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley are the Democratic Party frontrunners.

Moore insists voters beneath pollsters' radar will lead him to victory today, but veteran political analyst William Stewart said there aren't nearly enough of those voters, the Birmingham News reported.

"I think Governor Riley's going to have a substantial win on Tuesday," Stewart said. "I think Governor Riley has used all the advantages of his incumbency."

The Birmingham paper said Moore has "tried to get beyond the Ten Commandments and the public memory of his removal from the chief justice's post in 2003" which has "led more than a few Republican voters to conclude they want a gubernatorial candidate who obeys the law."

Stewart contends Moore has not been able to move beyond his base issue.

"Even though people agree with Moore on his stand on the public acknowledgment of God, ... having the right position on religion, that's not enough to elect you governor of Alabama," Stewart said.

More has said that if elected, he won't install a Ten Commandments monument in the Capitol.

"I think people know by now how I feel about the Ten Commandments," he said.

Republican wins contested California race
Bilbray takes seat held by Cunningham; Angelides to face Schwarzenegger

A former Republican congressman narrowly beat his Democratic rival early Wednesday for the right to fill the House seat once held by imprisoned Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a race closely watched as a possible early barometer of next fall's vote.

Republican Brian Bilbray emerged victorious after a costly and contentious race against Democrat Francine Busby, a local school board member who ran against Cunningham in 2004.

With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Bilbray had 56,016 votes or 49.5 percent. Busby trailed with 51,202 votes or 45 percent.

"I think that we're going back to Washington," Bilbray told a cheering crowd of supporters.

The race -- one of dozens of election contests in eight states -- was viewed by Democrats as an opportunity to capture a solidly Republican district and build momentum on their hopes to capture control of the House.

'Go, Phil, go'
State Treasurer Phil Angelides narrowly beat Controller Steve Westly in California’s gubernatorial primary, winning Los Angeles and San Francisco counties, to become the party’s challenger to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November. With 80 percent of precincts reporting, Angelides had 842,657 votes, 48 percent, to Westly’s 772,547 votes, or 44 percent.

“I’m standing here before you tonight as the nominee for governor,” Angelides said early Wednesday, while his supporters chanted, “Go, Phil, go!”

Westly, a former eBay executive, poured $35 million of his own money into the campaign, but was unable to overcome the labor unions that turned out the vote for Angelides. A low turnout made the unions’ efforts all the more important.

Votes still being counted
Elsewhere, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley easily beat back a GOP primary challenge from Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore, while Democratic former Gov. Don Siegelman — who campaigned while on trial on corruption charges — lost his comeback fight against the state’s first female lieutenant governor. Also in Alabama, voters passed a ban on gay marriage by a 4-to-1 margin.

Riley said voters saw state government has changed while he has been in office. “People appreciated the difference in the level of corruption we had in the past and the corruption we don’t have today,” he said. His challenger, Moore, said: “God’s will has been done.”

Another Washington corruption case figured in Montana’s primary, where GOP Sen. Conrad Burns sought the nomination for a fourth term. After his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff became known, Burns saw his popularity fall. He beat several primary challengers and won nearly three-quarters of the vote. His Democratic challenger in the fall will be state Senate President Jon Tester.

In Iowa, the retirement of two-term Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack set off a wide-open race. Secretary of State Chet Culver will face GOP Rep. Jim Nussle in the fall.

Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota also held primaries. Corruption and allegations of corruption — in California, Alabama and Montana — crisscrossed the country. Immigration was a campaign issue from the South to the Plains.

Immigration at center of campaign
Still, the biggest race was the one to replace Cunningham, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for taking bribes on a scale unparalleled in the history of Congress.

National Democrats spent nearly $2 million on the race; the GOP spent $4.5 million. President Bush and first lady Laura Bush recorded telephone messages for Bilbray, while the Democrats’ last two presidential candidates — John Kerry and Al Gore — urged supporters to back Busby.

Bilbray, made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, proposing a fence “from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico” and restrictions to keep illegal immigrants from collecting Social Security and other benefits.

Busby, a local school board member, focused her campaign on public dissatisfaction with the Bush administration and the GOP-led Congress, and assailed Bilbray for working as a lobbyist in Washington. She consistently referred to him as “the lobbyist Bilbray.”

In New Jersey, Republicans chose Tom Kean Jr., the son of a popular former governor, to challenge Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez in the fall.

In the weeks leading up to Alabama’s gubernatorial primary, polls showed Riley with a growing lead on Moore, the former state chief justice who became a hero to the religious right in 2003 when he was ousted over his refusal to remove the Commandments monument from the state judicial building.

Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley fashioned an “I Love Lucy” campaign, while Siegelman had to campaign at night while on trial on corruption charges during the day. She won with 60 percent of the vote while Siegelman got just 36 percent. Riley took 67 percent of the vote, and Moore 33 percent.

A few races brought back some familiar names:

* Jerry Brown — the former California governor, presidential candidate and current Oakland mayor — won the Democratic primary for attorney general.
* George C. Wallace Jr., son of the former Alabama governor, trailed in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor to attorney Luther Strange but the race goes to a runoff because no one got 50 percent.
* Hollywood director Rob Reiner was the leading backer of a measure in California to create a $2.4 billion universal preschool program, which went down to defeat by a 60-to-40-percent margin.

Senate to consider letting Hawaiians pursue sovereignty

Hawaii Sen. Daniel K. Akaka thinks Hawaiians should be allowed to govern themselves as Native Americans and Alaskans do, and after seven years of pushing a bill to start the process, the Senate is expected to take it up this week.
Mr. Akaka says the bill is a way to give "indigenous" Hawaiians a sense of pride and a chance for sovereignty for the first time since 1893, when Queen Liliuokalani was deposed and lands were illegally seized by U.S. Marines and a cadre of sugar-plantation businessmen.
"For the first time, if it passes, Hawaiians will have parity and be able to form a government entity to address their concerns, since the overthrow," Mr. Akaka said.
Republican senators annually have blocked the legislation, saying it would violate the Constitution by establishing a sovereign race-based government. It is only coming up now through a deal worked out between Democratic and Republican leaders to move other bills.
Opponents, including many native Hawaiians, say the bill opens up a "Pandora's box" of new race classifications and called the bill ambiguous as to what benefits it will bring.
The bill calls for an Office of Native Hawaiian Relations in the Department of the Interior, and a Native Hawaiian Interagency Coordinating Group to administer programs, a commission that would certify who are indigenous Hawaiians, and provides a process of reorganization of the Native Hawaiian governing entity.
"The bill will not authorize gaming in Hawaii. The bill will not allow private lands to be taken. The bill will not create a reservation in Hawaii," Mr. Akaka said.
The legislation is supported by both Republican and Democratic senators, primarily those from states with substantial Native American and Eskimo populations, as well as the American Bar Association and Alaska Federation of Natives.
Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, who has kept the bill from coming to the floor, said the creation of a native Hawaiian government -- composed only of redefined natives and whose members can only be voted in by native Hawaiians -- could divide Hawaii's people.
"Unlike reservation Indians, Native Hawaiians do not live in one area of the State that is set aside for Indians; they live in the same cities and neighborhoods and on the same streets, as other Hawaiians do," Mr. Kyl said.
Reservation Indian tribes have the power to tax, regulate and make laws for members. There are an estimated 400,000 Native Hawaiians living throughout the United States.
Native Hawaiians also say it "too narrowly" redefines who is indigenous.
"It is only for people of Native Hawaiian blood," said 'Ehu Kekahu Cardwell, director of the Koani Foundation, a grass-roots group dedicated to restoring the Hawaiian nation.
"We want it to be for any descendants of kingdom nationals who were loyal to the queen during the time she was deposed. We want everyone to be able to have a say in how this turns out," Mr. Cardwell said.
Leon Siu, a Chinese Hawaiian lobbying against the bill on Capitol Hill, said it has already caused division in Hawaii.
"We reject a race issue being brought into our community; the bill will change the definition of who we are," he said. "Native Hawaiian is not a pure bloodline and ... this bill will introduce a new concept of racial apartheid."
Mr. Siu's father fled China in search of a better life and settled in Hawaii 70 years ago, as did hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals from America, Japan, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines who became Hawaiian citizens.
The Hawaiian monarchy historically never kept anyone from participating in its government structure and did not have a race-specific citizenship definition.
One of the most salient points in the debate will be a history lesson on how Hawaii became a U.S. territory and a state, which Native Hawaiians say was an "illegal annexation."
Queen Liliuokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, was deposed in 1893 by a collection of sugar exporters doing business on the island with the complicity of the U.S. government.
Hawaii became a U.S. territory under a congressional resolution passed in the late 1890s, but the Constitution states that the U.S. can only acquire land held by sovereign foreign nations through a formal treaty.
The treaty authorized by the Safety Commission -- an illegitimate government established by the sugar plantation owners -- failed in Congress after 38,000 of the 40,000 natives living on the island in 1897 petitioned the Congress to reject it.
Congress formally acknowledged that the coup was unlawful in an apology resolution in 1993.
"This is just the next step in that process of acknowledging the wrong committed against the Native Hawaiian people and recognize them as a sovereign entity," said Donalyn Dela Cruz, spokeswoman for Mr. Akaka.

UN Blasts US Over Criticism

‘Very Grave Mistake’ U.N. No. 2’s speech angers U.S.

The organization that could not manage their oil for food program and other programs that they were responsible for has slandered the United States and Fox News Service. They even got a chance to kicked Rush Limbaugh around.

One might believe that Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown is talking out of his ass. Sorry for the language, but, Brown has insulted me and the American heartland by his rant.

Brown accused the U.S. government of keeping the American heartland in the dark about the world body’s “good works?” Brown claims the United States relies on the United Nations as a diplomatic tool but doesn’t defend it against criticism at home. Brown blames Limbaugh and Fox News for distortion and misleading America. As soon as he can, Brown will sic the world body’s “unfreedom of speech police” on the American heartland. The truth really threatens the little “global village” that Brown lives in. Guess Brown and his donk lefti buddies want to alter reality and rewrite history.

Fortunately, Ambassador John Bolton shot back and warned that Brown’s comments could undermine United States support.

“To have the deputy secretary-general criticize the United States in such a manner can only do grave harm to the United Nations ,,,, Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations,” Bolton said.

Mr Brown explain to me, on April 28, 2006, the UN indicated that it would suspend aid in Sudan and the Darfur region unless rebel attacks stop. Just who is that going to help? How about the multitude of U.N. rule violations, ethics issues, financial and sex scandals, and the UN troops raping the very people it is supposed to be helping that rocked your organization? Your world body needs some serious spring cleaning from the top down.

However, you and your donk lefti at the UN continue to hold heads high and place the blame on the United States.

More information on why one who lives in a glass house should not throw stones:

* Group: U.N. Peacekeepers Trading Food for Sex
* United Nations Probes Sale of Irreplaceable Stamp Archive
* Report Slams U.N. Investigators

Fort Lewis Officer Says He’ll Refuse To Deploy

Hat tip to Leaning Straight Up who says all that needs to be said. We will also leave questioning his patriotism for others. It is obvious he was hypnotised by the evil Bugotcha2ler and was not actually aware of the what he was saying when he made an oath to obey the orders of those appointed over him.

As thousands of Fort Lewis Army troops prepare to head back to Iraq, one of their officers is making a stand.

A lieutenant says he is going to refuse to go, saying it’s an unjust war. Anti-war groups are rallying to his defense.

Lt. Ehren Watada of the Stryker Brigade writes, “I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to watch families torn apart, while the President tells us to ‘stay the course.’ I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression.

“I wanted to be there for my fellow troops. But the best way was not to help drop artillery and cause more death and destruction. It is to help oppose this war and end it so that all soldiers can come home.” - signed LT.

His name had been kept a secret until now, but Lt. Watada’s father confirms that his son is taking this bold step and told the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper that he’s proud of his son.

Fort Lewis says since the lieutenant hasn’t done anything official yet, there’s no violation. But should he decide to go ahead with this, he could be charged with ‘desertion’ or more likely with ‘missing the movement’ of his unit.

It’s happened before with a sergeant who refused to go. Sgt. Kevin Benderman was sentenced to 15 months for refusing to go to Iraq.

Lt. Watada asked for reassignment and tried resigning his commission, but the Army refused. His attorney tells us from Hawaii that Watada is not against all wars, just this one.

“I’ve been doing this for nearly 40 years and I’m somewhat astounded that in the context of a war that is becoming increasing unpopular that they are relatively unsophisticated in addressing these issues,” said attorney Eric Seitz from Hawaii.

This doesn’t sit well with fellow soldiers.

“We’re here to serve our country and fight and that’s his job,” said Private Nathan Hanson. “It’s his duty.”

Anti-war protestors, many of which demonstrated at the Port of Olympia recently, are rushing to his aid. They have put up a Web site believing he’s the first commissioned officer to refuse to go.

The lieutenant says he’ll make his intentions official Wednesday at noon and that’s when his defense team will kick into gear.

Wonder if he’ll refuse to go to Leavenworth, too?

U.S. Senate blocks permanent estate tax repeal

The U.S. Senate on Thursday killed a bill backed by President George W. Bush that would have permanently repealed estate taxes, but some senators held out the possibility of compromise on the election-year issue.

The Senate vote of 57-41, mostly along party lines, was three shy of the 60 needed for the measure to advance. The House of Representatives had previously passed a bill to wipe out what Republicans call the "death tax."

Republican backers had acknowledged they were short of votes for full repeal, but they had hoped for an election-year debate and planned to offer an alternative that would have significantly cut the tax rate and exempted all but the wealthiest estates from paying it.

Democrats said repeal could cost the federal treasury about $1 trillion over the next decade, a time when retiring baby boomers will be drawing on Social Security and Medicare health benefits.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said he would try again this year to get a vote on estate tax repeal. Permanently repealing the tax is a long-standing Republican goal, which could mobilize supporters ahead of the November congressional elections.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada voted to block the permanent repeal measure, but said he would support "fiscally responsible" estate tax reform.

Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who backs repeal, said he expected continued negotiations for a compromise that could win over enough Democrats to pass the Senate.

Backers argue repeal would help small businesses, farmers and ranchers who pay significant fees to lawyers, insurance agents and accountants to plan for their deaths. Many business and farm groups have been pressing for permanent repeal.

"A lot of people spend a fortune just trying to avoid the tax," said Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican who has been leading the push to repeal estate taxes.

ALTERNATIVE BILL

Lacking the votes in the Senate for full repeal, Kyl planned to offer an alternative that would have exempted the first $5 million from taxation. Estates over that amount would be taxed at the same rate as capital gains, currently at 15 percent. The wealthiest estates, over $30 million, would be taxed at 30 percent, he said.

Reid said the Republican compromise "does not even pass the laugh test."

Democrats argued only a small fraction of estates ever pay the tax but the financial burden of eliminating it altogether would be borne by others.

"Who will end up paying for it? Our children," said Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat. "We will take the money which we are not going to collect from the estate tax and end up borrowing it."

Bush's 2001 tax cut included a phase-out of estate taxes. Currently the first $2 million of an individual's estate and $4 million for a married couple is exempt and the rest is taxed at 46 percent. By 2009, the exemptions rise to $3.5 million for an individual and $7 million for a couple and the rate falls to 45 percent.

Total repeal would go into effect in 2010 but only for that year. In 2011 the tax would be reimposed on estates valued over $1 million and the top tax rate would revert to 55 percent.

A twisted reaction to Zarqawi's death

by Melanie Morgan

He's dead, he's dead, Hallelujah!

The hottest corner in hell just found itself a new occupant with the death of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and one can now conjure up the vision of Mr. Zarqawi searching in vain for those promised 72 virgins.

By now he's probably figured out that he would have had a better chance finding 72 virgins had he been attending Bill Clinton's campaign fund-raisers instead of waging Islamic jihad against the West.

One would expect that most sane, rational people, upon hearing the news of Zarqawi's death, would be happy or relieved, just as the world rejoiced at the death of Adolf Hitler. But then again, we've long since moved beyond "The Greatest Generation" and instead now walk through the generation of Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and anti-war activists protesting at the funerals of military personnel.

Siding with the terrorists

The American political left is so committed to seeing President Bush brought down and the war on terrorism brought to an end that they instinctively side with America's enemies.

That may sound harsh, and the anti-war left activists will swear to you that it's not the case, but their own words belie their claims.

Across the websites and message boards of liberal America yesterday were cries of protest from many about the news that Zarqawi's reign of terror, murder and violence had come to an end.

At the Democratic Underground website, users attempted to manipulate MSNBC's online poll to suggest that the mission to kill Zarqawi would be meaningless in the war in Iraq. Whether or not the death of Zarqawi will have a major impact on the war effort is beside the point. The efforts by liberals to manipulate a poll so as to beat down the morale of the American people and make them believe we can't win is revolting. There is a sickness that has infected the anti-war movement.

Other liberals at Democratic Underground were foaming at the mouth with indignation about the mission to kill Zarqawi: "He's a fictitious character," said the poster "ShortnFiery." Another poster named "wizdum" agreed: "… I never believed in this pat story of al-Qaida in Iraq. It set off my ******** meter right from the get go."

Meanwhile, at another liberal website named Daily Kos, some liberals were outright upset that the military had chosen to kill a terrorist. "Bush's idea of justice is bombs falling out of the sky?" asked a user named "Justice."

Another user named "ronik" expressed a similar sentiment: "If you agree with this killing, do you also agree with lynchings because people 'knew' the person was guilty and should be put to death? Also, do you support the death penalty? I don't, but at least those people have been put on trial. Why should it be different for this person?"

Do these people not realize our nation is at war, and the enemy is attempting to kill our troops and eventually murder the rest of us here in the United States?

Apparently not, because another Daily Kos member offered consolation about Zarqawi's death, opining that, "This too shall pass."

These people comprise the constituency of Air America, the people who give money to MoveOn.org and who voted for John Kerry for president. And the saddest thing is that most of the reporters in the "mainstream media" are sympathetic to their point of view.

Some liberals thought Zarqawi had been given an unfair reputation. "How do you know 'he was guilty of masterminding suicide bombings and beheadings of innocent civilians'? Did you hear this on the MSM? Or are you privy to information the rest of us don't have access to?" asked Daily Kos user "Johann."

Others insisted Zarqawi isn't really dead, but is instead part of some conspiracy to deceive the American public. "Personally, I think they've got him in a cell somewhere, and they trot him out whenever the political situation seems dire and let him make a speech," said a user named "Pragmatic Left." The liberal member "iconoclast022" echoed that sentiment. "It seems that Osama and George are just playing their role for the family in each one's bid for empire and power. I'd be willing to bet that this plan has been in the works for a very long time. I bet they see themselves as overlords or something."

Ignoring the carnage

Those who want to see the United States and Coalition forces lose the war on terrorism have somehow found a way to make themselves positively numb to the record of carnage that Zarqawi and al-Qaida have left behind in Iraq.

The Associated Press published a list of terrorist attacks attributed to Zarqawi dating back to 2002. These include the horrific truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that killed 23 people, including the U.N.'s top envoy, Sergio Vieira; the March 2004 bombings of Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad that killed 181 people; the kidnapping and beheading of Nicholas Berg; a car bomb attack on a vehicle convoy in Baghdad that killed 13 people, including three General Electric employees; the kidnapping and beheading of South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il; the kidnapping and beheading of two Bulgarian truck drivers; the kidnapping and beheading of a Turkish truck driver; and the September 2004 bombings in Baghdad that killed 35 children and seven adults as U.S. troops handed out candy during the opening of a new sewage treatment plant.

That's just a brief listing of some of the murderous actions of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I don't have enough space in 10 columns, let alone one column, to detail the others.

This is a man – along with the terrorist effort he helped lead – that is vile and inhuman. These people must be stopped, and we must strike them where they are based in Iraq, Afghanistan and other reaches throughout the Middle East.

If we don't take action there, then we know what will happen: They will fly planes into our government and office buildings as they did on September 11; they will detonate bombs in American high-rise buildings as they did in 1993; they will hijack our cruise ships as they did in the case of the Achille Laurel; and on and on.

I don't know why more Americans don't understand this.

You may not like George Bush's personality, or you may disagree with his policies on immigration and federal spending. You might even believe he has made some mistakes in how he's conducted the war on terrorism.

But his basic premise in fighting the war against Islamic terrorism is spot-on right. Instead of hoping that Bush will be embarrassed by a failure in Iraq, these people need to realize that if we fail there, the consequences will be disastrous. We will have emboldened the most radicalized elements of Islam and sent them a message that if they only act more ruthlessly and savagely, they can bring America down to her knees and sap our morale and determination to fight for freedom, democracy and peace.

We can't do that, no matter how badly some of the sick and twisted people on the political left in this country might wish us to.

Appeals Court Backs Bush on Wiretaps

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court sided with the Bush administration Friday on an electronic surveillance issue, making it easier to tap into Internet phone calls and broadband transmissions.

The court ruled 2-1 in favor of the Federal Communications Commission, which says equipment using the new technologies must be able to accommodate police wiretaps under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA.

Judge David Sentelle called the agency's reading of the law a reasonable interpretation. In dissent, Judge Harry Edwards said the FCC gutted an exemption for information services that he said covered the Internet and broadband.

The FCC "apparently forgot to read the words of the statute," Edwards wrote.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin said the decision ensures that law enforcement's ability to conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance will keep pace with new technology.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, primary sponsor of CALEA, called the court's decision contrary to congressional intent, saying it stretches a law written for "the telephone system of 1994 to cover the Internet of 2006."

Education groups challenged the FCC rule because they said the requirements would impose burdensome new costs on private university networks. They argued that broadband Internet access is an information service beyond the reach of CALEA.

The American Council on Education said it was encouraged by part of the court's ruling that the law does not apply to private networks, which include many research institutions and corporations.

But more broadly, "we believe we had established a strong legal case that CALEA did not apply to providers of facilities-based Internet access or voice-over-IP," the education council said.

Challengers to the FCC rule focused on a Supreme Court case upholding the FCC's classification of broadband as an integrated information service under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Therefore, the education groups said, broadband providers must fall within the exemption for information services in CALEA.

But the appeals court said CALEA and the Telecom act are different laws and that the Supreme Court did not find that broadband Internet access was exclusively an information service.

The two laws reflect different objectives and the commission made a reasonable policy choice, wrote Sentelle, an appointee of President Reagan.

Jim Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a private group, said the decision "threatens the privacy rights of innocent Americans as well as the ability of technology companies to innovate freely."

Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who sided with Sentelle, is an appointee of President George W. Bush. Edwards was appointed by President Carter.

Karl Rove won’t be prosecuted in CIA leak case
Top White House aide was under scrutiny over disclosure of agent’s identity

WASHINGTON - Top White House aide Karl Rove has been told by prosecutors he won’t be charged with any crimes in the investigation into leak of a CIA officer's identity, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Attorney Robert Luskin said that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald informed him of the decision on Monday, ending months of speculation about the fate of one of President Bush’s closest advisers. Rove testified five times before a grand jury.

Fitzgerald has already secured a criminal indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

“On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove,” Luskin said in a statement.

“In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation,” Luskin said. “We believe the special counsel’s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove’s conduct.”

Phone call from Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald called Luskin late Monday afternoon to tell him he would not be seeking charges against Rove. Rove had just gotten on a plane, so his lawyer and spokesman did not reach him until he had landed in Manchester, N.H., where he was to give a speech to state GOP officials.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, said the White House official “is elated” and said that “we’re done.”

Fitzgerald has been investigating whether senior administration officials intentionally leaked the identity of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame in retribution because her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sharply criticized the administration’s pursuit of war in Iraq.

Rove, who most recently appeared before a grand jury in April, has admitted he spoke with columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper in the days before they published Plame’s name in July 2003.

E-mail and a faulty memory
Rove, however, did not originally tell prosecutors about his conversation with Cooper, only revealing it after his lawyer discovered a White House e-mail that referred to it.

Fitzgerald was investigating whether Rove lied or obstructed justice in failing to initially disclose the conversation. The presidential aide blamed a faulty memory and sought to testify before the grand jury after finding the e-mail to correct his testimony.

The threat of indictment had hung over Rove, the man President Bush dubbed “the architect” of his re-election, even as Rove was focusing on the arduous task of halting Bush’s popularity spiral and keeping Democrats from capturing the House or Senate in November elections.

Fitzgerald’s investigation has been underway since the start of the 2004 election, and the decision not to indict Rove is certain to cheer Republicans concerned about Bush’s low approval ratings and the prospects of a difficult 2006 congressional election.

“The fact is this, I thought it was wrong when you had people like Howard Dean and (Sen.) Harry Reid presuming that he was guilty,” Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman told Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends” show Tuesday morning.

‘Not so good news’
Democrats, on the other hand, had no reason to cheer the development.

“Good news for the White House, not so good news for America,” Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show.

Rove has been at Bush’s sides since his days as Texas governor and was the architect of Bush’s two presidential election victory. A political strategist, Rove assumed new policy responsibilities inside the White House in 2005 as deputy chief of staff.

However, as part of the shake-up brought by new White House chief of staff Joshua Bolton, Rove shed those policymaking duties earlier this year to return to full time politics.

Indictment against Libby
Fitzgerald’s case against Libby is moving toward trial, as the two sides work through pretrial issues such as access to classified documents.

Libby, 55, was charged last October with lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned and when he subsequently told three reporters about CIA officer Valerie Plame. He faces five counts of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice.

Plame’s identity was exposed eight days after her husband, Bush administration critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged that the U.S. government had manipulated prewar intelligence to exaggerate an Iraqi nuclear threat.

With Rove’s fate now decided, other unfinished business in Fitzgerald’s probe focuses on the source who provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodwind information about Plame.

Woodwind says his source, who he has not publicly identified, provided the information about Wilson’s wife, several weeks before Novak learned of Plame’s identity. The Post reporter, who never wrote a story, was interviewed by Fitzgerald late last year.

Judge to rule on gospel 'million-dollar bills'
Puts case of Christian group vs. Secret Service on fast track

A federal judge in Dallas yesterday said he will issue a ruling within one week on a complaint by a Christian group that had its "million-dollar" gospel tracts seized by the U.S. Secret Service.

The judge put the case on a fast track, said attorney Brian Fahling of the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, indicating an order will be issued Friday, or at the latest Monday.

Fahling, representing the Denton, Texas-based Great News Network, asked the judge to order return of 8,300 tracts that mimic U.S. currency and to prevent the government agency's local field office from arresting anyone who distributes them.

Fahling told WND he wants the judge to rule whether the Secret Service's application of the U.S. code is constitutional.

The Secret Service's Dallas field office has said it is preparing a cease-and-desist order, arguing the tract violates a federal law that says reproductions of currency cannot be regulation size and cannot be two-sided.

Fahling insists the sections of the U.S. code's title 18 cited by the government, 475 and 504, don't apply.

He argues 475 deals only with authorized denominations – there is no $1 million bill – and 504 pertains only to exact copies of currency. The tracts have numerous differences, including a gospel message on the back, he points out.

As WorldNetDaily reported, the controversy began June 2 when three agents visited the Great News Network office and told a staffer to hand over the tracts.

The tracts are produced by evangelist Ray Comfort, whose Living Waters Ministry in Southern California has been inundated with requests for them since the story broke a week ago.

Fahling said the head of the Los Angeles district of the Secret Service was made aware of the situation but planned to take no action.

Comfort told WND the pursuit of a judge's decision is necessary to resolve the matter.

"Some Christians think we've broken a law," he said. "Our concern is that Christians know we're reputable."

The Dallas Secret Service agents explained to the Great News Network that someone in North Carolina had attempted to deposit one of the million-dollar bills in a bank account. The address of the Texas group was on the back, and the Secret Service went into action.

Rundus told WND he wonders why there have been no arrests in North Carolina, if in fact a crime has been committed.

"I can't think of a reason a bank teller would turn [the tract] over to the feds," he said, noting he gives them to bankers all the time, and they usually laugh.

But Rundus says the controversy has "been a good thing for God.

"More people have heard the gospel in the last week through our ministry and Ray's, and more people are passing out these gospel tracts than ever before," he said.

"I think it's a million-dollar miracle."

The tract includes this message: "The million-dollar question: Will you go to Heaven? Here's a quick test. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God's name in vain? Jesus said, "Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already with her in his heart." Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on Judgment Day? If you have done those things God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in Hell. That's not God's will. He sent His Son to suffer and die on the cross for you. Jesus took your punishment upon Himself – 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.' Then He rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus, and God will grant you everlasting life. Then read your Bible daily and obey it."

A WND reader has pointed out retail giant Toys R Us has been selling "million-dollar bills," printed on both front and back, for years. In fine print on the back, the bill says, "This instrument is NON negotiable."

World Class Learning Materials sells a set of 100 bills of different denominations it calls "play money"

A website called Prank Place says its currency for sale "looks and feels real. Great conversation tool. Our funny money and fake million dollar bills look just like real U.S. Currency. These are very high quality, designed by an incredibly talented artist. Our fake money make great gifts, additions to greeting cards, or even sales promotions and sales tools."

Utah's Parents, Teachers, and Legislators Defend Right to Keep Porn Out of Their Homes

Utah’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and 37 state legislators have filed an application of amici curiae in the lawsuit brought by the pornography industry to shut down the state’s Child Protection Registry (www.kidsregistry.utah.gov). The filing asks the court to allow the PTA and legislators to submit a friend of the court brief supporting the right of Utah’s parents to keep pornographic materials out of their homes.

“The Child Protection Registry is a simple, free, common sense measure to keep out messages that are inappropriate for children,” said Carmen Snow, President of the Utah PTA. “Parents and teachers across the state are committed to stop this attempt by the adult industry to invade our homes and schools.”

The legislators who have signed on to the amicus brief span the political spectrum. “Protecting the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit is not a partisan issue,” said President of the Senate John Valentine. “Utah’s parents have the right to declare their homes off-limits to pornographic solicitations, and the legislature is committed to ensuring they have tools like the Child Protection Registry to do so.”

“Our legislature has a proud record of supporting parents and families,” said Speaker of the House Greg Curtis. “The State of Utah will stand strong against the companies sending this outrageous material to unwilling recipients.”

The suit to shut down the Child Protection Registry was filed in Federal District Court before Judge Dale Kimball by the so-called “Free Speech Coalition,” a lobbying group for the pornography industry. The brief by the PTA and the legislators was authored pro bono by the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), a constitutional law firm based in Washington, D.C.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right of individuals to keep material they find objectionable out of their homes,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “The claim by the pornography industry that they have the right to send their offensive material whenever, however, and to whomever they choose flies in the face of well-established jurisprudence.”

Anti-War Activists Jeer Hillary Clinton
Anti-war activists boo Hillary Rodham Clinton for opposing pullout date for U.S. troops in Iraq

Anti-war activists at a liberal gathering booed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday for opposing a set date for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq. Facing down the jeers, Clinton said Democrats need to have "a difficult conversation" about the war.

Another potential presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, spoke to the group later in the day and offered an emphatically anti-war appeal.

"Sometimes this is a difficult conversation, in part because this administration has made our world more dangerous than it should be," said Clinton, D-N.Y.

Kerry, who was widely criticized as the party's standard-bearer in 2004 for being too cautious in his criticism of the war, said Tuesday that politicians "cannot have it both ways."

In remarks that could have been aimed at Clinton, Kerry said: "It's not enough to argue with the logistics or to argue about the details. ... It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake. ... It was wrong, and I was wrong to vote for that Iraqi war resolution."

Kerry's speech featured some of his strongest comments to date, including a call to "end a war in Iraq that weakens the nation each and every day it goes on."

The Massachusetts senator is offering an amendment to withdraw troops from Iraq by the end of this year.

While Clinton received loud cheers for her swipes at the Bush administration, many in the crowd jeered her stance on the Iraq war. She voted for the war but has since harshly criticized the Bush administration's handling of the conflict.

"I do not think it is a smart strategy, either, for the president to continue with his open-ended commitment, which I think does not put enough pressure on the new Iraqi government," said Clinton, before turning to the anti-war liberals' core beef with her.

"Nor do I think it is smart strategy to set a date certain. I do not agree that that is in the best interests," said Clinton, prompting loud booing from some at the gathering.

Clinton has been seen as the early favorite among potential Democratic candidates for president in 2008, but she is increasingly at odds with anti-war liberals over her past vote and current position on Iraq.

After addressing Iraq, Clinton quickly turned to the 2006 election, saying her party needs to speak to middle-class Americans and overcome disagreements.

"If we're going to win in November then we have to be smarter, tougher, and better prepared than our opponents, because one thing they do know how to do is win and we have to reach out to people who may not be able to agree with us," she said.

"We have to talk about the range of issues that are on their minds that they talk about around the kitchen table," Clinton said.

Before speaking to the group, another potential presidential candidate, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, questioned whether Congress had done its part in asking tough questions.

"Congress has a responsibility here," Vilsack said, in a subtle criticism of potential 2008 rivals like Kerry and Clinton. "If the tough questions aren't being asked by the administration, the checks and balances system of our government requires that the other branch of government asks the tough questions."

Speaking at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Vilsack cautioned against rushing for a quick exit from Iraq now.

"I personally don't think now is a time to say on a date certain we are leaving," he said.

High Court Backs Police No-Knock Searches

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices.

The 5-4 ruling signals the court's conservative shift following the departure of moderate Sandra Day O'Connor.

The case tested previous court rulings that police armed with warrants generally must knock and announce themselves or they run afoul of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said Detroit police acknowledge violating that rule when they called out their presence at a man's door then went inside three seconds to five seconds later.

"Whether that preliminary misstep had occurred or not, the police would have executed the warrant they had obtained, and would have discovered the gun and drugs inside the house," Scalia wrote.

But suppressing evidence is too high of a penalty, Scalia said, for errors by police in failing to properly announce themselves.

The outcome might have been different if O'Connor were still on the bench. She seemed ready, when the case was first argued in January, to rule in favor of Booker Hudson, whose house was searched in 1998.

O'Connor had worried aloud that officers around the country might start bursting into homes to execute search warrants. She asked: "Is there no policy of protecting the home owner a little bit and the sanctity of the home from this immediate entry?"

She retired before the case was decided, and a new argument was held so that Justice Samuel Alito could participate in deliberations. Alito and Bush's other Supreme Court pick, Chief Justice John Roberts, both supported Scalia's opinion.

Hudson's lawyers argued that evidence against him was connected to the improper search and could not be used against him.

Scalia said that a victory for Hudson would have given "a get-out-of-jail-free card" to him and others.

In a dissent, four justices complained that the decision erases more than 90 years of Supreme Court precedent.

"It weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for himself and the three other liberal members.

Breyer said that police will feel free to enter homes without knocking and waiting a short time if they know that there is no punishment for it.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a moderate, joined the conservatives in most of the ruling. He wrote his own opinion, however, to say "it bears repeating that it is a serious matter if law enforcement officers violate the sanctity of the home by ignoring the requisites of lawful entry."

Senate Rejects U.S. Troop Pullout in Iraq

The Senate rejected a call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq by year's end on Thursday as Congress erupted in impassioned, election-year debate over a conflict that now has claimed the lives of 2,500 American troops.

The vote was 93-6 to shelve the proposal, which would have allowed "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in 2007.

The vote came alongside a daylong debate in the House, where Republicans defended the war as key to winning the global struggle against terrorism while Democrats excoriated President Bush and his policies.

"We must stand firm in our commitment to fight terrorism and the evil it inflicts throughout the world. We must renew our resolve that the actions of evildoers will not dictate American policy," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said in remarks laden with references to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The war was "a grotesque mistake," countered the Democratic House leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California. "The administration continues to dig a hole. They refuse to come up and see the light," she said.

The political subtext was clear from the outset.

"Is it al-Qaida or is it America? Let the voters take note of this debate," said Republican Rep. Charles Norwood of Georgia, attacking war critics as defeatists who do not deserve re-election.

The debate unfolded four months before midterm elections that will decide the control of Congress, and at a time Bush is trying to rebuild faded public support for the conflict.

The administration was so determined to get its message out that the Pentagon distributed a highly unusual "debate prep book" filled with ready-made answers for criticism of the war.

The Senate voted unfolded unexpectedly as the second-ranking leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced legislation he said was taken from a proposal by Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat and war critic. It called for Bush to agree with the Iraqi government on a schedule for withdrawal of combat troops by Dec. 31, 2006.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said if the United States withdrew, "I am absolutely convinced the terrorists would see this as vindication." He predicted terrorism would spread around the world, and eventually reach the United States.

Democrats sought to curtail floor debate on the proposal, and the vote occurred quickly.

Kerry and other Democrats accused Republicans of political gamesmanship, and promised an authentic debate next week. He and five other Democrats were in the minority on the vote - Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Barbara Boxer of California, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The debate in the House was poignant and partisan by turns.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., began his remarks by asking for a moment of silence to mark the 2,500th U.S. combat death.

At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow said, "It's a number." He said that Bush "feels very deeply the pain that the families feel."

Polls show the war has become unpopular. But Bush has tried to rally support in the days since the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the recent completion of a new Iraqi government.

The Pentagon's 74-page battle plan for the debate said that "Iraq will become a haven for terrorists, murderers and thugs" if the United States left "before the job is done."

"We cannot cut and run," it said at another point, anticipating Democratic calls for a troop withdrawal on a fixed timetable.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the document. It was sent to both Republicans and Democrats and it laid out the administration's positions in strong terms and offered page after page of counterpoints to criticisms that Democrats typically level against Bush's war policies.

"In this fight for the future of peace, freedom and democracy in the Middle East and around the globe, winning should be our only option," said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga.

"Stay and we'll pay," countered Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who criticized "the failed policy of this administration" and lamented the lives lost, billions of dollars spent and the bruised U.S. image since the war started. "It's time to redeploy and be ready." he said.

Republicans arranged for the House debate to culminate in a vote either late Thursday or Friday on legislation - a resolution - that labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.

Across the Capitol, partisan tensions on the Iraq war were clear as the Senate sent the president an additional $66 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and debated annual military legislation.

As the death toll and price tag of Iraq rise, opinion polls show voters are frustrated with the war and favor Democrats to control Congress instead of the Republicans who now run the show.

Sensitive to those political realities, House Republicans sought to put lawmakers of both parties on record on an issue certain to be central in this fall's congressional elections.

Democrats decried the debate as a sham. They said Republicans promised an open discussion but, instead, stacked the deck in their own favor by limiting debate to 10 hours and barring any amendments.

"Republicans offer a political document, just before the fall elections," Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., said. Added Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.: "They are forcing us into a charade."

They also complained that Republicans refused to allow them to present an alternative resolution. But even though they tried, Democrats weren't able to agree on such an alternative.

In both the House and Senate, Democrats appear to be divided into three camps. Some want troops to leave Iraq this year. Others object to setting any kind of timetable. A number of them want the United States to start redeploying forces by year's end but don't want to set a date when all troops should be out.

House Democrats are mindful that voting against such a resolution could leave them vulnerable to attacks by Republicans who could claim that Democrats who oppose the resolution don't support U.S. troops and advocate a "cut-and-run" strategy.

To that end, a memo this week by House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, urged his fellow Republicans to frame the debate as "a portrait of contrasts between Republicans and Democrats."

Republican leaders portray the debate as the first of its kind since the Iraq war started in 2003. But they staged a similar vote on a resolution rejecting the immediate withdrawal of troops last year after Murtha, in a reversal, called for a quick exit from Iraq.

Judge Rules That U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain Noncitizens Indefinitely

A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation.

The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson’s decision requires top federal officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, to answer to those accusations under oath.

This is the first time a federal judge has addressed the issue of discrimination in the treatment of hundreds of Muslim immigrants who were swept up in the weeks after the 2001 terror attacks and held for months before they were cleared of links to terrorism and deported. The roundups drew intense criticism, not only from immigrant rights advocates, but also from the inspector general of the Justice Department, who issued reports saying that the government had made little or no effort to distinguish between genuine suspects and Muslim immigrants with minor visa violations.

Lawyers in the suit, who vowed to appeal yesterday’s decision, said parts of the ruling could potentially be used far more broadly, to detain any noncitizen in the United States for any reason.

Prairie Pundit:

This case is a big loss for the victimhood branch of the Muslim faith. If it stands on appeal, it will be helpful in fighting the Islamist and its ideology of victimhood. While immigration laws have not been enforced consistently, they have become something of a silver bullet in dealing with the terrorist threat making it very difficult for the enemy to infltrate into the country without detection.

It always amazes me how these people who are here illegally, be it Muslim, Mexican, or anyone, think they are afforded Constitutional rights. This case is not over, but I’m glad to know that some judges still recognize our government’s right to protect us in a time of war.

Rep. McKinney Beats Indictment In Capitol Slap

WASHINGTON -- A grand jury declined to indict Rep. Cynthia McKinney on Friday in connection with a confrontation in which she admitted hitting a police officer who tried to stop her from entering a House office building.

The grand jury had been considering the case since shortly after the March 29 incident, which has led to much discussion on Capitol Hill about race and the conduct of lawmakers and the officers who protect them.

"We respect the decision of the grand jury in this difficult matter," said U.S. Attorney Kenneth Wainstein.

McKinney did not immediately comment.

Wainstein's statement, released late Friday, also included support for the officer involved, Paul McKenna, and the Capitol Police. He said, "This is a tremendously difficult job, and it is one that Officer McKenna and his colleagues perform with the utmost professionalism and dignity."

With that, Wainstein closed a case that has simmered with racial and political tension.

The encounter began when McKinney tried to enter a House office building without walking through a metal detector or wearing the lapel pin that identifies members of Congress.

McKenna did not recognize her as a member of Congress and asked her three times to stop. When she ignored him, he tried to stop her. McKinney then hit him.

McKinney described the encounter as "racial profiling," insisting she had been assaulted and had done nothing wrong.

McKinney is black. McKenna is white.

She received little public support for that stance, even within the Congressional Black Caucus.

Wainstein, meanwhile, referred the matter to a federal grand jury, which then subpoenaed several House aides thought to have witnessed the encounter. McKenna, too, testified.

Members of the CBC privately urged McKinney to put the matter behind her. The next morning, she appeared on the House floor to apologize.

"I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all, and I regret its escalation, and I apologize," McKinney, D-Ga., said April 6. "There should not have been any physical contact in this incident."

House Rejects Timetable for Iraq Pullout

The House on Friday rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq after a ferociously partisan debate, forcing lawmakers in both parties to go on record on a major issue in re-election campaigns nationwide.

A day after the Senate took the same position against troop withdrawal, the GOP-led House voted 256-153 to approve a nonbinding resolution that says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of American forces is not in the national interest.

"Achieving victory is our only option," declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, casting Democrats as defeatists who want to retreat in the face of terrorist threats. "We must not shy away."

"'Stay the course' is not a strategy, it's a slogan," answered House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as she called for a new direction in a war she labeled "a grotesque mistake."

"It's time to face the facts," Pelosi said.

Angling for political advantage, House Republicans engineered the debate and vote, four and one-half months before midterm elections that will decide who runs Congress - and as polls show voters favoring Democrats to replace Republicans as the controlling party.

Those same polls show the public increasingly frustrated with the war as the death toll and price tag continue to rise. Voters could hold it against incumbent candidates, regardless of political party, come November.

Republicans across Capitol Hill are sensitive to those political realities.

GOP leaders in both the House and Senate sought to put lawmakers of both parties, and particularly Democrats, on record on the conflict, and looked to draw attention to deep Democratic divisions on the war.

Senate Republicans succeeded in doing that Thursday. In a maneuver Democrats assailed as a political stunt, GOP leaders brought up legislation calling for withdrawing combat troops by year's end and quickly dismissed it on a 93-6 vote. Six Democrats were in the minority.

It was the House Republicans' turn a day later.

They scheduled a vote on their symbolic resolution that also praises U.S. troops and labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism.

Democrats denounced the GOP-orchestrated debate and vote as a politically motivated charade, and most, including Pelosi, voted against the measure. They said that supporting it would have the effect of affirming Bush's "failed policy" in Iraq.

Still, 42 Democrats broke ranks and joined with all but three Republicans to support the resolution. Two Republicans and three Democrats declined to take a position by voting present.

Balking carried a risk for Democrats, particularly when they see an opportunity to win back control of Congress from the GOP, because Republicans were expected to use Democratic "no" votes to claim that their opponents don't support U.S. troops.

Sure enough, within two hours of the House vote, the Republican Senate campaign committee circulated news releases that said Rep. Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat running for an open Senate seat in Tennessee, and Rep. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat challenging Sen. Mike DeWine in Ohio, voted to "cut and run" from Iraq.

Lawmakers were mindful of the political implications of the votes throughout the debate that ran more than 12 hours over two days.

In floor speeches, several GOP incumbents who face tough challenges from Democrats in November tried to strike a balance. They carefully criticized the resolution that their leaders had written, calling it weak and incomplete, but then reluctantly voted in favor of it.

"The American people are looking to us to answer their questions on how much progress is being made, what are the Iraqis themselves willing to do to fight for their freedom and when will our men and women come home," Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., said.

Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., agreed, saying: "We should be having a debate and a discussion on how we will prevail, not just that we want to prevail."

Republicans and Democrats alike explained the decision, as each side saw it, that confronts voters.

"The choice for the American people is clear; don't run in the face of danger, victory will be our exit strategy," Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said.

Countered Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.: "It's not a matter of stay the course. It's a matter of change direction."

Girls Can Marry at 15, Colo. Court Finds
Jun 15 2:05 PM US/Eastern
Email this story

By JON SARCHE
Associated Press Writer

DENVER

A 15-year-old girl can enter into a common-law marriage in Colorado, and younger girls and boys possibly can, too, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

While the three-judge panel stopped short of setting a specific minimum age for such marriages, it said they could be legal for girls at 12 and boys at 14 under English common law, which Colorado recognizes.

The ruling overturned a lower-court judge's decision that a girl, now older than 18, was too young to marry at 15.

The panel said there was no clear legislative or statutory guidance on common-law marriages, and that Colorado courts have not determined an age of consent.

For traditional ceremonial marriage, Colorado law sets the minimum age at 18, or 16 with parental or judicial approval.

Colorado is one of 10 states, plus the District of Columbia, that recognize common-law marriage, which is based on English law dating back hundreds of years.

"It appears that Colorado has adopted the common-law age of consent for marriage as 14 for a male and 12 for a female, which existed under English common law," the ruling said. "Nevertheless, we need only hold here that a 15-year-old female may enter into a valid common-law marriage."

The appeal was filed by Willis Rouse, 38, who is serving time for escape and a parole violation. He argued that he and the girl began living together in April 2002 and applied for a marriage license a year later.

The girl had become legally independent by then, but her mother also consented to the marriage and accompanied the girl and Rouse to obtain a license, the ruling said.

A judge invalidated the marriage, saying anybody under age 16 needed judicial approval for either common-law or ceremonial marriage.

While Thursday's ruling found that the girl was old enough to marry, it did not conclude whether she and Rouse have a valid marriage. The court sent the case back to the trial judge to make that determination.

Pro-war vote in the House just opening volley

The House passage Friday of a nonbinding resolution on the war in Iraq was a not-so-subtle election-year effort by Republican leaders to portray Democrats as weak on national security and unwilling to support U.S. troops.

But the acrimonious debate that culminated in a 256-153 vote in favor of the pro-war measure suggests that the battle over how much longer to keep 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq will only intensify -- especially as polls show that a majority of Americans want to see a timetable for when U.S. troops will begin to return home.

Republicans, in the 2002 midterm elections and 2004 presidential election, successfully used appeals to "stay the course" in the war on terrorism to preserve their majorities in Congress and re-elect President Bush.

But the public's patience for the "stay the course" strategy has been waning because of rising sectarian violence in Iraq and the mounting death toll of U.S. troops. The point was underscored when the House and Senate halted the war debate Thursday for a moment of silence after the Pentagon announced the 2,500th death of an American armed services member in Iraq.

Even Republican Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio acknowledged Friday that anyone honestly debating the war resolution had to admit that the violence between Sunni and Shiite factions has worsened in recent months, testing the ability of U.S. troops to maintain order.

But Boehner added: "Retreat is not an option in Iraq. The stakes for the American people are too high."

Meanwhile, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco used Friday's debate to suggest that her party -- if it wins back power in the November elections -- would agitate for a very different course in Iraq.

"Our new direction would say to the Iraqi people: We will not be in your country indefinitely, we will not construct permanent bases, and we will not control the flow of your oil," Pelosi said. "We will work with you and your neighbors diplomatically to ensure that the reconstruction of Iraq is successful."

The war resolution was carefully worded by GOP leaders to put Democrats in Republican-dominated "red" states and swing districts in political jeopardy if they voted against it.

First, the resolution contained a patriotic appeal to honor America's fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. The measure also urged the United States to complete the mission of creating a free and secure Iraq.

The resolution opposed setting an "arbitrary date" for withdrawing troops and concluded with a declaration that the United States "will prevail in the global war on terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary."

Forty-two Democrats voted for the measure, many from Southern or Midwestern states that backed Bush in the last election. In California, two Central Valley lawmakers -- Dennis Cardoza of Merced and Jim Costa of Fresno -- were among the Democrats who supported the resolution.

"I reluctantly voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution on the war on terrorism," Cardoza said in a statement after the vote. "If one takes the time to read the resolution, it talks about winning the war in Iraq, supporting our troops and establishing a citizen-based government in Iraq. These are noble goals, and I support them.

"The problem is not what was said in the resolution, but what was not said. We owe our troops more than rhetoric; we owe them a real plan."

Democrats said they already expect to see radio and TV ads running against vulnerable members who voted against the measure.

"It's a trap," Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, a leader of the Out of Iraq Caucus, said during the debate. "It's an attempt to force Democrats to sign onto a resolution that will do nothing to bring our troops home. All they want to do is make us sound unpatriotic."

In the Senate, Republican leaders achieved much the same result by forcing a vote on an amendment proposed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to demand a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. The measure failed, 93-6.

But Republicans could find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion on the issue.

A new CNN-Gallup poll found that 53 percent of Americans support setting a timetable for withdrawing troops while 41 percent oppose setting a deadline. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats and 31 percent of Republicans said they backed a timetable for exiting Iraq.

With fading support for the war and growing concern about the president's handling of the conflict, Republicans could face calls from the public before the November elections to begin spelling out when troops would return home.

Two House Republican lawmakers voted against the resolution Friday -- Reps. John Duncan of Tennessee and Jim Leach of Iowa -- and libertarian Ron Paul of Texas.

Duncan, a longtime opponent of the war, told his GOP colleagues they may pay a political price with voters for keeping troops in Iraq indefinitely.

"We need to start putting our own people first once again and bring our troops home," he said.

But many Republicans saw the debate as an opportunity to paint Democrats as soft on terrorism. Many argued that any proposed timetable for pulling out troops represents a retreat from the war against terrorism.

"The left in this country have a position they're advocating for -- it's called 'cut and run,' " said freshman Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

But Democrats, including Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ex-Marine who has become a leading anti-war voice, said the presence of U.S. troops is only fueling the insurgency and attracting terrorists to Iraq.

"The facts are the situation is not getting better," Murtha said. "We have 130,000 troops on the ground, but only the Iraqis can handle this."

Democratic leader lays out party agenda

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 33 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - If they retake control of Congress, Democrats will act quickly to increase the minimum wage, lower prescription drug costs and slash interest rates on student loans, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Saturday.

The ideas are part of the Democrats' new domestic agenda, named "New Direction for America," which the party rolled out during the past week. Pelosi, D-Calif., used the party's Saturday radio address to promote the plan.

"A new direction means expanding access to affordable health care for Americans. We will begin by lowering the cost of prescription drugs by putting seniors ahead of pharmaceutical companies and HMOs," Pelosi said.

"A new direction means broadening opportunity by addressing the soaring costs of higher education. We will begin by making tuition tax-deductible and cutting the interest rates of student loans in half."

Pelosi also pledged to improve security, reduce dependence on foreign oil, maintain
Social Security and oppose deficit spending. Under the plan the minimum wage would rise from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years, the interest rate on student loans would be cut to 3.4 percent and Democrats would approve a "pay as you go" budgeting rule.

Most of the ideas have been part of Democratic talking points for months but, facing criticism that they lack a cohesive message, the party is regrouping them as a platform to run on in November's midterm elections. Democrats hope to regain control of the House and Senate, which would take a gain of 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate.

On Iraq, Pelosi said: "2006 must be a year of significant transition. It is time for a new direction in Iraq."

She didn't mention that there's significant disagreement among Democrats on when to begin withdrawing troops.

Pelosi's position on the Iraq timetable — "at the earliest practicable time, the United States must begin the responsible redeployment of its troops," she said — is not shared by everyone in the Democratic caucus.

Democratic leader lays out party agenda (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060617/ap_on_go_co/democrats_agenda;_ylt=AiZB3p6mVwakO42iltX9mhys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-)

'Reformed' gays demand a voice in America's schools

Angered by what they see as the promotion of homosexuality in schools, thousands of American parents are banding together to demand that their children be taught that it is possible to stop being gay.

Organisations such as Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (Jonah) and Inqueery are trying to ensure that their view is aired alongside gay rights messages.

A high school in New Hampshire allowed an "ex-gay" activist to address pupils on Civil Rights Day last year.

In Colorado, education officials are pondering whether to hand out a pamphlet to teachers suggesting that "conversion therapy" - a combination of prayer and counselling - can reform homosexual tendencies.

Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International, an umbrella for ex-gay support groups, said: "The gay community says that you can't change. But there is an alternative. Now more and more teenagers are able to see there are two sides to this issue."

Mr Chambers, 34, was drawn to men from boyhood. "I didn't choose to feel gay. When I was 11, I found myself struggling with same-sex attraction issues. I was told by a school counsellor that there was nothing I could do about it. I had to accept I was gay. That made me want to die."

At 18, he joined a local Christian group in Florida and was convinced that it was possible to change. He renounced his previous sexual leanings, and within eight years he was married.

He now has two children under two. "My life couldn't be more different," he said. "I am one of tens of thousands of men and women who have overcome homosexuality."

Melissa Fryrear, of Focus on the Family, a Christian conservative group, was a lesbian for a decade.

She attributes her former orientation to "having been violated by a man outside my family when I was a child", a lack of an emotional bond with her mother and a frequently absent father. "I had 30 or 40 relationships in those years. I didn't see any stability around me.

When I was coming to the end of my proverbial rope, I discovered there was a biblical sexual ethic outlined in scripture and I started to hear wonderful stories of people who had overcome homosexuality."

Regina Griggs, the executive director of PFOX, said: "People are not born gay and there's never been a test that has found a gay gene. It's a free speech and equal access issue. We want children to have all the facts, not just the outlandish statements and bias of one side."

She became involved in PFOX when her teenage son announced that he was gay. 'But he's at the point where he admits now that change is possible.

"I have never sat him down and handcuffed him and said, 'I'm taking you to a therapist'. His decision is his decision. We love one another and we're no different from any other family."

Miss Fryrear, 40, said she faces more discrimination as an "ex-gay" than she did as a lesbian. "It seems that gay and lesbian activists want me to go into the closet. I have been called things I could never repeat to my mother.

"I have had death threats. I have to travel with personal security. I get a Christmas card each year with human faeces smeared on it."

Unlike some hardline Christians, Mr Chambers and Miss Fryrear accept that homosexual feelings may be genuine, arguing that they are a complex mixture of innate tendencies, childhood factors and personality traits.

Mr Chambers suggested that he would never completely shake off his past. "I'm not above being tempted. I'm human," he said. "But it's not something that rules my life.

I am attracted and committed to my wife and I have developed heterosexual feelings in general. I choose to live beyond these things and they don't control me any more."

Ron Schlittler, the deputy executive director of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, said the "ex-gay" arguments were potentially damaging to young people. "Conversion therapy is snake oil - it's really suppression therapy.

Their basic premise is that gay people don't exist but are basically confused heterosexuals who need help."

New state law allows credit for off-campus Bible education

While other students learn how to conjugate French verbs or navigate a musical scale, nearly 6,500 S.C. students a year leave campus and learn about the Bible and its Ten Commandments.

Now South Carolina has became the second state to allow schools to give students academic credit for that instruction.

The South Carolina Released Time Credit Act, signed into law June 2 by Gov. Mark Sanford, permits schools to give students an elective credit for participating in the religion class.

“The (new law) just eliminates any questions of the legality or viability of Bible curriculums.” said Grayson Hartgrove, a member of the national organization Bible Education in School Time Network and program director for the Midlands Christian Learning Center.

In the Midlands, the elective course is available at the middle school level in three Lexington County school districts and in the Newberry County school district.

Supporters around the state hope the new law will revive high school enrollment in Bible education, encouraging churches and school officials to create more programs for those students.

“Part of the problem is that if you can’t get credit for it, then you can’t afford to take the time to take the class,” said Robbie Muncatchy of Columbia.

Her grandson, Andrew Harrison, attended the Bible education program at CrossRoads Middle School.

No high schools in the Midlands offer a Released Time program.

Both Spartanburg 7 and Greenville school districts have had high school Released Time programs.

Students can take part in the Released Time programs because of a 1952 court ruling, saying it is constitutional for students to leave campus to take part in religious education courses.

But because of scheduling conflicts and graduation requirements, religious organizations have had smaller-than-expected participation from high school students.

For example, less than 10 percent of the 1,130 students in Greenville’s Christian Learning Centers are in high school, officials said.

Coordinator Troy Bridges said Spartanburg’s Bible Education in School Time program had to stop serving Spartanburg High School after the state started its phase-in of increased graduation requirements in 1997.

Now with the Credit Act signed, Released Time groups are scrambling to get more high school programs approved by superintendents and school boards.

Spartanburg’s Bridges said he’d like to have a high school course available by January 2007. However, Hartgrove said it likely will be the 2007-08 school year before a class is available for high school students in the Midlands.

That’s because it’ll take more churches, money and resources to offer a high school elective. It takes the participation of at least two churches and $7,200 to operate CrossRoads’ Bible education course.

An independent program, Kids 4 Christ, is available to Sandhills Elementary School students in Lexington 4. That program costs about $2,000 to offer. In addition, teachers buy some of their own materials.

The availability of New Released Time courses “will depend on the interest in the local churches,” Hartgrove said.

Lexington 3 officials said they haven’t been approached by church organizations to offer Released Time programs. But, beginning in August, the Old Testament and the New Testament will be taught as a history elective to high school students. The Bible will be used as a historical text.

“The need was there,” said school board member Randy Fox, adding the fall class is full. “It’s a good thing to have more of.”

Spartanburg’s Bridges said Released Time programs will fill a gap in high school course offerings.

“Our moral values are so eroded by what’s happening in our country,” Bridges said. “We need something to offset it and this is one way of doing it.”

Are liberals beating up children of their political opponents?

According to an article in TownHall, Libs’ new strategy: Assault 7 year old , Jun 18, 2006, by Kevin McCullough, one has to ask the question, are liberals beating up children of their political opponents?

This story started several months ago when Joseph Estabrook Elementary School, Lexington, Massachusetts, decided to have second graders read a “fairy-tale” about two princes involved in a homosexual lifestyle, “King and King.”

A teacher at Joseph Estabrook Elementary School used the children’s book, ‘’King & King,” as part of a lesson about different types of weddings. A prince marries another prince instead of a princess in the book, which was on the American Library Association’s list of the 10 most challenged books in 2004 , because of its homosexual theme. Source: Boston.com

Several of the parents protested use of the book and felt that the book was inappropriate for 2nd graders. The parents wanted parental notification and a way to opt out of controversial subjects. The superintendent told them in no uncertain terms to buzz off. The superintendent later issued a news release that:

“Estabrook has no legal obligation to notify parents about the book. We couldn’t run a public school system if every parent who feels some topic is objectionable to them for moral or religious reasons decides their child should be removed. Lexington is committed to teaching children about the world they live in, and in Massachusetts same-sex marriage is legal.”

Apparently one of the parents was later arrested because he refused to leave the Estabrook school grounds until administrators allowed him to opt his son out of discussions about families with same-sex parents. According to TownHall, alternative lifestyle advocates jumped on the parent’s position and mounted a nasty letter writing campaign to a local newspaper in an effort to get the parent to back down.

Turn the calendar forward to May 17, 2006. There was an assault at Estabrook Elementary School. Townhall claims that:

10 children grabbed the parent’s 7 year old son, dragged him behind the corner of the school, well out of sight from the school officials, and proceeded to punch him in the groin, stomach, and chest, before he dropped to the ground when they then kicked and stomped on him. Several of the alleged were supposed to be children of the adults who had been protesting the parent’s position (against alternative lifestyle instruction), several of them - not even in the same class as parent’s child. The article went on to say that the school district “investigated.” Shockingly the school decided no punishment necessary for the 10 children involved with the assault. Source: Townhall

Turn the calendar forward to May 16, 2006, and a news release from Paul B. Ash, Ph.D., Superintendent of Schools

Some of you may be aware that the press has received a news release related to a playground incident at Estabrook. The Estabrook principal has investigated the issue over the past two days, talking to the adults and children involved. The following are the facts as she understands them.

On May 17, several first graders were involved in a disagreement over who would sit where in the cafeteria. As a result, upon going outside one child took another by the hand and brought him to a third student in an area of the playground that is somewhat difficult for the adults to see. (The student who was hit said that he went willingly.) All children who saw agreed that the third student then hit the student who had been brought to him two to four times in the chest/abdomen (children’s accounts vary) and he fell to his knees. The student who was hit says he was hit when down; the other children say he wasn’t. One child reports that one student held the arm of the student who was hit; however, the child who was hit and the other children did not report this. The children involved named five children who were nearby watching but not directly involved. Several other students were close enough to see a cluster of students but not close enough to see what was happening. The student who did the hitting suggested that others also hit, but none of them did so. Based on the children’s accounts, this all may have happened in under a minute. The aide on duty saw a group of children gathering, and as she walked toward them was approached by a child that said someone was being bullied. When the aide inquired what was going on, the child who was hit identified one student who hit him, and the other children agreed. The child who was hit said he was not hurt and did not want to go to the nurse. He reported that his feelings were hurt, because the child who hit him was his friend.

The child who did the hitting was sent to the assistant principal’s office and while talking with her acknowledged his behavior. As a result, he filled out a “think sheet,” to reflect on his behavior and choices, missed recess on two days, and wrote an apology. In addition, the classroom teacher called both sets of parents and a class discussion was held about not hitting and speaking up when there is a problem on the playground. The teacher indicated that both parents took the matter seriously and seemed satisfied with the outcome. Following the incident the boys were observed arm in arm at school and subsequently the child who was hit went to the house of the child who hit him for a play date.

On May 31, the parents of the child hit casually inquired of the assistant principal as to the consequence given to the other child, and they were told that the child’s parents were informed and a consequence given. Other than this brief interaction, between the times of the phone call by the teacher to the parents on May 17 until June 14, there were no complaints of injury or dissatisfaction with the process to the teacher, nurse, or the administrators. On June 14, school administration received a call from a local paper stating that they had received a press release that a child had been assaulted at Estabrook.

In this case, we followed all of our usual procedures and worked with both sets of parents to resolve this issue. We are surprised that it has resurfaced in a press release issued by a group calling itself Mass Resistance without any prior contact with the school. The press release states that the incident was “fueled and incited by adults (and yes, school officials).” We have found nothing in our investigation that would support this allegation in any way. Nonetheless, in the interest of an open and thorough review of the incident, the matter has been referred by the superintendent to the Lexington police, District Attorney’s office, and the Department of Social Services for independent investigation.

The two versions of the story are somewhat different. Everyone agrees that an assault occurred. Where Townhall got its information is unknown. Now it is in the hands of the Lexington Police, District Attorney’s office, and Department of Social Services for independent investigations. Was this an overreaction? Was it a rush to judge? Or, was it something else? One has to hope that the real story will eventually come out and clear the air in Lexington, Massachusetts.

New Senate complaint prepared against Hillary
Major donor Peter Paul seeks ethics action by Democrat's colleagues

Accusing government watchdog Judicial Watch of incompetence after the Senate Ethics Committee rejected the group's complaint against Sen. Hillary Clinton, business mogul Peter Franklin Paul says his new counsel is working with him to file his own complaint, accusing the New York Democrat of direct personal involvement in her campaign's intentional misreporting of his multi-million-dollar contributions.

The chairman of the Senate panel, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, and the vice chairman, Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, replied to Judicial Watch in a letter stating, "The committee has concluded that this matter lacks substantial merit."

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said Clinton's "friends in the Senate decided to give her a free pass in the run-up to 2006 and 2008 elections."

"They first tried to ignore the issue, and then failed to undertake any serious investigation of the matter," Fitton said.

In January, responding to a complaint by Paul, the FEC issued a $35,000 fine to a joint fund-raising committee that included Clinton's campaign, New York Senate 2000, for failing to accurately report $721,895 in contributions from Paul.

In May 2005, Clinton's former top fundraising aide, David Rosen, was acquitted for filing false campaign reports that later were charged by the FEC to treasurer Andrew Grossman, who accepted responsibility in a conciliation agreement. Paul points out the trial established his contention that he personally gave more than $1.2 million to Sen. Clinton's campaign, and his contributions intentionally were hidden from the public and the FEC.

Paul contends the Senate letter responding to Judicial Watch's complaint ignored the duty of the Senate to make its own inquiry into Sen. Clinton's actions, which he detailed in a declaration in his pending business fraud suit against Hillary and Bill Clinton, producer Gary Smith and others set for trial March 27, 2007.

Paul said the panel's letter was based on "superficial conclusions" from the Rosen trial and the FEC conciliation agreement.

The Senate panel's dismissal, he said, "was a clear effort to hide Hillary's role in directing the frauds and obstruction of justice that elected her and then protected her from indictment."

"The Senate Select Committee has a duty to inquire and investigate in matters where the conduct of a senator diminishes or demeans the Senate – and that standard is quite different than the standard used by the FEC and the Justice Department," Paul argued.

The Senate panel ignored the fact, Paul said, that Sen. Clinton did not deny the allegations in his civil-suit declaration but, instead, only swore she had no recollection of certain conversations.

"Her failure to deny the overt acts, alone, requires that the Senate Ethics Committee review what the FEC had no jurisdiction or interest in," Paul asserts.

He said his civil suit against the Clintons provides sworn allegations and "corroboration of misconduct the senator has never denied or refuted."

Paul also contends the committee ignored the following:

* David Smith, FBI investigator in the Rosen case, testified Hillary never reported two fund-raising events Paul hosted and paid for in addition to the Hollywood gala, a lunch and a tea in June 2000.

* No reference was made to an illegal foreign contribution and attendance at the Hollywood fund-raiser by a Japanese citizen tied to the business deal Paul says former President Clinton sabotaged.

* No reference was made to a report filed with the FEC that states Paul's business partner Stan Lee, of Marvel Comics fame, personally contributed $225,000 even though Lee denied it under oath.

"The committee at a minimum should question me as the only first hand witness to her personal conduct – and they never did," Paul said.

Paul says Judicial Watch filed the complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee without his permission, basing it on information they acquired as his legal counsel from 2001-2005.

In an e-mail to Fitton, Paul said he found it "morally and ethically repulsive" that the legal group continues to "make deceptive and misleading statements regarding Judicial Watch's victories."

Paul claims Judicial Watch unethically abandoned him in March 2005, jeopardizing his civil case against the Clintons.

Fitton insisted, in an interview with WND, Paul made it "impossible" for them to cooperate, and suggested Paul was free to file his own complaint, arguing the material used to support it consisted of public documents.

Paul contended that as his former lawyers, the Judicial Watch team was in a unique position, unable to separate their knowledge and interest in the case from their legal relationship and had a "fiduciary responsibility not to interfere with his claims against Senator Clinton with shoddy pleadings."

"Even though they made those documents public, they obtained that information from me as their law client," Paul said. "Their interference in my claims has damaged me by allowing the Senate Ethics Committee to more easily shirk their responsibilities in addressing my claims"

Fitton dismisses Paul's arguments, saying his "credibility is zero when it comes to matter of ethics."

"We won't be lectured on ethics by someone who has multiple felonies for fraud," Fitton said.

Paul argues "these are the people who spent four years vetting my credibility and asserting it. Now I'm not credible because they don't like what I'm saying?"

cont'd

When his new representive, the U.S. Justice Foundation files his own complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee, Paul asserts, "people will be able to compare and see what a bona fide complaint is."

Paul charges Fitton's response is the same defense Clinton attorney David Kendall used to dismiss complaints against Sen. Clinton, saying "Peter Paul is a man with an impressive record of felony convictions."

[Paul has pleaded guilty to a 10(b)5 violation of the Securities and Exchange Commission for not publicly disclosing control of Merrill Lynch margin accounts that held stocks in his company, Stan Lee Media. He has maintained that everything he did was under the aegis of Merrill Lynch management, compliance officers and corporate securities counsel. Under the Carter administration, he was convicted for cocaine possession and an attempt to confiscate more than $8 million from Fidel Castro in a black market coffee transaction the Cuban dictator was using to defraud the Soviet Union. He ascribes that to politics, arguing he subsequently was embraced by Ronald Reagan and his kitchen cabinet, which "realized the problems I had were more related to being gung ho about removing Castro." While still on parole, he said, he worked directly with Chief Justice Warren Burger and visited President Reagan in the White House.]

"It doesn't matter how you characterize my past, the facts speak for themselves," Paul said. "Judicial Watch has violated legal and ethical requirements in connection with their four-year representation of me."

Paul charges Judicial Watch raised millions of dollars specifically for his case that never were used for that purpose or refunded to donors.

Fitton says Paul is lying, maintaining Judicial Watch spent more than $1 million on his case in one year alone and that all of the money came from the group's general funds.

Paul responded: "The problem with Tom Fitton is he has the same interest in twisting the facts and truth as his nemesis Hillary Clinton, and both need to be held accountable for their actions."

Paul – who says Sen. Clinton made false statements in two Washington Post articles to hide his million-dollar-plus contributions in 2000 – sued Bill Clinton for reneging on a $17 million deal in which he promised to promote Paul's public company in exchange for massive contributions to his wife's Senate campaign.

Last month, the United States Justice Foundation filed an appeal with the Appeals Court of California to challenge a trial court decision in April granting Sen. Clinton First Amendment immunity as a defendant in the landmark civil suit upheld by the California Supreme Court.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a judge in Los Angeles dismissed Sen. Clinton as a defendant in the civil lawsuit, but she will be deposed as a material witness in preparation for the March 2007 trial.

Paul, claiming Sen. Clinton pulled off the biggest campaign-finance fraud in history, separately is preparing to file a second complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging the Democratic senator with submitting a false report – for a fourth time – that hides and misattributes his personal multi-million dollar contributions to the three Hollywood fund-raisers he hosted on her behalf.

For the civil suit, Bill and Hillary Clinton head a list of potential witnesses that includes celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, Brad Pitt, Barbra Streisand, James Brolin, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, George Hamilton, Olivia Newton John, John Travolta, Diana Ross, Shirley McLaine, Michael Bolton, Toni Braxton, Paul Anka and Larry King.

Also on the list are former Vice President Al Gore, the Clinton's daughter Chelsea Clinton, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, former California Gov. Gray Davis, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terrence McAuliffe, CBS News reporter Mike Wallace and ABC News reporter Brian Ross.

Paul has compiled his charges, with documentation, on a website.

The Clintons' longtime attorney David Kendall has told WorldNetDaily he would not comment on the case. He stopped commenting to the media last December when the senator's campaign was fined for filing false reports. Kendall had maintained consistently since 2001 that New York Senate 2000 had filed "proper reports" and that Paul was not credible.

In her declaration, Sen. Clinton admitted spending time with Paul on several occasions prior to the gala and during the event but refused to deny any of Paul's numerous sworn allegations outright. Instead, she declared that if there were any discussion of her husband's employment with Paul, she would have remembered it.

Paul stated in his declaration to the court, "Mrs. Clinton personally assured me she would specifically discuss with her husband, the President, my interest in making a post-White House business proposal to him. She told me her understanding that such a proposal would include my offer of substantial support for her Senate campaign as a good-faith advance on the business arrangement he would be agreeing to."

Congressman defends 'foreign-link' hearing
'Third Terrorist' author calls probe 'sham' to bury Islamist-plot theory

In an interview with WorldNetDaily, Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher defended sharp criticism of the integrity of an upcoming congressional hearing on an alleged foreign connection to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, insisting evidence of involvement by Muslim terrorists posed by author Jayna Davis will be taken seriously.

The California congressman was responding to Davis' contention that the hearings will be nothing more than a "sham" designed to bury a potentially explosive political issue that could expose officials who ignored signals that might have prevented the bombing and possibly even the 9-11 attacks.

"Jayna Davis doesn't seem to know the way Washington works," Rohrabacher said by telephone from his House office. "There is a lack of knowledge and a little instability in her remarks about the way I am handling my position."

The congressman argued that until now, the issue has been only a matter of personal inquiry. With a hearing set for September by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rohrabacher says he will pursue many of the relevant leads presented by Davis' book "The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing" and other sources.

In her book, Davis asserts Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were not the lone conspirators but part of a greater scheme involving Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. The explosion April 19, 1995, at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured another 684.

As WorldNetDaily reported, in June 2005, Rohrabacher visited Nichols in prison and discussed with him the Arab-terrorist theory.

"Timothy McVeigh on a number of occasions, had talked about Middle Easterners," Rohrabacher told Davis after the visit. "Terry didn't say anything that would dispel the theory, the central theory of your research, which is these [witnesses featured in 'The Third Terrorist'] actually saw Tim McVeigh and he was with Arabs, and these are the people that you tracked down."

But Davis, who said Rohrabacher has not communicated with her since last July, told WND she has a number of reasons for believing the congressman is not taking the investigation seriously. Those include giving equal credence to a "debunked" theory involving neo-Nazis, ignoring all but two of 22 witnesses of an Arab accomplice of McVeigh, not submitting crucial unanswered questions to the FBI and refusing to initiate declassification of an anti-terror alert issued months before the bombing.

"I'm not going to play this charade about getting to the bottom of things," Davis told WND. "This is the largest criminal cover-up of the 20th century."

Davis, who began her investigation while covering the bombing as a local TV reporter, is particularly unhappy that Rohrabacher's probe into foreign involvement gives equal credence to a theory involving a German national who was in the U.S. illegally in 1995, Andreas Carl Strassmeier, and domestic neo-Nazis at a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma called Elohim City.

Another theory

As WorldNetDaily reported, in a memo written to Hyde, Rohrabacher said an investigation should focus on the fact that "Timothy McVeigh appear[ed] to have had contact with Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern terrorist elements prior to and during the implementation of the bomb plot," and, "just as significant, there is evidence of a personal relationship between Timothy McVeigh and Andreas Carl Strassmeier."

But Davis maintains there is "no tangible evidence that implicates" Strassmeier, who has a provable alibi.

"FBI agents have testified the neo-Nazi, Elohim City connection is nothing more than a dry hole," she said. "There's not one motel log, one phone log, one fingerprint or eyewitness account that can tie any of these Nazi conspirators or Strassmeier to overt commission of a crime."

Rohrabacher replied that Davis' "insistence that only her theories be taken seriously in the investigation takes away from her own credibility."

"I have had serious doubts about the Oklahoma City bombing all these years, and reading Jayna Davis' book certainly encouraged me to move forward on this," Rohrabacher said. "That should be good enough for her, but she seems to be insisting that she's the only person to be taken seriously."

Regarding Davis' questions for the FBI, Rohrabacher said he believes some of them have been pursued, but, he emphasized, now that it's no longer a personal inquiry, "I will certainly put questions that are valid before the FBI."

Rohrabacher said he spoke with a few of the 22 witnesses Davis has on tape claiming to have seen an Arab-looking person with McVeigh at the site of the bombing, a suspect designated by the FBI as "John Doe No. 2."

"I found them to be very credible and was very impressed by them," Rohrabacher said of the witnesses. "One of the reasons I decided to move forward was their credibility."

Addressing Davis' concern, the congressman said, "I don't need to talk to all 22. Some of them were confirming others, that they had seen Timothy McVeigh with an Arab person."

Rohrabacher said he indicated in his memo to Hyde he wanted some of those witnesses to testify.

In May, attorney David Schippers, a former federal prosecutor who served as chief counsel for the 1998 impeachment trial of President Clinton, conducted videotaped interviews with 14 confidential witnesses Davis used in writing her book. Though Schippers has expressed confidence in the veracity of the testimonies, Davis says she believes Rohrabacher has little interest in them since he has not paid to have her flown to Washington to present the videotapes.

Rohrabacher said this is an illustration of Davis' misunderstanding of how Washington works, arguing he had no budget to fly her to the capital.

Davis insists she could save taxpayers a lot of money by presenting the tapes of witnesses who won't testify unless their anonymity can be ensured.

The congressman dismissed Davis' contention that it's within his power to initiate a process to declassify spring 1995 alerts in the possession of a panel on which he formerly sat, the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.

Davis contends an alert warned weeks before the bombing that Iran-sponsored Islamist terrorists had recruited 'two lily whites' – i.e., McVeigh and Nichols – to carry out the bombing of an American federal building.

Davis said the task force also was made aware in 1998 that John Doe No. 2 purportedly had foreknowledge of 9-11 – specifically a connection to Boston Logan Airport, from which two of the hijacked airplanes embarked. The suspect had a nervous breakdown, Davis said, because of his apprehension something dire would happen at Logan.

"What is she complaining about?" Rohrabacher asked. "We may well follow through on those particular items. We've got a number of things we are going through. Which ones we will proceed with, right now, I cannot tell you, because we have not made determinations."

Davis responded: "That's Washingtonese for saying, 'I am not going to declassify these warnings.' And until he declassifies them, it shows he's not serious about getting to the bottom of the Middle East connection. That is a vital piece of intelligence that independently corroborates my book."

Evidence 'holds up'

Attorney Schippers, who wrote the forward to Davis' book and contends her evidence would hold up in court, told WND he believes Rohrabacher wants to have a serious investigation.

"It is not a sham," he said. "Dana Rohrabacher has been trying to get a hearing going for a long time."

cont'd

Schippers has high praise for Davis' work, calling her one of the bravest and most competent investigators he's seen.

"I've worked with federal agents all my career," said Schippers, "and she was ten times better than the best."

Schippers, who successfully investigated the mob for former Attorney General Robert Kennedy, said that to his "great disappointment," the Arab connection has gone nowhere with the executive branch, and it will take the cooperation of Congress to get to the bottom of it.

Referring to Davis' criticism, Rohrabacher said "irrational outbursts" of this kind almost scuttled his proposal for hearings, suggesting to some that maybe it's only "fanatics and fringies out there pushing for this."

"The only reason I got this approval is people trust me to do a professional job," he said. "I'm not grandstanding, I don't plan to run for Senate. I think it's really important we give a second look to various theories of what happened and who was involved and to see which theories have the most merit.

Rohrabacher said the various schools of thought on who is responsible for the bombing have been "fighting each other and heaping dung on each other for so long they've lost sight of what honest consideration means."

"Because you look at [a theory] doesn't mean you agree with it," he emphasized.

Rohrabacher said he's beginning to do serious research in preparation for the September hearing.

"We are moving forward now, and there is some solid information that Jayna has provided us, from first-hand witnesses and her personal investigation of Iraqi immigrants in Oklahoma City."

Rohrabacher said he's likely to get only one day to conduct the hearing and will be happy if he gets two.

But if "we can prove some significant things, if people are willing to tell us some things under oath, I would expect I could expand the hearing," he said.

Davis contends only a special prosecutor and grand jury could adequately address the case.

The congressman said the hearing could very well lead to that development.

"At this moment, I cannot say that it will, but if some of the areas we're looking into do bear fruit, then yes, I think there would be ample room for that because it would mean, frankly, somebody's been lying to the American people."

Cheney Sees Success in Warding Off Attacks

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that aggressive U.S. action is responsible for preventing new terror attacks since the Sept. 11 strikes.

"Nobody can promise that we won't be hit," Cheney said. But he credited a determined offense against terrorists abroad, improved intelligence-gathering and preventive steps at home for thwarting or discouraging terror attacks on U.S. soil.

Answering questions at a National Press Club luncheon, Cheney also said that, when President Bush and he took office in January 2001, the balance of power in government was tilted in favor of Congress.

The unpopular Vietnam War and the Watergate scandals allowed Congress to take more authority at the expense of the executive branch, Cheney said. He and the president believed it was important to "have the balance righted, if you will. And I think we've done that successfully," he said.

Democratic critics of the president and even some Republicans have questioned the administration's assertion of expanded executive power in the name of combatting terrorism. These include warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, detention of suspected terrorists without charges, expanded powers under the Patriot Act and alleged secret CIA prisons overseas.

Cheney defended the NSA's domestic eavesdropping program, which the administration calls its "terrorist surveillance program" as important in the war on terror, while conceding it was controversial.

"We have been engaged in a debate about the wisdom of the program and whether or not it's legal, but it clearly is legal, we believe. It is consistent with the Constitution."

Under the program, the NSA has been monitoring communications of Americans without obtaining warrants so long as least one of the participants is overseas and at least one is a suspected terrorist.

The program, along with "very aggressive campaigns overseas," has helped to protect the country against new terror attacks, Cheney asserted.

He was asked if the United States is winning the war on terrorism.

"I believe we are," Cheney said. "I think we've made significant progress, if you look back over the last _ nearly _ five years now."

"The fact of the matter is we have been safe and secure here at home," the vice president added. "That's not an accident. It didn't happen just because we got lucky."

Cheney said the biggest terrorism threat now "is the possibility of an Al Qaida cell armed with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent in the middle of one of our own cities."

Cheney defended his comment last year, often ridiculed by administration critics, that the Iraqi insurgency was "in its final throes."

He said he was referring to a series of events _ including elections and the drafting and acceptance of a new Iraqi constitution _ that he believes history will show to be pivotal.

But the vice president did say that he underestimated the strength of the insurgency in some of his earlier remarks.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered," Cheney said. He said much of the continuing violence has its roots in "the devastation" that 30 years of Saddam Hussein's iron- fisted rule "had wrought on the psychology of the Iraqi people."

Asked if there was any possibility that the military draft would be restored, Cheney said, "No, none that I can see. I'm a big believer in the all-volunteer force. I think it's produced a magnificent military."

Sen. Clinton supports ``benchmarks'' for U.S. presence in Iraq

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, criticized by some Democrats because of her refusal to call for a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq, said Monday that she favored setting a series of "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government to meet if the U.S. is to maintain its military presence in the war-torn country.

Speaking to reporters on Long Island, Clinton, a likely 2008 presidential contender, reiterated her contention that setting a deadline for troops to leave Iraq "is not smart policy."

But she said the Iraqi government must meet a series of requirements for preserving American military support, such as securing Baghdad within a "reasonable" time period and ridding the Iraqi army of sectarian militias and death squads.

"We have to set some benchmarks, have to put some requirements on the Iraqi government, so they know they have to reach certain goals for us to be supportive. And we have to redeploy our troops, as possible, so that we don't add to the problems there," Clinton said.

Clinton's comments came as Senate Democrats, led by Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, prepared to unveil a plan to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and require the Bush Administration to offer plans to continue redeployment next year. Levin and Reed were expected to offer the plan as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill.

Clinton said she'd been involved in crafting the Democratic plan but would continue working with colleagues "to make sure what I think should be in there is in there."

Last week, in a speech to a left-leaning political conference in Washington, Clinton was booed when she said it would be a mistake to set a firm timetable for troops to leave Iraq.

Clinton has generally been viewed as the early favorite among potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2008. But her vote in 2003 authorizing military action in Iraq and her refusal to call for the removal of American troops have alienated many of the left-leaning activists who help form the party's base.

By contrast, the party's 2004 presidential standard-bearer, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, has become a vocal critic of the war.

With polls showing voters increasingly unhappy with the course of the three-year old Iraq conflict, both the House and Senate firmly rejected a proposal last week to remove troops from Iraq before the end of the year.

Clinton said Monday that there was a significant difference between setting a timetable for withdrawal and establishing goals for progress in Iraq if American military support there is to continue.

"You can't count on an open ended commitment from us," Clinton said must be the message to the Iraqi government. "You can count on us to be supportive of you and providing logistical support, intelligence support and other mutually agreed upon support but only under these circumstances."

Clinton, who is seeking re-election to the Senate this fall, spoke to reporters after conducting the third in a series of health care forums she has held around the state.

Bush Travels to Vienna for EU Talks

President Bush is on his way to Vienna for talks with leaders of the European Union that are expected to focus on Iran's nuclear program, the war against terror and trade. There is a full agenda for the annual trans-Atlantic summit, including security and economic issues.

White House National Security Adviser Steve Hadley says promoting freedom and democracy and winning the war on terror top the list.

"We are seeking to enhance cooperation in promoting democracy in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Latin America," he said. "On the security front, the leaders will set priorities for U.S. - EU counter-terrorism cooperation, particularly countering terrorist financing and efforts to prevent terrorist access to weapons of mass destruction."

Hadley says diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program will be reviewed in Vienna. Iran is now studying a package of incentives designed to convince Tehran to suspend uranium processing. The package, which was drafted by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, was formally presented to Iran by the EU's top foreign policy official, Javier Solana.

"Iran will certainly be a topic with the EU leadership, but I think it will be simply to review the bidding, where we are, and reaffirm what has been very good cooperation and solidarity on the international community," he said.

Hadley made clear no major announcements on Iran are expected.

"I think what you will hear is simply an opportunity to assess where we are headed with the EU leadership and a reaffirmation of where we are," he said.

Trade is another issue that will come under scrutiny in Vienna, particularly the outlook for progress in the current round of world trade negotiations.

Members of the World Trade Organization are struggling to meet a year-end deadline for completion of the so-called Doha round of trade talks. In a recent Washington address, President Bush acknowledged the talks are in trouble, and called on all nations to make concessions.

"Now is the time for the world to come together, and make this world a free trading world, not only for the benefit of our own economies, but as an important part of the strategy to reduce poverty around the world," the president said.

But European trade officials complain the United States is calling on others to take action, but is not willing to make enough concessions of its own, particularly in the area of agricultural trade.

President Bush will be discussing all these matters and more in Vienna with Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, who holds the revolving presidency of the European Union. European Commission President Jose Barroso and other officials will also take part in the summit, part of a regular series of consultations between the United States and the EU leadership.

Mr. Bush will remain in Vienna for less than 24 hours, before heading on to Budapest, Hungary, where he will take part in ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution that was crushed by Soviet troops. Aides say the overriding theme of his stay will be the power of democracy.

Senate defeats Democrats' minimum wage increase

The Senate on Wednesday defeated a proposal pushed by Democrats that would have given some of the lowest-paid hourly workers a boost in their wages for the first time in nearly a decade.

A majority of the Senate, 52 senators, voted in favor of incrementally raising the federal minimum wage -- unchanged since 1997 -- 40 percent from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 by January 1, 2009.

But the measure needed 60 votes to win under a procedural agreement worked out earlier.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, unsuccessfully tried to attach the proposal to a defense authorization bill that is expected to be passed by the Senate in coming days.

Kennedy acknowledged to reporters that it will be "pretty difficult" to win a minimum wage increase this year. He said the pay raise for about 7 million workers and their families would be a top priority if Democrats win control of the Senate in November's elections.

Democrats must pick up six seats from Republicans to reclaim the chamber.

Trying to rebut Republicans' arguments that raising the minimum wage would largely help teenagers working part-time jobs while being supported by their parents, Kennedy focused on teaching assistants, nursing home aides and office building maintenance workers who work full time at wages that earn them less than $11,000 annually, well below the poverty line.

Kennedy also chastised Republican leaders for blocking a minimum wage increase while pursuing repeal of the estate tax, which mostly helps the wealthy, and taking "plenty of time to debate flag burning. I don't know the last time a flag was burned in my state of Massachusetts," Kennedy said.

Republicans countered that raising the minimum wage would end up backfiring by forcing small businesses to hire fewer workers.

The Senate also defeated a Republican-backed amendment to raise the minimum wage in two steps to $6.25. That measure also would have changed some work rules, drawing Democratic opposition.

Only 45 senators supported that plan by Republican Michael Enzi of Wyoming, chairman of a Senate labor committee.

His amendment had a minimum wage increase, but Enzi said that Congress instead should focus on ways to lower high-school dropout rates and get more job training to low-skilled workers.

With congressional elections less than five months away, Democratic candidates are likely to highlight the minimum wage and contrast it to House of Representatives and Senate members' salaries, which have risen by nearly $35,000 since 1997.

House Democrats, like their Senate counterparts, are pushing a $2.10-per-hour minimum wage increase. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee voted to include the wage hike in a fiscal 2007 labor and health spending bill.

House Republican leaders, who oppose raising the minimum wage, have put that bill on a back burner because of the amendment.

'$1 million' gospel tracts dealt court-setback
Wheelchair-bound man claims Secret Service said, 'You're passing out counterfeit money'

A federal judge in Dallas yesterday ruled against a Christian group whose "million-dollar" gospel tracts were seized by the U.S. Secret Service as "counterfeit money," and a wheelchair-bound man in Las Vegas claims a Secret Service agent threatened him with arrest for passing out the same tracts.

Brian Fahling of the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, which is representing the Denton, Texas-based Great News Network, had asked the judge to order immediately the return of 8,300 tracts seized by the Secret Service and to prevent the government agency's local field office from arresting anyone who distributes them.

Fahling told WorldNetDaily he's unsure at this point what the judge's negative decision will mean for the Christian evangelists who have been using the tracts, which mimic U.S. currency but have disclaimers along with a gospel message on the back.

"I can't fathom how the judge went their way," said Fahling, who added, nevertheless, he's confident "we'll get relief."

Meanwhile, Fahling is in contact with a man who claims a Secret Service agent threatened him with arrest in downtown Las Vegas for passing out the tracts.

Fahling said he will appeal the rejection of a preliminary injunction to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a process that will take at least a few months. In the meantime he'll continue with the discovery phase of the case, in preparation for a hearing.

There is no order preventing Great News Network from distributing the tracts. But the Secret Service's Dallas field office, which has no judicial authority, has issued a letter advising the group that it believes the tract is illegal.

The Secret Service insists the tract violates a federal law that says reproductions of currency cannot be regulation size and cannot be two-sided.

Fahling contends the sections of the U.S. code's title 18 cited by the government, 475 and 504, don't apply.

He argues 475 deals only with authorized denominations – there is no $1 million bill – and 504 pertains only to exact copies of currency. The tracts have numerous differences, including the gospel message on the back, he points out.

The judge in Dallas yesterday, in his rejection of the preliminary injunction request, indicated the tract is not sufficiently distinct from actual currency.

Fahling said that judgment would "separate him from 5 million people who would conclude otherwise."

The attorney explained the legal test is whether a reasonable person would be deceived.

As WorldNetDaily reported, the controversy began June 2 when three agents visited the Great News Network office and told a staffer to hand over the tracts.

The tracts are produced by evangelist Ray Comfort, whose Living Waters Ministry in Southern California has been inundated with requests for them since the story broke a week ago.

Fahling said the head of the Los Angeles district of the Secret Service was made aware of the situation but planned to take no action.

But in Las Vegas, 35-year-old Chris Bowen said he was passing out the tract on the city's pedestrian Fremont Street when a Secret Service agent came up from behind, flashed his badge and threatened him with arrest.

Bowen, who is wheelchair-bound, told WND the agent said distributing the tract was illegal: "You're passing out counterfeit money."

Bowen said it appeared the plain-clothed agent, who would not give his name or badge number, was vacationing with family.

The Las Vegas man said he explained the tract was "about Jesus."

According to Bowen, the agent replied, "I don't care, it's counterfeit money. It's the same as any other money."

When Bowen further argued that $1 million bills don't exist, the agent repeated that it didn't matter, "It's counterfeit. I can arrest you right now and charge you with a felony."

Local security officers then showed up and, after consultation with their superior, told Bowen the Secret Service officer was legitimate and he had to turn over the rest of his tracts, which numbered about 30.

Bowen said he then contacted the man from whom he acquired the tracts, who later wrote a letter to Comfort.

Comfort put Bowen in touch with Fahling, who said he wants to talk to the Secret Service before deciding on any legal action.

Bowen, who regularly goes to Fremont Street on weekends to pass out gospel tracts of different kinds, said he's been warned by security officers there that if he passed out the million-dollar tracts they will notify the metro police and have him arrested.

During the seizure in Dallas, the field officer explained to the Great News Network that someone in North Carolina had attempted to deposit one of the million-dollar bills in a bank account. The address of the Texas group was on the back, and the Secret Service went into action.

The tract includes this message: "The million-dollar question: Will you go to Heaven? Here's a quick test. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God's name in vain? Jesus said, "Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already with her in his heart." Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on Judgment Day? If you have done those things God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in Hell. That's not God's will. He sent His Son to suffer and die on the cross for you. Jesus took your punishment upon Himself – 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.' Then He rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus, and God will grant you everlasting life. Then read your Bible daily and obey it."

A WND reader has pointed out retail giant Toys R Us has been selling "million-dollar bills," printed on both front and back, for years. In fine print on the back, the bill says, "This instrument is NON negotiable."

World Class Learning Materials sells a set of 100 bills of different denominations it calls "play money"

A website called Prank Place says its currency for sale "looks and feels real. Great conversation tool. Our funny money and fake million dollar bills look just like real U.S. Currency. These are very high quality, designed by an incredibly talented artist. Our fake money make great gifts, additions to greeting cards, or even sales promotions and sales tools."

Murtha finds support among vets in his district

While Staff Sgt. Randy Myers was dodging roadside bombs in Iraq, his congressman was calling the war a lost cause.

Sixteen-term Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran and military hawk, has become the face of the Democrats’ anti-war movement since he called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops last fall. His oft-repeated criticism of the Bush administration’s war policies also has earned him the wrath of Republicans.

In Murtha’s southwest Pennsylvania district, however, many share the war critic’s views.

At a welcome home ceremony this week for Myers and other troops from the Johnstown, Pa.-based 876th Engineer Battalion, the crowd cheered when a Murtha aide welcomed the troops on the congressman’s behalf.

Myers said he backs Murtha, an opinion echoed by a number of other troops and their families. Several share his frustration with the conflict.

“I’m not sure we’re doing a whole lot of good,” Myers, 46, said of the U.S. presence in Iraq. “Everybody thinks we are. We’re trying to, but we’re not going to change what they want to do, and if they don’t want to change, they’re not gonna.”

Said Sgt. 1st Class George Wozniak, 36, of Murtha: “He’s definitely for a strong military and he definitely supports the troops.”

Patriotism runs deep in Murtha’s district in the Allegheny Mountains, where joining the military is a family tradition and often an economic necessity. Many served in Vietnam and that war exacted a heavy toll, with Allegheny County losing 421 men and Washington County, part of Murtha’s district, losing 67. Memorials to those killed are scattered throughout the towns and cities of western Pennsylvania.

Not far from Johnstown was the setting for the Oscar-winning 1978 movie “The Deer Hunter,” which explored the impact of Vietnam on the young men of an industrial town.

Doubts about Iraq have surfaced in the region. A Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday found that 25 percent in southwest Pennsylvania said all troops should be withdrawn from Iraq, while 38 percent in Pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs said they should all be withdrawn.

The battalion was part of the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, the largest group of the state’s Guard troops to fight in a combat zone since World War II. The approximately 2,000 troops were based in Anbar Province, one of the most dangerous sections of Iraq. Fifteen Pennsylvania troops from the brigade were killed during the deployment.

“I would like them out of there,” said Bonnie Shable, 53, whose husband, Army Sgt. 1st Class James Shable, served in Vietnam and Iraq and returned home with the battalion this week. “I think we’ve done what we’re going to do over there and it’s time for everybody to come home.”

Divisions over the war and a timetable for pulling out U.S. forces have roiled the Democrats. Republicans, looking to capitalize on the issue in an election year, have accused Democratic critics such as Murtha of espousing a “cut-and-run” approach, hoping the argument will resonate with voters.

His criticism has angered some in the district. Unopposed in 2004, Murtha has a GOP rival this time — Diana Irey, a Washington County commissioner.

Ruth Ann Biesinger-Sliko, 55, a physical education teacher who came to see a fellow teacher and six of her former students return from Iraq, said Murtha has lost her vote because of his negativity about the war.

“I think that makes the guys feel terrible when he starts, you know, bashing. I think you need to support the guys,” Biesinger-Sliko said. “I think it’s created a lot of bad feelings for the people whose families are over there.”

Vice President Dick Cheney and White House adviser Karl Rove have assailed the congressman, with Bush’s political adviser saying Democrats like Murtha “may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last tough battles.”

Murtha, a Marine who did two tours in Vietnam, fired back. “He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office with his big, fat backside, saying, ‘Stay the course.’ That’s not a plan,” Murtha said of Rove on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Murtha remains popular in his district, in large part because of the federal dollars he has delivered. The homecoming ceremony this week was at an armory on a hillside dubbed “Fort Murtha” because of that largesse. Next to the armory is the John P. Murtha Airport, which is a few miles from the John P. Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute.

“I just believe everything he says is very true,” said Cindy Saylor, 49, whose 19-year-old son was among those who returned home. “I think we need to get out of there. People are getting killed needlessly.”

Not everyone in the district is happy with Murtha’s outspokenness or higher political profile. The congressman has said if Democrats capture control of the House, he will seek the job of majority leader. Murtha also plans to speak at Democratic meetings in New Hampshire and Florida in the next few weeks.

A banner proclaiming, “Welcome Home Soldiers: Got-R-Done,” greeted the troops when they returned. Many of the soldiers declined to be interviewed. Or, when asked about Murtha, said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion.

Tom Geiger, a 79-year-old World War II veteran, said he thinks Murtha is “50 percent right and 50 percent wrong.”

“Maybe they should have searched a little bit more” for weapons of mass destruction, Geiger said. “But once you’re into it, you’re stuck with it.”

Democrats form unified front against administration's war strategy

At times passionate and at times partisan, Democrats and Republicans squared off Wednesday in an unprecedented Senate debate on the war in Iraq, as Democrats pressed the Bush administration to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by the end of this year.

Democrats squabbled among themselves about deadlines for withdrawal, but formed a unified front against the Bush administration's war strategy. Republicans assailed any talk of a pullout as a dangerous signal of weakness to terrorists and Iraqi insurgents that would forsake the thousands of American soldiers who've been wounded or killed.

"This administration's refrain that we're in Iraq as long as the Iraqis need us is creating a dependency of unlimited duration and gives the Iraqis the impression that their security is more in our hands than in theirs," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., one of the lead authors of a measure to begin withdrawing troops this year.

Republicans countered that any timetable, even an open-ended one such as Levin's, would embolden al-Qaida and insurgent fighters in Iraq, who want U.S. troops out.

"They are likely to say, `We'll wait out the timetable and then we'll resume the violence and every means we can to destabilize this (Iraqi) government,'" said Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Votes on two Democratic withdrawal proposals are scheduled for Thursday.

The give-and-take was high-minded and serious amid pleas from both sides to end the political name-calling that had marked the buildup to the debate.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., his voice cracking with emotion, eulogized Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker of Madras, Ore., one of two soldiers who reportedly were brutalized, tortured and killed this week after being kidnapped in Iraq. Smith also called for politicians to temper the rhetoric that's characterized the war debate.

"My soul cries out for something more dignified," he said. Of advocates of withdrawal, he added: "I don't believe their dissent is unpatriotic." But he said a pullout would be "a tactical mistake of monumental proportions."

The floor exchanges hid a subtext of election-year and presidential politics.

Levin faced a competing Democratic proposal from Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, both possible presidential contenders in 2008, who urged withdrawing troops by July 1 of next year.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., whom liberals have criticized for not taking a stronger anti-war stance, said she opposed the hard-and-fast deadline that Kerry and Feingold proposed but would support Levin.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who's considered the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and is a strong supporter of U.S. intervention in Iraq, vigorously opposed the Democratic proposals. But he distanced himself from the Bush administration by arguing that the level of violence "remains unacceptably high."

"We've made serious mistakes and the costs have been very high," he said.

The debate prompted varying descriptions of conditions in Iraq, with senators variously sounding optimistic or pessimistic to make their case for pulling out or staying put.

Warner argued that "there is clear proof" of "concrete, visible results."

"We're moving toward establishing a secure and prosperous nation," he said. Any timetable to withdraw, he said, would "set back that momentum."

But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, painted a different picture: "Does anyone in this body believe that Iraq is totally in the control of Iraqis today? Does anyone believe that there aren't insurgents and agitators from other parts of the world - al-Qaida, Iran, other terrorist organizations - with the specific purpose of destabilizing that country?"

Democrats cited an op-ed article in The Washington Post by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie that said the Iraqi government envisioned foreign troop reductions this year and withdrawal of most of them by the end of 2007.

"I don't know if my colleagues will accuse the Iraqi national security adviser of cutting and running from his own country," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., Levin's co-sponsor. "This is what a leading figure in the government of Iraq is suggesting, a phased redeployment beginning this year, hopefully concluding by the end of 2007."

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, one of several Democrats who oppose Kerry's proposal, said a specific deadline would backfire:

"For my friend to say get out at a certain time, I say I understand your frustration, but what do you do after that? What do you do if things go to hell in a hand basket quickly, and there is a civil war that turns into a regional war? What is your plan?"

Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran who was criticized during his 2004 presidential run for not disavowing his vote to authorize force in Iraq, said it was time for him to take a position.

"I believe young lives are being lost needlessly," he said. "I'm not going to stay here as a U.S. senator and add names to the Iraqi wall or whatever memorial we have because I didn't take a stand."

Bolivian President Claims U.S. Is Disguising Soldiers

LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales' latest anti-U.S. diatribe came in a speech to thousands of peasants in his political stronghold: The United States is sending soldiers disguised as students and tourists to Bolivia.

The accusation, rejected Wednesday as unfounded by the U.S. Embassy, comes as Morales faces attacks by political opponents for his cozy relationship with President Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, including accepting aid from that country's military.

It's not clear how many Venezuelan troops are in Bolivia, but Venezuelan pilots have been ferrying Morales around the country for the past two weeks in two loaned military helicopters as he campaigns ahead of July 2 elections for an assembly that is to retool Bolivia's constitution.

Morales' accusation also comes as Bolivia seeks to extend a preferential trade agreement that has been a big boost to South America's poorest country, helping Bolivia export $380 million in goods to the United States last year.

Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera is expected to head to Washington next month to lobby for an extension of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which expires Dec. 31.

Relations between the two countries have been frosty since Morales took office in January, and U.S. officials have said it's unlikely Bolivia will get an extension. Washington wants Bolivia to join Peru and Colombia in signing bilateral free-trade agreements.

During Morales' speech Tuesday in Cochabamba state, home of his political base, he mentioned that U.S. Ambassador David Greenlee had sought a meeting with him.

"He asked for a meeting. I don't know what he's looking to discuss. I'm not at all afraid of talking or perhaps he's angry," said Morales.

"But I also have the right to complain because U.S. soldiers disguised as students and tourists are entering the country," said Morales, a leftist Aymara Indian whose plan for Bolivia includes the nationalization of its natural gas industry.

Morales offered no evidence to back up the claim. His spokesman, Alex Contreras, said Morales would be providing evidence, though he did not say when.

The U.S. Embassy issued a statement calling Morales' accusation "unfounded."

"We reiterate once more that we are supporting Bolivian democracy in a consistent way," the statement said.

On Sunday, during a meeting with coca growers, Morales had uttered a phrase in the native Quechua language that may have irritated the U.S. ambassador.

"I shouted, 'Qausachun coca (long live coca!), wanuchun yanquis (die Yankees!),' and perhaps that could have angered him," said Morales. "If he complains, I, too, have the right to complain."

Morales often intoned the incendiary Quechua phrase in speeches during his years as head of the coca growers' union, a post he continues to hold today.

Coca is the basis of cocaine. But it is also a widely used stimulant with traditional medicinal and spiritual uses in Bolivia. Morales' government and Washington have been at loggerheads over his promotion of coca leaf for export in products including tea, toothpaste and shampoo.

Tuesday's remarks were Morales' second direct reference to the United States in recent days. Last week, he told a crowd that he was prepared to defend his revolution with arms against any U.S. threat.

Earlier this month, Morales said without offering specifics that the United States had tried to assassinate him in the past.

Morales' main political opponent, former president Jorge Quiroga, accused him this week of compromising Bolivia's sovereignty by inviting so many Venezuelan soldiers.

Venezuelan Embassy officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment on how many of the country's soldiers were in Bolivia.

Military cooperation with the United States, meanwhile, has ebbed. The U.S. Embassy would not specify how many Department of Defense employees it has in Bolivia, saying only that they number about a few dozen.

Morales has taken advantage of widespread resentment of the foreign policy of U.S. President George W. Bush's government to boost his populist agenda to fight poverty and hunger in Bolivia.

Morales nationalized the country's natural gas industry on May 1 and has vowed to turn over to landless peasants parcels owned by absentee landlords who have let them lie fallow.

House GOP delays renewal of Voting Rights Act
Ballots in several languages, interpreters at polls among issues holding up approval

The Voting Rights Act, which has protected minority voters from discrimination since its passage more than 40 years ago, appeared headed for an easy reaffirmation in the House on Wednesday -- until conflicts old and new clouded its future.

Amid wide bipartisan support -- the House Judiciary Committee approved the measure last month by a 33-1 vote -- House Republican leaders scheduled floor debate Wednesday, hoping to use the bill's passage for an election-year outreach to minority voters. The landmark legislation is due to expire next year, and an array of advocacy groups has been pressing for its renewal for another 25 years.

But in a private morning meeting, Republicans raised objections that forced House leaders to yank the bill from the floor.

One concern had its roots in the bill's origins, which require nine states with a documented history of discrimination against black voters, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, to obtain Justice Department approval for their election laws.

Another, a spillover from the current contentious debate on immigration, had to do with requirements in some states for ballots printed in several languages and the presence of interpreters at polling places where large numbers of citizens speak limited English.

Some members of the Republican caucus also suggested delaying the debate until the Supreme Court issues a ruling in a controversial 2003 Texas redistricting case. That decision, expected in the next two weeks, will examine the issue of whether Hispanic voters were disenfranchised.

Whatever the fuel, the delay set off a series of brush fires on Capitol Hill.

"It was heated," said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., who supports an amendment by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, to end a requirement for bilingual ballots in jurisdictions where at least 5 percent of the population speaks a different language. "I've been in meetings for two hours. There are meetings going on all over the Hill."

Civil rights groups across the nation also expressed disappointment over the decision.

"Those members who held up today's vote represent retrogressive forces that America hasn't seen at this level since the 1960s," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "Many of those trying to derail the Voting Rights Act represent states with the most egregious records of discrimination in voting -- discrimination that continues to this day."

Officially, House Republican leaders said in a statement that they are "committed to passing the Voting Rights Act legislation as soon as possible." Unofficially, some aides said the leadership could schedule the vote again after the July 4 recess.

Although dismayed by the delay, Democrats seized the chance to spotlight the rare public dissension in Republican ranks.

"I hope that the Republicans will be able to quickly resolve their differences and that the Congress will be able to pass this vital legislation," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. "It is critical that we do so as soon as possible, because our democracy depends on protecting the right of every American citizen to vote."

"Apparently, the leadership of the Republican Party cannot bring its own rank-and-file members into line to support the Voting Rights Act," said Rep. Arthur Davis, D-Ala., who represents Selma and Birmingham, the sites of seminal events in the civil rights movement that produced the bill in 1965. "That ought to be a significant embarrassment as they fan around the country trying to skim off a few black votes in the next four months."

Part of the problem, according to some GOP congressional aides, was that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., was unavailable to answer questions and allay concerns. In addition, they said, he consulted more often with his Senate counterparts than with members of his own party during deliberations over the bill.

In a statement issued later Wednesday, Sensenbrenner defended both the bill and the process.

Noting that the committee has held 12 hearings and amassed more than 12,000 pages of testimony, Sensenbrenner said that the bill was one both Republicans and Democrats "can be proud of because it ensures that when discriminatory practices of the past resurface, they are quickly put to rest. I hope the House leadership will bring (HR9) to the floor in the near future."

Sensenbrenner believes opponents "keep moving the goalpost," said an aide who asked not to be identified. Some of the issues now being raised -- such as bilingual ballots -- first came up in committee, where efforts to change them were defeated, the aide said.

The House delay could complicate matters in the Senate, where Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., had planned to bring up an identical bill next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Civil liberties groups, including the ACLU, have made the renewal a priority this year. "We hope that this is only a temporary delay in the efforts to ensure that this law, critical to protecting the voting rights of all Americans, is renewed," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office.

Senate OKs rewritten marriage proposal

The state Senate last night voted to let Pennsylvanians decide if they want to insert language into the state Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. But unlike the House, the Senate didn't include language explicitly barring civil unions.

The Senate passed the legislation on a 38-12 bipartisan vote. It mirrors the state's 1996 marriage-protection law, but supporters said the legislation would prevent courts from declaring it unconstitutional. All midstate senators supported the bill.

The Senate bill is narrower in scope than a measure the House approved this month. The House bill included language that also would have prohibited any legal recognition of a marriage equivalent, such as a civil union.

Critics said the Senate bill is weaker and could delay a constitutional amendment.

"We believe the people of Pennsylvania deserve the opportunity at the ballot box to effectively protect marriage. The House version would permit that. The Senate version won't," said Michael Geer of the Pennsylvania Family Institute.

"Things don't look hopeful that Pennsylvanians will be able to vote on protection of the institution of marriage in 2007," he said.

Amending the constitution requires both chambers to pass an identical bill in two separate legislative sessions before it can be placed on the ballot for voters to ratify.

Both chambers must pass the same bill 90 days before the general election, which means they would have to agree on the wording before leaving for the summer recess to get it on the ballot next year.

Opponents of the amendment acknowledged the restraint shown by senators.

"There will be no doubt what the intention is," said Larry Frankel of the American Civil Liberties Union.

He and others argued the broader wording that the House passed would have affected unmarried heterosexual couples and gay couples by taking away hospital visitation rights and the ability to make medical decisions for their partners, among other rights.

For Sen. Jane Orie, R-Allegheny, leaving out wording to ban civil unions was tantamount to allowing fathers to marry their daughters and aunts to marry uncles, in addition to legalizing civil unions.

The Senate bill "would not prevent civil unions," Orie said.

Orie said three states -- California, Connecticut, and Vermont -- have allowed unions identical to marriage.

Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, said the additional wording would guard the traditional view of marriage "against litigation and challenges that may come and certainly will come in the following years."

Sen. Vince Fumo, D-Philadelphia, said there is no threatened lawsuit and no court challenges prompting the move to amend the constitution in a way that he maintained discriminates against some citizens.

"If anyone's marriage is threatened because two people love each other and they happen to be the same sex, then God help your marriage," Fumo said, dismissing the argument that this is about protecting the sanctity of marriage. If that's the case, he said maybe the state should outlaw divorce.

"This legislature needs to get off its high moral horse and stop telling the people how to live their adult lives," said Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Allegheny.

JAN MURPHY: 232-0668 or jmurphy@patriot-news.com

IN OTHER STATES

Fourteen states have banned same-sex marriage and won't recognize any relationships similar to marriage, such as civil unions. Six states have approved the more limited marriage definition that the state Senate backed, defining marriage as a man and woman.

Senate panel poised for Net neutrality vote

The tussle over Net neutrality regulations appears to be nearing its final stages in Congress.

The Senate Commerce Committee plans to begin on Thursday afternoon what is likely to turn into many hours of debate on a broad, contentious communications bill (click here for PDF). Committee aides said they expect scores of amendments and, if feasible, a final vote by day's end--though some said the proceeding could stretch into next week.

Net neutrality, the idea that network operators must treat all content equally, has become a pivotal issue as Congress attempts to rewrite the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Some say the 10-year-old law is outdated because it could not take into account the explosion of the Internet. The bill also tackles other hot-button issues such as municipal networks, broadband subsidies and the broadcast flag.

So far, the Republican-dominated legislative body has proved largely unreceptive to the idea of detailed new regulations sought by a broad array of Internet companies and consumer groups. Those organizations, allied under slogans like "Save the Internet," want a blanket ban on a new business model that large network operators have been openly contemplating--charging sites and services a premium fee for priority placement and speeds across their pipes. The Net neutrality issue has backing from an array of businesses and celebrities ranging from Google to the musician Moby.

Failure to legislate would lead to unprecedented Internet gatekeeping and higher prices for consumers, Net neutrality advocates say. Network operators counter that there's no evidence of any discriminatory behavior and that regulations will stifle companies' ability to offset vast investments in expanding their offerings.

The House of Representatives earlier this month rejected an amendment that would have put Net neutrality principles into law. The final version of its telecommunications bill would give the Federal Communications Commission exclusive power to levy fines on network operators that interfere with their customers' ability to surf the Web, connect devices and run applications as they please, within certain parameters. The FCC would not be permitted to make new rules addressing the subject.

The Senate could be on pace to take a similar, if slightly more regulatory, approach. The latest version of the 159-page Communications, Consumers' Choice and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 would establish an "Internet consumer bill of rights" that would write a number of specific Internet access principles into law and give the FCC policing--but not rule making--powers.

But a handful of mostly Democratic committee members, including Co-chairman Daniel Inouye, have pledged to continue to push for the additional rules requested by tech heavyweights like Google, Amazon.com, eBay and Microsoft.

"Under the current language, network operators will have the ability to dictate what the Internet of the future will look like, what content it will include and how it will operate," Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat, said in a statement earlier this week.

Inouye is one of eight Democrats who have joined Maine Republican Olympia Snowe in backing a bill called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which would impose stricter regulations. Committee aides said North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan, that bill's other chief sponsor, is likely to offer an amendment that would tack his proposal onto the Senate bill.

Just as forceful on the other side of the debate are a number of the committee's Republicans. They argue that any new regulations will stifle the growth of broadband networks and the spread of new, high-bandwidth services, such as video.

"We have principles that have already been put forward by the FCC supporting Internet freedom, if that's what we want to call it," New Hampshire Republican John Sununu said at a hearing last week.
Broadband for all

Only a fraction of the Senate's mammoth bill actually deals with Net neutrality.

The overarching goal for much of the legislation, backers say, is speeding the deployment of broadband services to every corner of America, however poor or remote. In tackling that goal, the bill covers far more territory than does its House counterpart.

Among other provisions, the Senate bill would:

• Give local governments the right to deploy their own broadband networks. The measure is designed to preempt existing laws in a number of states which, under pressure from large network operators, have decided to restrict the ability of cities to set up shop. Under the Senate proposal, cities would have to publish notice of their proposals, seek public comment, explore partnerships with private companies and disclose the estimated cost to taxpayers.

• Set aside up to $500 million per year from the Universal Service Fund especially for broadband in "unserved" areas. The bill also seeks to expand that multibillion dollar pool of money, which currently comes from fees passed on to wireless, wireline and pay phone customers, and soon, to voice over Internet Protocol subscribers as well. The fund has come under tough criticism because of allegations of fraud, waste and abuse, and others question expanding the subsidies in a marketplace where broadband prices appear to be decreasing.

• Allow wireless devices to operate on unused broadcast television airwaves, or "white spaces." Companies interested in deploying Wi-Fi networks covet those bands of spectrum because the inherent scientific properties could enable cheaper and easier setup--and thus more-widespread access for rural and low-income areas. But the politically powerful National Association of Broadcasters has voiced resistance to the idea, arguing that the devices would muddle the reception of over-the-air TV stations.
The flag is still there

Another hot-button issue buried in the bill is the revival of a now-defunct FCC copy-protection regime known as the broadcast flag. The FCC's original rules would have made it illegal to "sell or distribute" any digital TV product that lacked the technology to limit a person's ability to redistribute video clips--particularly over the Internet--made from recorded over-the-air broadcasts.

A federal court yanked down the flag last spring after concluding that the FCC didn't have the authority to require manufacturers to include the flag in their products. The bill, however, would expressly grant regulators that power. It would also permit the FCC to make similar rules for digital radio receivers.

A coalition of librarians and public interest groups filed suit against the original flag regulations last year, arguing that they would threaten, among other things, consumers' ability to make "fair use" of copyright works.

"It puts Hollywood, acting through the FCC, in charge of how consumer electronics manufacturers should build their devices," said Art Brodsky, a spokesman for the nonprofit group Public Knowledge, one of the plaintiffs in the suit.

Senate committee aides said earlier this week that a number of Republicans share concerns about the government's wading into technological mandates. They would rather not see the provisions in the bill at all but added them after pressure from Democrats like Barbara Boxer, who counts a large chunk of the entertainment industry in her California constituency.

"Piracy is a dagger in the heart of all the industries that rely on intellectual-property protection," Dan Glickman, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, told the politicians at a hearing last week, "and we believe that your bill will help us in the fight against piracy."

Senate to Challenge Bush Spending Again

Less than a week after winning a spending clash, President Bush is sparring again with lawmakers who want to shift money from defense and foreign aid to domestic programs such as education and flood control.

The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee has prepared a plan to cut about $9 billion from Bush's request for the Pentagon. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., would spread that money among the departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development and Agriculture and elsewhere as he prepares to advance this year's round of spending bills.

An additional $2 billion would be cut from Bush's request for foreign aid.

Cochran is not planning to award any of the money to the Homeland Security Department, whose budget would face a near-freeze.

The move is running into a fresh threats of a veto by the White House, which promises to reject legislation that "significantly underfunds the Department of Defense to shift funds to nonsecurity spending."

If past patterns hold, Bush is going to win the battle in the end.

Just last week, for example, a veto threat was successful as Congress passed a $94.5 billion bill for war spending and hurricane relief. That capped a long debate in which the threat forced the Senate to drop most of its $14 billion-plus worth of add-ons such as farm aid and help for the Gulf Coast's seafood industry.

"We all know it's just a game," said Tom Gavin, spokesman for top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Still, lawmakers _ especially senators _ are chafing at Bush's demands for domestic agency budgets passed by Congress each year. Despite Congress' reputation for spending profligacy, Bush and GOP leaders have succeeded in clamping down on the operating budgets of Cabinet agencies except for the Defense Department and Homeland Security.

The House has shifted $6 billion _ $4 billion from defense and $2 billion from foreign aid _ to domestic programs that Bush had promised to cut by about 1 percent. That drew objections from the White House, but not an outright veto threat.

The latest threat was against the House-passed Pentagon spending bill, if it's not generous enough. But it actually was aimed at the Senate Appropriations Committee, which was set to approve on Thursday the first of 12 spending bills for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.

The Agriculture Department was line to be the beneficiary, with 2 percent more than the House's spending version.

The biggest single winner over Bush's budget would be labor, health and education programs, potentially getting $5 billion more than Bush's request.

Bush's request was so tight, supporters of these programs say, that spending for the annual education and labor-health-education bill remains below levels enacted two years ago.

More than one-half of the Republicans in the Senate endorsed a plan earlier this year by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to add $7 billion to health and education programs. The House has fought off this move.

"We need the $7 billion," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. "We got $5 billion. We're going to be much less than what we need, less than what we were in (fiscal) 2005."

Though disappointed, Specter says he is going to accept the $5 billion rather than pick a fight with Cochran.

Meanwhile, there's little indication that Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is going to free up the Senate to pass more than a few spending bills before the start of the 2007 budget year. That would spare GOP senators up for re-election from difficult votes on domestic agency budgets before Election Day.

The defense and homeland security bills are expected to make it through before the elections.

Congress reaches pact on wind farm
Accord would give Coast Guard head a say, not Romney

Congressional leaders reached an agreement on the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm that would give the head of the Coast Guard -- but not the governor of Massachusetts -- the power to order changes to the project or scuttle it entirely if he finds that it would interfere with navigation.

Though the bill would pose another potential obstacle to the Cape Wind Associates project, the agreement is being viewed as a victory for supporters of the wind-energy proposal because it does not award the governor veto power.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, had sought to give Governor Mitt Romney -- a Republican, and a fellow opponent of the project -- the right to veto the project, which would have effectively killed it. But Kennedy was forced to retreat on that point after leading Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined the Bush administration in objecting.

Kennedy said yesterday that he would have preferred to give Romney veto power over the Cape Wind project to set a precedent in which offshore energy projects can't move forward without a state's consent. But Kennedy said that granting more authority to the Coast Guard should allay concerns about whether the wind farm will jeopardize public safety.

``We've always been concerned about issues of safety," said Kennedy . ``The Cape Wind project has been moving forward irresponsibly, before any safety rules for such large off-shore developments have been established."

The bill would give the Coast Guard the authority to mandate ``reasonable" changes to the Cape Wind project if it finds that the 417-foot-tall wind turbines to be built about 5 miles off the Massachusetts coast would pose a hazard to navigation, emergency communications, or rescue operations.

The Coast Guard has been one of the 17 state and federal agencies involved in an environmental review of the proposal, but it alone did not have the authority to compel changes or block the project. So far, the Coast Guard has not raised any major objections to the project, but its review will be more comprehensive under the new measure.

Pete V. Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said the compromise will allow an important wind project to move ahead without political interference, something he contended should be the model for future proposals.

``The Coast Guard is only allowed to address navigational safety concerns," said Domenici, a New Mexico Republican. ``It prevents local special interests from torpedoing a reasonable and much-needed energy project in federal waters."

The agreement will allow the annual bill authorizing Coast Guard operations to move forward in Congress; it had been stalled since April because of the standoff over Kennedy's proposal to give Romney veto power. Legislative leaders said they expect the House and Senate to pass the bill in the coming weeks, though no schedule has been set.

Sue Reid, a staff lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation, which supports Cape Wind, said her group worries that the project will be subjected to more scrutiny than other proposals. But she applauded the decision to let the Coast Guard order changes instead of allowing Romney to stop it.

Cape Wind has been trying for five years to construct 130 giant turbines in Nantucket Sound over some 24 square miles of ocean. The project, however, has drawn intense opposition from those who question its potential effect on public safety, fishing, tourism, and other industries.

A Cape Wind spokesman, Mark Rodgers, said the company will meet whatever obligations are imposed under the bill. ``We will follow the instructions from Congress and move forward in our permitting process," Rodgers said.

The agreement closes one chapter in the political debate over the project, but the controversy surrounding it is unlikely to dissipate.

Representative William D. Delahunt, a Cape Wind opponent whose district includes Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, said that other concerns must be addressed but that he is pleased with the latest agreement.

``The real priority here was navigational safety," said Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat.

Terror cuts defy logic, he tells Congress

Accusing the Department of Homeland Security of engaging in "dysfunctional bureaucratic logic," Mayor Bloomberg denounced the agency's decision to slash the city's anti-terror funds by 40% as "nonsensical" yesterday during testimony before Congress.

In a hearing room that contained a haunting photo of the World Trade Center burning on 9/11, Bloomberg blasted the department for increasing the number of high-risk cities from seven to 46 this year - while cutting New York's funds.

"Is this the spirit of 'high-threat' allocation? No," Bloomberg told the House Committee on Homeland Security. "Instead, it makes the program the kind of political pork barrel it was specifically designed to avoid. It's a typical example of say one thing for the press avail and do something quite different."

Bloomberg - along with Washington Mayor Anthony Williams and the top police officials from both cities - told lawmakers that the method for distributing these funds is broken.

Both mayors lambasted the department for its unwillingness to help the cities pay for day-to-day personnel expenses, with Bloomberg saying "old-fashioned boots on the ground" is the best defense against terror.

Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), the committee's chairman, asked Homeland Security Undersecretary George Foresman if the department's grant reviewers were given any classified intelligence about threats New York may face.

Foresman replied, "I don't believe they were provided threat information," but he insisted that was not necessarily the reviewers' job.

Foresman praised Bloomberg and Williams for their efforts to protect their cities from terrorism, but he said: "The Department of Homeland Security must do the same for our entire nation."

King called the cuts "disgraceful" and "indefensible."

"It raises very, very real questions about the competency of this department in determining how it's going to protect America," he said.

King offered little hope yesterday that the department will reverse the decision, saying he's focusing his attention on finding other federal dollars that New York can use to combat terrorism.

"We're still working on that," he said.

Lawmakers Come Together on Supplement Bill

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers who have been on opposite sides of a long-running battle have now come together on a bill that would require reporting of deaths or other ill effects linked to supplements and over-the-counter medications.

The bill would require that reports be filed to the Food and Drug Administration within 15 days about what it calls "serious adverse events." If defines those as death, hospitalization, or what it calls a significant disability or incapacity, among other things.

Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch says the premise is simple. He is a longtime backer of the diet supplement industry -- which has a major presence in his state -- and is a well-known consumer of supplements, as well. He wrote the 1994 law that specifically exempted makers of diet supplements from having to prove to the FDA that they are safe and effective.

So for him to be advocating what amounts to increased government regulation is significant.

But even more surprising is that Hatch unveiled the bill Wednesday with Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, one of the most outspoken opponents of the 1994 law. Durbin helped lead the charge against the supplement ephedra, which the FDA outlawed two years ago.

Durbin has made no secret of the fact that he'd like supplement makers to have to meet the same standards for safety and effectiveness as makers of prescription drugs. But he says that reporting adverse events is an important first step, as he discovered during his own investigation of companies that sold products that contain ephedra.

Durbin was also quick to add that he thinks the bill will not only be good for consumers, but for the supplement industry, as well.

The supplement industry appears to agree.

"We represent a class of goods that has a remarkable safety record," says Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association. "But we're also really a mature industry, and we think it's time to take on this responsibility. I'm just thrilled that we've gotten to this point."

Consumer groups, which have long been critical of the government's lack of oversight over supplements, are also backing the bill. That improves its chances of getting signed into law this year.

Hate crime bill signed into law

Any hate crimes committed in the State of New York will now carry more serious penalties than ever before.

State Assemblyman Thomas Alfano (R - North Valley Stream) announced on Monday that Governor George E. Pataki had signed into law a bill making it a Class E felony to commit a hate crime.
"I'm proud that this bipartisan effort made this bill law," said Alfano. "Hate crime has no place in our communities."
The bill, which was co-sponsored by Assemblyman William Colton (D-Brooklyn) , makes it a hate crime to put a swastika on public property or to burn a cross on public property or a private building in public view without the owner's permission. The maximum penalty for such crimes under the new law would be one to three years in prison or five years probation.
Prior to passage of the bill, a hate crime such as graffiti on a garage door would have been classified as intentional damage of property - a Class A misdemeanor carrying a maximum penalty of a $250 fine, said Scott Cushing, Alfano's chief of staff.
Alfano helped to introduce the legislation into the State Assembly after an incident in which a North Valley Stream family had swastikas and racially offensive graffiti spray painted onto the garage door of their Frances Drive home prior to their moving in.
"I definitely support this move," said Lee Burke in an interview with the Herald when the bill was proposed. "I think it deserves more than the old penalty because [such racial discrimination] upsets the apple cart of society."
Burke and her family were the victims of the act that inspired Alfano to co-sponsor the hate crime bill. Burke's home was vandalized on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, before her family had moved in. According to police, the racially offensive graffiti had been sprayed on the garage door some time between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Burke said that personnel from Nassau County Building Maintenance arrived at her house the next day and removed the graffiti. The Burke family has since moved into the home.
Carlton Thomas was the recipient of similar treatment on Frances Drive about two-and-a-half years ago. A native of Jamaica, Thomas had just moved to North Valley Stream from Rosedale with his wife and two young children. When a contractor who had arrived to do minor work on his house arrived at the home on Nov. 18, 2003, he saw swastikas and racially charged graffiti spray-painted on the garage door.

Drilling bill unlikely to make headway

House bill allows oil rigs 50 miles from beaches, but the Senate seems unlikely to go along.

There could be oil rigs within 50 miles of Florida's beaches if the drilling industry and its allies in Congress win a fight to open up the eastern Gulf of Mexico to drilling.

It is unlikely that will happen this year, because of the opposition to such far-reaching changes in the nation's oil drilling policies.

But there is increasing pressure to eliminate the moratorium that has kept the oil industry 200 miles off the nation's coastlines.

And this year, the oil industry's push to drill in waters now off-limits has critical allies: a growing concern about U.S. dependence on foreign oil, record-high oil prices, and election-year pressure in Congress.

The measure approved by a House committee Wednesday would allow drilling 100 miles out -- and as close as 25 miles if a state chooses.

The bill heads to the full House next week. Even if it passes the House -- far from a sure bet, observers say -- it likely will die in the Senate.

"We don't think the Senate will be inclined to support this measure," said Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. Nelson and Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., this year introduced a bill providing a 150-mile buffer around Florida's coastline.

Regardless, the new House bill, which also would open up federal waters on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, would be a fundamental shift in policy.

Sponsored by Rep. Dick Pombo, a Republican from California who has received more than $200,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and energy industry this year, the bill would allow drilling 100 miles from the coastline nationwide.

It also would permit drilling 50 to 100 miles from shore unless a state Legislature takes action every five years to deny it. And it would give states the right to ask for drilling as close as 25 miles. The legislation also would shift some of the royalties the federal government receives from drilling companies to the states as an incentive.

Florida has moratorium

For nearly a quarter of a century, Florida's beaches have been shielded from the oil industry by drilling moratoriums that cover most waters out to 200 miles.

The moratoriums are considered a linchpin to the state's economic engine, its $50 billion tourism industry, keeping its famous white-sand beaches free from oil spills. And with no offshore rigs near the state, its mainland is devoid of the refineries and other infrastructure that dominate the coastline from Alabama to Texas.

But the drilling industry has always pined for the eastern Gulf of Mexico and its deposits of natural gas and oil.

"We are dependent on foreign countries for basic natural resources when we are surrounded by those natural resources," Pombo said Wednesday. "This is ridiculous. It is time that we adopt energy policies that make sense for America and doesn't just make sense for a small group of special interests."

The fact that Florida, the nation's third most-populous state, is America's fourth-largest energy consumer only emboldens drilling advocates who say the state should join its Gulf neighbors as energy producers.

Florida could profit

There also could be a great deal of money in it for coastal states. Oil companies pay royalties to the federal government for the right to drill in federal waters. Pombo's bill would shift those monies to the states.

The windfall could be huge. Alabama received more than $250 million alone in 2001 just from royalties paid on drilling leases in state waters.

The lure of such payouts is splintering what has been a coalition of coastal states opposed to offshore drilling.

Virginia lawmakers have signalled increasing support for drilling off their coast. And on Wednesday, Rep. Henry Brown, a Republican who represents the South Carolina coastal towns of Charleston and Myrtle Beach, voted for Pombo's bill. .

Environmentalists argue that no matter the amount, drilling royalties aren't worth the price one spill or one refinery would cost the state.

Richard Charter is co-chair of the National Outer Continental Shelf Coalition, which opposes drilling. Charter says once in, the oil industry becomes the dominant player in a state:

Oil companies "overwhelm existing political structure and you become an oil state. Your temptation will grow as the federal budget deficit will grow and other funding channels are cut and the state becomes dependent" on drilling revenue.

"And then they control the Legislature and the governor. That's what Texas is all about, and Florida took a big step toward that today. It took a step toward becoming a colony of Houston. This is all about how this industry becomes your boss."

That possibility has never been more real in Florida.

The oil lobby, worried about the possibility of the House flipping to a Democratic majority after the midterm elections in November, is pushing for a deal now.

And after decades of unity on offshore drilling, the state delegation splintered last fall on the question of how much to compromise, greatly improving the odds of pro-drilling legislation getting passed. In May, a House measure that would have allowed natural gas drilling as close as three miles from most shores was defeated by a narrow 217-203 ratio.

The Senate is struggling to craft drilling legislation because of divergent interests. Nelson and Martinez are working to keep rigs as far from Florida beaches as possible.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., meanwhile, won't sign onto anything that doesn't include increased drilling revenues for the states. Drilling-friendly and Katrina-ravaged Louisiana would stand to gain much from such a measure.

Until the Senate reaches consensus on those issues, experts say, it's unlikely it will take action on any energy bill. And with only about 40 legislative days left and time-consuming budget and flag-burning bills on its plate, the Senate might not have enough time for offshore drilling this year.

"This is a very divisive issue, and the word we're getting is the Senate leadership would like to have some consensus on some of these issues, including the eastern Gulf, before moving forward" on a bill, Gulley said.

Kerry called timetable
'cut and run' in 2003
Senator used term in campaign
to criticize strategy considered by Bush

While Democrats bristle at Republican descriptions of their Iraq policy as "cut and run," Sen. John Kerry, the author of a bill defeated today in the Senate, used that very term to criticize President Bush's consideration during the 2004 election campaign of a timetable for withdrawal.

In a December 2003 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, the Massachusetts Democrat said he feared that "in the run-up to the 2004 election, the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy," notes Townhall.com writer Tim Chapman.

"Their sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal dates, without adequate stability, is an invitation to failure," Kerry said in his 2003 speech. "The hard work of rebuilding Iraq must not be dictated by the schedule of the next American election."

Kerry said it "would be a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle to speed up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops. That could risk the hijacking of Iraq by terrorist groups and former Ba'athists."

Today, the Senate voted down two proposals to set a timetable for troop withdrawal.

Kerry's plan to require the administration to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007, with redeployments beginning this year, was rejected by an 86-13 vote. Later, the Senate voted 60-39, mostly along party lines, against a nonbinding resolution to urge the administration to begin withdrawing troops, but without a timetable.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said withdrawal is "not an option."

"Surrender is not a solution," he asserted.

Senate Minority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., criticized Republicans for sticking with a "failed" strategy of "stay the course."

"It is long past time to change course in Iraq and start to end the president's open-ended commitment," he said.

Joining all Republicans in support of the nonbinding resolution, with the exception of Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, were Democrats Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Bill Nelson of Florida and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Lieberman, Bill Nelson and Ben Nelson are running for re-election this fall.

Last week, the House rejected withdrawal timetables.

Republicans have welcomed the debate, ahead of mid-term elections, because it points out stark differences with Democrats over the war and highlights divisions with the Democratic Party.

President Bush has said U.S. troops will remain in Iraq until Iraqi security forces are prepared to defend the country.

Gun owners accuse UN of July 4 conspiracy

Americans mistakenly worried the United Nations is plotting to take away their guns on July 4 -- U.S. Independence Day -- are flooding the world body with angry letters and postcards, the chairman of a U.N. conference on the illegal small arms trade said on Wednesday.

"I myself have received over 100,000 letters from the U.S. public, criticizing me personally, saying, 'You are having this conference on the 4th of July, you are not going to get our guns on that day,"' said Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka's U.N. ambassador.

"That is a total misconception as far as we are concerned," Kariyawasam told reporters ahead of the two-week meeting opening on Monday.

For one, July 4 is a holiday at U.N. headquarters and the world body's staff will be watching a fireworks display from the U.N. lawn rather than attending any meetings, he said.

For another, the U.N. conference will look only at illegal arms and "does not in any way address legal possession," a matter left to national governments to regulate rather than the United Nations, he added.

The campaign is largely the work of the U.S. National Rifle Association, whose executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, warns on an NRA Web site (http://www.stopungunban.org/) of a July 4 plot "to finalize a U.N. treaty that would strip all citizens of all nations of their right to self-protection."

Kariyawasam said, "The U.N. conference will not negotiate any treaty to prohibit citizens of any country from possessing firearms or to interfere with the legal trade in small arms and light weapons."

U.N. CONSPIRACY -- OR STRONGER CONTROLS?

LaPierre, who also uses the site to pitch his new book, "The Global War on Your Guns," asks NRA members to send letters to Kariyawasam and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warning that "the American people will never let you take away the rights that our 4th of July holiday represents."

The group also asks members to write to John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, urging him to "ensure the defeat of this treaty." Bolton's office confirmed he had received tens of thousands of cards from concerned Americans.

"We understand their concerns and will work during the conference to communicate their concerns," Bolton spokesman Richard Grenell said.

At the same time, 1 million people around the world -- symbolizing the number of people killed by guns since the last U.N. small arms conference in 2001 -- have signed a petition backing stronger controls on arms deals in a campaign organized by Oxfam International, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms.

The June 26-July 7 U.N. conference was called to review a 2001 U.N. action plan aimed at stemming the illegal global trade in small arms, which, as defined by the United Nations, range from pistols and grenades to mortars and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

The action program set out broad guidelines for national and global measures to track arms sales, promote better management of government arms stockpiles and encourage the destruction of illicit arms.

Hotel roof sawn off to settle border dispute

Austrian hotel owner Dietmar Hehenberger on Tuesday trimmed the roof of his luxury hotel in Guglwald, Upper Austria, which was hanging over the border with the neighbouring Czech Republic.

He thereby terminated a peculiar international conflict about the building which is situated too close to the Czech-Austrian border due to imprecise maps. A court had ordered Hehenberger to trim the roof.

"I would rather cut off part of the roof today and live in peace than to risk being forced to demolish more in the future," Hehenberger told CTK on Tuesday.

He estimates the damage to the roof at EUR 5,000. "Not money but a principle is at stake," he said.

He points out he fell a victim to a mistake committed by the Austrian authorities. He recalls that five years ago the local building office issued him a permit to build up a new hotel wing, saying the authorities clerks were working with imprecise maps.

Hehenberger stressed it seems nonsense to him to squabble about 30 cm at the time when the whole of Europe is uniting.

Hehenberger built his hotel complex some 200 metres from the Czech-Austrian border, ensuing from Austrian maps. But Czech geodesists later found that the maps were imprecise and the roof of the hotel new wing, built in 2004, hangs over the Czech border and thereby violates the Czech-Austrian treaty on the state border.

Both the Czech and Austrian authorities ordered the hotel owner to remove the overhanging part.

Hehenberger appealed the verdict, but in vain. In the end he decided to meet the court order and cut off the roof edge to avoid the threat of being forced to demolish the whole hotel wing.

"If the hotel owner has decided this way, it is only good," Czech Interior Ministry spokeswoman Radka Kovarova told CTK.

The deadline for cutting off the hotel roof was to expire in early July. At the beginning of August a border commission will arrive in Guglwald to check the situation.

South Bohemia Governor Jan Zahradnik told reporters that he watched the case with embarrassment, but he was not authorised to solve it. He said that in his opinion not all possibilities of negotiations had been used.

"Borders in Europe slowly cease to play a dividing role now and they are rather to unite us," Zahradnik said.

House Votes to Cut Estate Taxes

The House voted Thursday to cut taxes on inherited estates and relieve thousands of heirs from paying tax collectors during the next decade.

The vote, just a few months before an election with control of Congress at stake, saw majority Republicans temporarily setting aside their ambition to abolish the tax.

Instead, the House voted 269-156 to exempt many more estates from taxation and blunt the impact on still others. The compromise measure now goes to the Senate.

Congressional tax experts estimated that if the changes become law, only 5,100 estates would face taxation when the changes are fully in effect in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2011. The Internal Revenue Service levied taxes on more than 30,000 estates in 2004, the most recent figures available.

However, the bill also restores estate taxes in 2010, deleting what had been a one-year reprieve from them entirely under an earlier law.

President Bush and Republicans in Congress have long pressed to abolish the estate tax, arguing it is unfair to tax businesses and farms left to the next generation.

"Americans are being taxed almost every moment of their lives. My goodness, when they are dead, do we have to tax them again?" said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Democrats argued that it is more unfair to give millionaires a tax cut while denying thousands of poor workers a higher minimum wage.

"This is the ultimate values debate," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "It is morally wrong to do this, especially when we are turning down, rejecting, an increase in the minimum wage."

Bush and Republicans in 2001 had succeeded in killing the estate tax for one year, 2010. But the tax would reappear at a rate of 55 percent in 2011, under Bush's initial tax cut package.

The House bill would replace that temporary law by reducing, but not eliminating, the estate tax. It responds to a plea for help from Senate GOP leaders, who discovered earlier this month they did not have enough votes to abolish the tax.

That forced lawmakers to talk compromise, but GOP tax writers, under pressure from the House's most conservative Republicans, said they wouldn't negotiate further than the offer made in the bill.

"This is not a first offer. It is the only offer," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif.

The reduction in the House bill would exempt from taxation $5 million of an individual's estate, and $10 million of a couple's. That exemption would increase automatically each year with inflation.

After the exemption, estates worth up to $25 million would be taxed at rates equal to those on capital gains, currently 15 percent but scheduled to rise to 20 percent in 2011. The remainder of any larger estates would be taxed at rates twice that of capital gains, or 30 percent at first and 40 percent when the scheduled capital gains tax increase takes effect.

The bill lets a surviving spouse take any unused portion of a deceased spouse's exemption, but it also eliminates the federal deduction for estate and inheritance taxes levied by states.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the tax reductions amount to roughly $283 billion from 2006 to 2016.

Additional analysis, obtained by The Associated Press, shows the future cost in lost revenue to the government would increase to more than $300 billion if lawmakers keep the 15 percent capital gains rate in place in future years, instead of letting it increase to 20 percent in 2011.

Some business and farm groups favoring repeal of the tax said they could accept the compromise, but only as an interim step on the way to eliminating the tax.

The National Federation of Independent Business said it would do everything possible to see the bill enacted. "NFIB will continue to fight for full repeal of the death tax, but our members need guaranteed relief they can plan on right now," said executive vice president Dan Danner.

The House bill also contains a reduction in timber taxes, part of a strategy to pass the bill in the Senate by luring support from key Democrats.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, said the compromise doesn't go far enough for Democrats. "I'm hopeful that we have the votes necessary to stop this multibillion-dollar tax break for some of the wealthiest individuals in this country," he said.

Senate rejects calls for troop withdrawals
Two Democratic proposals fail in a heated debate that likely will continue through elections

Senate Republicans Thursday rejected two Democratic proposals for winding down the U.S. military presence in Iraq, and the vote was expected to seed further debate about the conflict.

The war of words about the Bush administration's war policy almost certainly will extend through the November elections, with GOP candidates labeling their opponents as defeatist and Democrats hoping to pick up seats by accusing Republicans of endorsing a failed military strategy.

The majority-GOP Senate defeated, 60-39, a resolution by Democratic senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island that calls for gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq beginning this year, with no specific timetable.

A proposal by Democratic senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, that would have required most troops to be out of Iraq by July 2007, was defeated 86-13.

A duty to criticize
Senate Democrats were divided about how firm a deadline should be set for troop drawdown. Regardless, Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said lawmakers had a duty to criticize a flawed White House strategy in Iraq.

" 'We are to stand by the president right or wrong' is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it is morally treasonable to the American people," Reid said. "I believe it's long past time to change course in Iraq and start to end the president's open-ended commitment."

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, echoing arguments made by White House, said leaving Iraq now would encourage terrorists and deal a fatal setback to the new Iraqi government. "Withdrawal is not an option," he said. "Surrender is not a solution."

Last week the House approved a GOP resolution ruling out setting a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq.

Congressional Republicans have embraced the advice of White House political adviser Karl Rove that they can repeat election successes of 2002 and 2004 by painting Democrats as indecisive on national security.

On Thursday the National Republican Senatorial Committee criticized New Jersey Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez for supporting the Kerry amendment that sets a fixed troop deadline.

"Bob Menendez's vote to surrender in Iraq puts him not just on the fringe of American politics, but also on the fringe of the Democratic Party," NRSC spokesman Dan Ronayne said on the committee's Web site. Menendez is facing a tough election challenge from Republican Tom Kean Jr., son of a former governor.

'Can't ignore the war'
Pollster John Zogby said the argument that Democrats are weak on national security appeals to the GOP core supporters, whom polls show have been more supportive of Bush in recent weeks as the U.S. has enjoyed a series of successes, such as the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Democrats, Zogby said, have to address an exit strategy in Iraq if they are to generate a large turnout in November of their core supporters who are largely opposed to the war.

"You just can't ignore the war or finesse it," Zogby said.

Just hours after the Senate vote, Moveon.Org, a liberal group that has been active in elections, applauded the Democratic proposals for troop withdrawals.

"Now voters will have a choice between the Bush-Republican war without end and the Democratic course that will bring troops home," Washington director Tom Matzzie said.

Supreme Court Gives Employees Broader Protection Against ...

Supreme Court Expands Scope of Anti-Retaliation Law

The Supreme Court has ruled that an employer's actions constitute unlawful retaliation if they would have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.

The court also said the scope of anti-retaliation law extends beyond workplace-related or employment-related retaliatory acts, giving the example of an employer that filed false criminal charges against a former employee who complained about discrimination.

The ruling came in a case in which Sheila White argued Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp violated federal law by transferring her from a forklift operator to standard track laborer after she complained about harassment. She said the laborer position was "dirtier," more demanding physically, and considered a worse job than the forklift operator position.

She argued that the company also unlawfully retaliated against her by suspending her 37 days without pay for what the company called insubordination after a workplace incident. The company eventually reinstated her and gave her back pay, saying it had cleared her of the insubordination charge.

Appeals courts have taken different views of what employer actions constitute unlawful retaliation. In its ruling, the Supreme Court adopted a standard for determining whether an employer's actions violate the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which forbids an employer from discriminating against an employee or job applicant because that individual opposed any practice made unlawful by Title VII.

"We agree with the formulation set forth by the Seventh and the District of Columbia Circuits," the court wrote. "In our view, a plaintiff must show that a reasonable employee would have found the challenged action materially adverse, which in this context means it well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination."

The court then applied the standard to the case before it.

"Applying the standard to the facts of this case, there was a sufficient evidentiary basis to support the jury's verdict on White's retaliation claim. Contrary to Burlington 's claim, a reassignment of duties can constitute retaliatory discrimination where both the former and present duties fall within the same job description. Here, the jury had considerable evidence that the track laborer duties were more arduous and dirtier than the forklift operator position, and that the latter position was considered a better job by male employees who resented White for occupying it. Based on this record, a jury could reasonably conclude that the reassignment would have been materially adverse to a reasonable employee."

The company argued that it should not be held liable for the 37-day suspension because it reinstated White and gave her back pay. However, the court disagreed.

"White did receive back pay," the court wrote. "But White and her family had to live for 37 days without income. They did not know during that time whether or when White could return to work. Many reasonable employees would find a month without a paycheck to be a serious hardship. And White described to the jury the physical and emotional hardship that 37 days of having 'no income, no money' in fact caused."
The court upheld a jury's award of of $43,500 in compensatory damages to White.

Grand jury indictments stun San Jose residents, officials
MANY WORRY ABOUT SCANDAL'S INFLUENCE ON CITY'S REPUTATION

The unprecedented indictments of Mayor Ron Gonzales and his top aide Thursday left San Jose leaders and residents outraged, saddened and worried that the mayor's tarnished reputation will also hurt the city he serves.

``The mayor of the 10th-largest city being indicted, being fingerprinted, being booked is a disturbing image,'' Councilman Ken Yeager said. ``These are very serious charges, and it's just disconcerting that this has happened to our city.''

The Norcal garbage contract controversy, which surfaced 21 months ago, has shaken their confidence in city leaders, said several residents interviewed Thursday afternoon at San Jose gathering spots.

``He should have to empty everybody's garbage in City Hall,'' said San Jose resident Veronica Gonzales, 42, no relation to the mayor. ``I have no confidence in him as a mayor. He's brought a lot of shame to us.''

Still, some remained sympathetic to the mayor, including longtime friend and supporter Victor Garza.

``I certainly hope he will be able to deal with this and show his innocence,'' he said. ``Many people get trumped-up charges.''

But even Garza, after learning later that the charges involved conspiracy and bribery, said Gonzales should seriously consider stepping down.

On Thursday night, however, Gonzales told reporters he would not resign.

Some business leaders openly worried about how the city will regain the public's trust when those leaders are pursuing major initiatives such as an expanded airport and a professional baseball team.

Mike Fox Jr., chairman of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce's political arm, called the indictments ``a horrible situation.''

But he added: ``We need to move forward and get past these issues. People won't go for big vision things if there is a lack of faith in leadership and it means leaders spending money.''

Other business leaders were simply stunned and called for the entire community to work together to repair the damage.

``Oh, my word,'' Carl Guardino, president of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said upon learning that the indictments included an allegation of bribery.

``Whatever happens in this situation, we have to help rebuild our city and the public trust in our city,'' said Guardino, a close ally of Gonzales. ``San Jose is still standing.''

Added Guardino: ``When an individual is brought to their knees, other people are going to have to stand up.''

Like Yeager, several city council members reacted with dismay. And by Thursday evening, five council members had called for Gonzales to step down.

``I think he should resign immediately, if not sooner,'' Councilwoman Linda LeZotte said.

But Councilman Forrest Williams said the council should wait to see the specifics of the allegations against Gonzales and give him time to do what he thinks is right.

``Give him a little space to make that decision,'' Williams said.

Some residents expressed sadness that a mayor they had such high hopes for had failed them.

``It's a shame. He started out as a good mayor,'' said Susan Torngren, a San Jose speech therapist.

Those who have spent years as civic leaders worried that no matter the outcome of Gonzales' legal problems, San Jose will suffer, at least for the short term.

``People want to come to a community that has good education, good medical care and good government,'' said Mike Fox Sr., a prominent retired San Jose businessman and civic leader.

``Whether guilty or innocent, it's terrible to be under that cloud,'' Fox, who co-chaired both of Gonzales' mayoral campaigns, said of San Jose's image.

Some residents said they hope Gonzales will be remembered for his positive contributions.

``I like him. He's done a number of positive things for San Jose,'' said Albert Yee, 56. ``He tried to do a good job.''

Without knowing many of the specifics of the charges, several people said they did not want to rush to judgment.

San Jose librarian Carolyn Skene, a Gonzales supporter, called the arrest ``confusing.''

``I don't think what he did was wrong,'' she said. ``I think that the DA is way over the top on this one.''

But the more common sentiment was that he should step down, especially because he will be termed out early next year.

``He's a lame duck,'' said Jeff Barber, a security guard at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. ``I'm going to be glad to see him go.''

Business and labor leaders said they supported calls for Gonzales to resign.

``Clearly, he's unable to govern, facing these serious charges,'' said Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, executive officer of the South Bay Labor Council.

Pat Dando, president of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, said Gonzales ``should have some compassion for his city and for his family and make the right decision rather than put them through the potential of additional months of legal processes.''

No one seemed to relish the downfall of a mayor.

``I'm stunned it went this far,'' said John Neece, a former labor union leader who had supported Gonzales in his first mayoral election.

``This is going to put labor in a tough way. Ron has been a good friend,'' Neece said. ``There's just no win for anybody in this thing.''

Missile threat strengthens U.S.-Japan ties

Many Japanese in the aftermath of the Cold War seriously questioned their country's security alliance with the United States. A decade later, those voices are a lot softer, and one nation deserves much of the credit: North Korea.

The fears this week that the mercurial communist regime is preparing for its first test of a long-range missile since 1998 have again illustrated one of the premier rationales for Tokyo's enduring partnership with Washington.

Military ties between the two are already tight

Japan is firmly under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and Washington bases some 50,000 troops on Japanese soil and waters. The two are progressively melding their militaries for greater cooperation.

On Friday, Japan and Washington agreed to expand their cooperation on a ballistic missile defense shield. The agreement, signed by Foreign Minister Taro Aso and U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer, commits the two countries to jointly produce interceptor missiles, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.

The threatening stance by Pyongyang is likely to strengthen the trend, both by legitimizing the heavy U.S. military presence in East Asia and fueling Japan's recent moves to bolster its own defense posture.

"This kind of brinkmanship by North Korea is going to drive public opinion to be more supporting of a closer alliance with the United States," said Gerald Curtis, a Japanese politics specialist at Columbia University.

It's not the first time North Korea has brought Tokyo and Washington closer together.

Growing worries over Pyongyang's efforts to build a nuclear weapon coincided with a deepening of the military ties in the mid-1990s and a widening of Tokyo's responsibilities to help its ally in the region.

But it was North Korea's 1998 test-firing of a ballistic missile over northern Japan into the Pacific that illustrated the archipelago's vulnerability — and fixated the public.

Tokyo's immediate response was to launch a spy satellite program and firmly commit to building a joint missile-defense shield with Washington.

In the years since, Japan has only grown warier of North Korea. At a 2002 summit in Pyongyang, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted that his country's spies had kidnapped at least 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s.

Pyongyang returned five of the abductees, but Tokyo says it has not substantiated its claims that the remaining eight were dead — strengthening the general Japanese view of the regime as untrustworthy and unpredictable.

A missile test now would carry the added significance of the North's claim to have developed nuclear weapons — a horrifying prospect in Japan, which was attacked with atomic bombs twice by the United States in 1945.

In that light, some say a fresh test by North Korea could have an even more dramatic effect on Tokyo than in 1998 — and vanquish the pacifism many ordinary Japanese have clung to since the disastrous defeat in World War II.

"A launch would trigger calls for stronger national defense ... and could even lead to a discussion to about Japan possessing nuclear arms," said Takehiko Yamamoto, an international politics expert at Waseda University in Tokyo.

Even without a launch, the North Korea card will still continue to play a key role in defense calculations in Tokyo.

Security concerns are a major impetus behind Japan's drive in recent years to upgrade its defense capability and raise its military profile internationally.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi even used the North Korean threat as a way of illustrating the importance of ties with the U.S. He then successfully argued that Tokyo should preserve those ties by dispatching troops to Iraq in 2004.

"Even if you don't have North Korea, you still have a leadership here that wants Japan to be more active on the world scene, including having a somewhat higher profile in terms of its military role," Curtis said.

Pyongyang is not the only security concern in a rapidly changing part of the world.

Japan is increasingly worried about China's expanding military spending, and Foreign Minister Aso recently irked Beijing by calling China a potential military threat to the region.

Whether or not a launch goes ahead, American officials say that in this latest crisis they are reaping the benefits of the moves to tighten coordination between two countries since 1998.

"As you've seen by the actions of the past few days, the United States and Japan have consulted extensively on this," Schieffer said at a luncheon at his residence Wednesday. "I think you've seen an unprecedented level of cooperation in sharing of intelligence."

CIA program expands Bush's power

A secret CIA-Treasury program to track financial records of millions of Americans is the latest installment in an expansion of executive authority in the name of fighting terrorism. The administration doesn't apologize for President Bush's aggressive take on presidential powers. Vice President Dick Cheney even boasts about it.

Bush has made broad use of his powers, authorizing warrantless wiretaps, possibly collecting telephone records on millions of Americans, holding suspected terrorists overseas without legal protections and using up to 6,000 National Guard members to help patrol the border with Mexico.

That's in addition to the vast anti-terrorism powers Congress granted him in the recently extended Patriot Act.

Civil liberties activists, joined by congressional Democrats and some members of Bush's own party, suggest the president has pushed the envelope too far — usurping authority from Congress and abusing individual privacy rights in the process.

So far, the administration has been unapologetic.

"It's responsible government, it's effective government, it's government that works," outgoing Treasury Secretary John Snow asserted Friday at a news conference as he acknowledged — and defended — the far-reaching surveillance of banking transactions. He dismissed criticism that the program amounted to "data mining" on thousands of Americans.

Secret until disclosed on Thursday in news accounts, the program entails Treasury and CIA tracking of suspected terrorist financing, using access to a vast Belgium-based international database. The program was initiated shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Polls show that Americans generally accept some erosion of civil liberties if they think it makes them safer from the possibility of terrorist attacks.

Still, Bush's war on terrorism is an open-ended one. Constitutional scholars suggest there are limits.

"At some point, the Constitution can't bear the kind of continued strains that are being imposed by the demands of the fight on terrorism," said Harold J. Krent, dean and professor of law at Kent College of Law in Chicago.,

"What I am worried about is that there is a potential for amassing huge databases of individuals — linked by phone records, linked by financial records — that can be kept and used without any kind of real oversight. It's frightening," Krent said.

Many in both parties point to Cheney as the engine behind Bush's power plays.

At a Republican luncheon in Chicago on Friday, Cheney defended the financial-data tracking and earlier surveillance programs as "good, solid, sound programs" and castigated the news media for disclosing them.

When Cheney in the 1970s was chief of staff to then-President Ford, he saw presidential authority at a low point, eroded by the unpopular Vietnam War and the Watergate scandals. The balance of power was still tilted in favor of Congress when he and Bush took office in January 2001, Cheney contends.

He and Bush thus believed it was important to "have the balance righted, if you will," Cheney told a National Press Club audience in Washington this week. "And I think we've done that successfully."

One reason the administration is engaging in so much secret surveillance is that current technology makes it so easy, suggested Paul Light, a public policy professor at New York University. "It's almost a case where the technology is leading the policy. If you can do it, why not do it?"

"Bush and his advisers just don't see privacy rights as a particularly balancing test in making the decision to go ahead with these techniques," Light said.

Americans may grow weary of surrendering individual rights if they decide terror-war thrusts intrude on their personal lives more directly, said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. But that hasn't happened yet.

"Now there's still a forgiving attitude on the part of many people in the country," Kohut said.

He said that forgiving attitude could only be reinforced by the news from Miami of the arrest of seven men in an alleged plot against the Sears Tower in Chicago — men Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called "homegrown terrorists."

Bush isn't the first president to be accused of trying to expand presidential authority. The same charges were leveled against Democratic Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

"The standard view of liberals in the past was that presidents were too weak," said Princeton University political scientist Fred Greenstein. "But this is a seesaw business. It's always dependent on whose ox is being gored."

esse Jackson 'exposed' in report
Trial uncovers new details of leader's 'shakedown' tactics

Government watchdog Judicial Watch has released a report it says reveals new details about the intimidation and shakedown tactics of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition.

The report, "Jesse Jackson Exposed," claims the ordained minister is "an extortionist who uses his influence as a civil rights leader to essentially blackmail wealthy corporations with absurd discrimination threats."

Judicial Watch says that while some of Jackson's tactics have been published, this report offers new information gathered during the discovery process of a lawsuit and subsequent trial brought by Judicial Watch.

Included, the group says, are "incriminating admissions from Jackson made under oath at trial."

Among the tactics highlighted in the report are:

* Jackson lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to block companies seeking government approval to merge until they donate money to Rainbow Push.

* Jackson publicly chastised Toyota for running an ad Jackson deemed "racist." After Toyota pulled the ad, Jackson threatened a boycott the automaker to force it to launch a $7.8 billion "diversity program."

* Jackson installed one of his friends, J.L. Armstrong, in a management position at Toyota to determine which organizations would receive $700 million in contracts awarded by Toyota.

* Minority businesses pay Jackson's "Trade Bureau" a fee to help extort lucrative contracts from corporations. During the trial, Jackson compared the Trade Bureau to "Noah's Ark," claiming minority businesses and organizations had to be inside the "ark" to survive.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said forcing Jackson to answer for his behavior in a court of law proved to be informative, as new information was revealed about how "corrupt officials like Jackson operate."

"This is an important public education benefit that comes with every single lawsuit Judicial Watch pursues," Fitton said.

Judicial Watch brought the lawsuit against Jackson, his son Jonathan Jackson and Rainbow Push Coalition on behalf of Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a black minister and founder of the Los Angeles-based Brotherhood Organization for a New Destiny.

The case arose from a December 2001 meeting at which Peterson claimed he was assaulted physically by Jackson and his son.

The meeting featured the announcement of a new minority outreach program Toyota had created in response to threats by Jackson to boycott the car maker because of an allegedly racist advertisement.

Peterson asked a Toyota official how a conservative, black organization like BOND could participate in the new program without going through Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition, prompting Jackson to call him a "parasite" who is "trying to pick up apples from trees he didn't shake."

Shortly thereafter, Jonathan Jackson struck Peterson and cursed at him, and Jesse Jackson angrily told the crowd of his supporters to get Peterson out of the room.

Judicial Watch filed assault, battery, civil rights and other claims.

A jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court, after deliberating three days, decided in favor of the defendants on all but one count.

Peterson's book "Scam," takes Jackson to task as one of America's "self-appointed" black leaders.

"I don't recall the entire black race in this country taking a national vote to elect Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, the NAACP, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the Congressional Black Caucus or liberal black preachers as our leaders," Peterson writes, "yet they've seized the mantle of leadership and claim to speak for all blacks in this nation."

Another expose of Jackson, Kenneth Timmerman's book "Shakedown: Exposing the real Jesse Jackson," goes back several decades, including his ordination as a reverend.

"I describe a two to three year process for earning that title," Timmerman said. "Jesse Jackson got himself ordained two months after Martin Luther King was shot. It was essentially a 'political ordination,' a 'shotgun ordination.' He did not go through the long procedure. He was not licensed to preach, as far as I could determine. I went to the church where he was ordained. He did not go through this two-year process. He never submitted himself to the authority of the church. He has never had a church himself, and he has been accountable to no one."

Timmerman asserts Jackson "is not doing things to help the black community. Jesse Jackson is ... to help himself first."

Official: U.S. Can Hit N. Korea Missile

The Pentagon's missile defense chief predicted on Friday that interceptor rockets would hit and destroy a North Korean missile in flight if President Bush gave the order to attack it on a path to U.S. territory.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told reporters he has little doubt that the interceptor system would work, even though it has never been used in a real emergency and even though the U.S. government knows relatively little about how the North Korean missile would perform.

Obering refused to say whether the U.S. missile defense system is ready now for a possible intercept mission, but noted that it has been designed specifically to defend U.S. territory against known missile threats from North Korea.

"(From) what I have seen and what I know about the system and its capabilities, I am very confident," he said when asked at a news conference about the likelihood that one of the 11 missile interceptors based in Alaska and California would succeed against North Korea's long-range Taepodong 2 missile.

Obering refused to discuss more specifically the level of his confidence.

He also would not say whether the missile defense system, which includes missile-tracking radars and a communications system linked to the interceptors in underground silos, is currently in an "operational" status. He said it is shifted from a test mode to an operational mode frequently. "We do it all the time," he said.

The system is not ready at all times for actual use in an emergency because it is often preparing for or conducting tests.

Noting that North Korea has not conducted a test flight of a ballistic missile since 1998, Obering said that means the Pentagon has a limited amount of information about how a long-range Korean missile would function.

"It's very, very difficult to understand what they may have, how it may perform," he said, adding that any long-range ballistic missile would have to follow known trajectories in order to reach U.S. territory.

The Taepodong 2 missile is a newer version that has never been flight tested.

U.S. officials and private experts say they are uncertain of North Koreans' motives for apparently preparing to launch a Taepodong 2, which U.S. officials believe has a range of between 5,000 miles and 7,500 miles. They may be planning a test flight of the missile to verify its design and gain other technical data for further improvements to the system, or they may use the missile to try to thrust a satellite into orbit.

There is no expectation that the missile would be launched as a deliberate attack on the United States, but without knowing for sure in advance the Pentagon has been considering the circumstances under which it would try a mid-flight intercept, on Bush's order.

The North Korean missile program is especially troubling to the United States, Japan and other countries potentially within missile range because of North Korea's declared _ but unproven _ possession of nuclear weapons.

Alan Romberg, an Asia policy expert and former State Department official, said in an interview Friday that he believes it is likely that North Korea has managed to fashion a number of weapons from its nuclear materials, but he finds it questionable to conclude that they have one that could be carried atop a long-range missile.

Arnold hammered for 'gay' fund-raiser
California governor slated to speak for 1st time to homosexual audience

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting heat from pro-family activists for his plan to speak for the first time at a homosexual event, a Hollywood fund-raiser this week for the Log Cabin Republicans.

Though Schwarzenegger vetoed a same-sex marriage bill in September, he has otherwise signed every piece of pro-homosexual legislation to reach his desk.

The homosexual Log Cabin Republicans – which publicly parted company with President Bush after he supported a federal marriage-protection measure – have stood by Schwarzenegger, the Associated Press reported.

California-based Campaign for Children and Families yesterday blasted Schwarzenegger over his appearance at the event.

"No Republican governor in California history has promoted transsexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality like Arnold Schwarzenegger has," said the organization's president, Randy Thomasson, in a statement. "In the last three years, Schwarzenegger has delighted homosexual activists by signing most of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) bills that the Democrat-controlled Legislature has placed on his desk. This spring, Schwarzenegger signed an official proclamation celebrating the 'success of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebrations.'"

Continued Thomasson: "Now, in an unprecedented act honoring transsexual-bisexual-homosexual 'pride' (which is parading through cities nationwide this month), Schwarzenegger has done the unthinkable: He's agreed to be the top fund-raising speaker for homosexual activists."

Though AP reported the Thursday event costs $250 a plate, Campaign for Children and Families says attendees can get their photo taken with the governor for a $5,000 contribution.

Thomasson asserts the Log Cabin Republicans want to "transform the California Republican Party into the party that supports homosexual 'marriage' and the entire transsexual, bisexual and homosexual legislative agenda."

Last month, Schwarzenegger broke a policy of not commenting on pending bills, indicating through a spokesman he will veto SB 1437, a measure passed by the Senate and pending in the Assembly that would remove "sex-specific" terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks and would require students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society.

SB 1437 passed the Senate May 11 with a 22-15 vote.

"The governor believes that school curriculum should include all important historical figures, regardless of orientation," said Schwarzenegger's director of communications, Adam Mendelsohn, according to the Sacramento Bee. "However, he does not support the Legislature micromanaging curriculum."

Thomasson believes the veto threat was issued out of "fear of pro-family voters" just before this month's primary election. Schwarzenegger faces voters in November's general election.

Meanwhile, a GOP governor on the other side of the country, Gov. Robert Ehrlich of Maryland, has appointed an openly homosexual judge just a week after firing a transportation board member after he stated on a local cable TV show that "sexual deviancy" should not receive "a special place of entitlement."

Robert J. Smith, Ehrlich's appointee to the Washington, D.C.-area Metro transit authority board, was fired by the governor after a homosexual member of the board complained about the comment.

Erlich appointed 47-year-old Christopher Panos as a special master in the city Circuit Court family division to a fill a court vacancy, AP reported, adding that Panos and his "partner" are raising a daughter together.

Specter: Agreement on Eavesdropping Near

The White House is nearing an agreement with Congress on legislation that would write President Bush's warrantless surveillance program into law, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday.

Bush and senior officials in his administration have said they did not think changes were needed to empower the National Security Agency to eavesdrop _ without court approval _ on communications between people in the U.S. and overseas when terrorism is suspected.

But Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and other critics contend the program skirted a 1978 law that required the government to get approval from a secretive federal court before Americans could be monitored.

"We're getting close with the discussions with the White House, I think, to having the wiretapping issue submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Specter told "Fox New Sunday."

The administration has asserted that a post-Sept. 11, 2001, congressional resolution approving the use of military force covered the surveillance of some domestic communications.

Specter has said that the president "does not have a blank check" and he has sought to have administration ask the special court to review the program.

After the program was disclosed by The New York Times in December, the White House opposed changing the law. Over time, that position has shifted gradually.

When the president's nominee to head the CIA had confirmation hearings in the Senate in May, Michael Hayden told Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that he would support a congressional debate on modifying the law.

"We're having a lot of conversations about that," Specter said Sunday. He added that he and Vice President Dick Cheney have exchanged letters and that Cheney has indicated that he was serious about discussing the issue.

"I've talked to ranking officials in the White House, and we're close," Specter said. "I'm not making any predictions until we have it all nailed down, but I think there is an inclination to have it submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and that would be a big step forward for the protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties."

Sen. Calls for Direct Talks With N. Korea

Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday the Bush administration should talk directly with North Korea as concerns grow over a possible test launch of a missile that could reach the U.S.

Senators also rejected the idea by a former defense secretary that the U.S. make a pre-emptive strike against a North Korean missile.

"We are not anywhere close to talking about attacking North Korea, and we should shut up and stop it," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

"We need to talk directly with North Korea. The sooner we do that, the sooner we're going to get this resolved," Hagel, the second-ranking Republican on the committee, told CNN's "Late Edition."

The committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, also spoke out against attacking the missile while it was on the ground.

"It would be advisable to bring about a much greater intensification of diplomacy, and this may involve direct talks between the United States and North Korea," said Lugar, R-Ind.

North Korea long has wanted direct meetings with the U.S. Washington, however, has refused, insisting it will only meet the North Koreans in the context of six-nation international talks aimed at ridding the communist country of its nuclear weapons program.

Lugar said he respected those talks, which are stalled now, but "nevertheless, with regard to a missile that might have a range of the United States, that becomes a very specific United States-North Korean issue."

"We're going to have to come to a point where we find at least an agenda to talk with North Korea about, and I think we are moving toward that," Lugar told CBS' "Face the Nation."

Intelligence reports say fuel tanks have been seen around a missile at North Korea's launch site on the northeastern coast. But officials say it is difficult to determine from satellite photos if the rocket is actually being fueled.

The potential test is believed to be of a Taepodong-2 missile, which the U.S. government estimates has a range of between 5,000 miles and 7,500 miles.

Sen. John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that he had been speaking with the White House, "and, frankly, we don't know exactly what the status is, whether it's been fully refueled or what the problem is.

"The weather is closing in now, which would not make it an optimal time to try and test it," Warner, R-Va., told "Fox News Sunday."

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware urged close U.S. contact with South Korea and Japan as events unfold.

"If we were to strike a missile and that resulted in an artillery retaliation, killing thousands of people in South Korea, it would be a very big deal," said Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Direct talks with North Korea may not work, he said, but would be "a better way of approaching this and finding what the bottom line is than this brinksmanship."

Alito Breaks Tie, Kan. Death Penalty Stays

New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie Monday to rule that Kansas' death penalty law is constitutional.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices said the Kansas Supreme Court incorrectly interpreted the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment to strike down the state's death penalty statute.

The dissenters, the four liberal members of the high court, bitterly complained about the decision.

The Kansas court said the state's death penalty law improperly forced jurors to impose a capital sentence even if they believed that the prosecution and defense evidence were equal in weight.

But the justices disagreed. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas disputed the claim by critics that the law created "a general presumption in favor of the death penalty in the state of Kansas."

The ruling affirms the court's long-held position that states should determine how juries weigh factors presented by the prosecution and defense in capital cases.

Fifteen states filed friend-of-the-court briefs, predicting that a ruling in convicted murderer Michael Lee Marsh's favor would have required states with capital punishment to set up systems for juries to weigh evidence at sentencing.

But Justice David H. Souter, writing one of two dissents, said that "in the face of evidence of the hazards of capital prosecution," maintaining a system like the one in Kansas "is obtuse by any moral or social measure."

Marsh was convicted in the June 1996 killings of Marry Pusch and her 19-month-old daughter, M.P. Marsh confessed that he had been waiting in Pusch's house when she and her child came home. Pusch was shot, stabbed and her throat was slit. Her body was set on fire. M.P. died several days later from severe burns.

The Kansas court used Marsh's case to find the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional because it could force juries to impose death sentences if aggravating evidence of a crime's brutality and mitigating factors explaining a defendant's actions are equal in weight.

The case is Kansas v. Marsh, 04-1170.

US court to rule on pivotal case on global warming

The US Supreme Court decided it will weigh whether the federal government must regulate emissions of new cars to combat global warming as demanded by environmental groups and some state and city authorities.

The case could open the way for the high court to deliver a crucial ruling on how the US government enforces environmental laws.

Since 2003, 12 US states, several cities and a dozen environmental groups have waged a legal battle against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has chosen not to curb greenhouse emissions on new cars.

The EPA maintains that the federal Clean Air Act does not address global climate change and that carbon dioxide is not defined as a pollutant under the law. The administration of President George W. Bush has advocated voluntary controls instead of mandatory limits on emissions.

The plaintiffs in the suit, which include the states of California, Massachusetts and New York, argue that the Clean Air Act obliges the EPA to regulate emissions from cars and power plants such as carbon dioxide and three other gases linked to global warming.

Carbon dioxide and similar emissions are believed to trap heat in the earth's atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise.

A federal appeals court in Washington ruled in July 2005 that the EPA's policy was justified, saying the agency was not legally required to regulate causes of global warming and that scientific evidence was lacking to support such measures.

In papers filed with the Supreme Court, the US government called the lawsuit "speculative" as it remained unclear if global warming could be traced to emissions from new cars and even if the link was proven, it was not clear that requiring more fuel efficient cars would have a major impact on climate change.

The issue of global warming could be better addressed through international efforts supported by the United States, the government said.

The case will have a "far-reaching" effect on the US approach to global warming, according to the environmental group Sierra Club.

"The Bush administration has continually tried to say that it's not their job to fight global warming. In fact, they have both the legal and moral responsibility to tackle global warming pollution," David Bookbinder, senior attorney for the Sierra Club, said in a statement.

Fox's Cavuto: Tancredo 'just might well be president'
Congressman's hot new book 'In Mortal Danger' shoots up best-seller lists

With "In Mortal Danger" skyrocketing up the bestseller charts and public concern growing daily over America's illegal immigration problem, the book's author, Rep. Tom Tancredo – the nation's undisputed heavyweight champion of the border security issue – just may be elected president, a popular cable TV newscaster said yesterday.

Since the official launch of his sensational book Monday, Tancredo has been on a media blitz – his book bulleting up the Amazon bestseller list from 7,311 on Monday to 25 yesterday.

On Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" yesterday, host Neil Cavuto introduced Tancredo this way: "Illegals coming into America are sure to be front and center in the next presidential election here. And Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo certainly knows it. He owns this issue. And straw polls show that, if he were to run for president, he just might well be president."

Cavuto asked Tancredo: "Over the months I have talked to you, as this immigration issue has heated up, your poll numbers have moved up. Will you run for president?"

Responded the Colorado House member and chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus: "Neil, I will run for president if I cannot get ... any of the serious candidates to really take this on. My purpose is to make immigration the focal point of any national debate on a presidential election."

Tancredo added: "Your responsibility as a candidate for president is to do every single thing you can to tell the people what you believe to be the greatest threats to the nation and how you would deal with them. And then, you know what? If they buy it, OK, you're elected. If they don't, you have done your best."

The congressman also didn't mince words the previous night on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" show, saying: "Mexico is aiding and abetting an invasion of this country. They are part of the problem. In fact, they are creating situations along that border, using their own military, to protect drug trafficking into the United States, pushing their own people into the United States for a variety of reasons. It is an invasion."

Stressing that the problem facing America is not just illegal immigration – but a massive invasion of foreigners who come to the U.S. with no desire to become Americans. That, in the larger context of what Tancredo calls the "cult of multiculturalism," is what is radically and dangerously transforming the very character of life and culture in America within a single generation, he says.

In his book, published by WND Books, Tancredo warns that America is on a course to the dustbin of history. Like the great and mighty empires of the past, he writes, superpowers that once stretched from horizon to horizon, America is heading down the road to ruin.

English historian Edward Gibbon, in penning his classic "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (ironically published in the year America's Founding Fathers declared independence from Great Britain), theorized that Rome fell because it rotted from within. It succumbed to barbarian invasions because of a loss of civic virtue, its citizens became lazy and soft, hiring barbarian mercenaries to defend the empire because they were unwilling to defend it themselves.

Tancredo says America is following in the tragic footsteps of Rome.

Living up to his reputation for candor, Tancredo explains how the economic success and historical military prowess of the United States have transformed a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles of right and wrong into an overindulgent, self-deprecating, immoral cesspool of depravity.

His recipe for turning things around?

Without strong, moral leadership, without a renewed sense of purpose, without a rededication to family and community, without shunning the race hustlers and pop-culture sham artists, without protecting borders, language and culture, the nation that once was "the land of the free and home of the brave" and the "one last best hope of mankind" will repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the past, he writes.

Today, Tancredo is scheduled to appear on Fox News' popular "Dayside" show at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Court Nixes Part of Texas Political Map

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld most of the Republican-boosting Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay but threw out part, saying some of the new boundaries failed to protect minority voting rights.

The fractured decision was a small victory for Democratic and minority groups who accused Republicans of an unconstitutional power grab in drawing boundaries that booted four Democratic incumbents from office.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said Hispanics do not have a chance to elect a candidate of their choosing under the plan. The vote was 5-4 on that issue.

Republicans picked up six Texas congressional seats two years ago, and the court's ruling does not seriously threaten those gains. Lawmakers, however, will have to adjust boundary lines to address the court's concerns.

At issue was the shifting of 100,000 Hispanics out of a district represented by a Republican incumbent and into a new, oddly shaped district. Foes of the plan had argued that that was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voting rights.

On a different matter, the court ruled 7-2 that state legislators may draw new maps as often as they like - not just once a decade as Texas Democrats claimed. That means Democratic and Republican state lawmakers can push through new maps anytime there is a power shift at a state capital.

The Constitution says states must adjust their congressional district lines every 10 years to account for population shifts. In Texas the boundaries were redrawn twice after the 2000 census, first by a court, then by state lawmakers in a second round promoted by DeLay after Republicans took control.

That was acceptable, the justices said.

"We reject the statewide challenge to Texas redistricting as an unconstitutional political gerrymander," Kennedy wrote.

However, he said the state's redrawing of District 23 violated the Voting Rights Act.

The 2003 boundaries were approved by the state Legislature and its Republican majority newly elected with DeLay's help. In the next congressional elections, Republicans picked up six additional seats in the House. The contentious map drawing also contributed to the downfall of DeLay.

He was charged in state court with money laundering in connection with fundraising for legislative candidates. Although he is fighting the charges and maintains he is innocent, DeLay gave up his leadership post and then resigned from Congress.

After Texas decided to redraw its congressional district boundaries, two other states - Colorado and Georgia - also undertook a second round of redistricting.

"Some people are predicting a rash of mid-decade redistricting. I am skeptical," said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School. "It would be seen as a power grab in a lot of places."

The justices have struggled in the past to define how much politics is acceptable when states draw new boundaries. Two years ago, they split 5-4 in leaving a narrow opening for challenges claiming party politics overly influenced election maps.

The court was also fractured Wednesday with six separate opinions, covering more than 120 pages, on the Texas boundaries.

The court's four most conservative members opposed the part of the decision that found a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Justice Antonin Scalia complained that the court should have shut the door on claims of political gerrymandering in map drawing.

Justice John Paul Stevens took the opposite view.

"By taking an action for the sole purpose of advantaging Republicans and disadvantaging Democrats, the state of Texas violated its constitutional obligation to govern impartially," he wrote.

Kennedy's decision did not specify how quickly the lines must be redrawn, but he said that more than one district would be affected.

"The districts in south and west Texas will have to be redrawn to remedy the violation in District 23, and we have no cause to pass on the legitimacy of a district that must be changed," he wrote.

He also said that the Texas plan's "troubling blend of politics and race - and the resulting vote dilution of a group that was beginning to achieve (the law's) goal of overcoming prior electoral discrimination - cannot be sustained."

"We see this as a very major victory for the Latino community, which is the main reason we were in this case," said attorney Rolando Rios, who represented the League of United Latin American Citizens. "Latinos are responsible for the fastest growth in Texas and the state of Texas refused to give us another district."

States facing new welfare regulations

The Bush administration is tightening regulations that could soon require states to adjust their welfare-to-work programs, which in some cases now allow bed rest and motivational reading to qualify as work.

The regulations will require that all education and training programs be directly related to a job before states can take credit for the recipients meeting work requirements. The regulations will also require that a recipient's work activities are supervised.

States will, however, still be allowed to place recipients in counseling for substance abuse, or psychological problems, and count those people as participating in job readiness programs.

Health and Human Services Secretary
Mike Leavitt cited bed rest and reading in a recent speech in which he signaled that he wanted stricter definitions of work.

"Needless to say, I think we can all agree we need to have a better definition of what constitutes work," Leavitt told officials at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

In the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, states are supposed to have at least half of their welfare recipients in approved work activities or face cuts in funding of up to 5 percent. However, states have been on their own in defining those work activities.

Congress recently instructed the
Department of Health and Human Services to draft regulations that would explicitly define the 12 work categories cited in federal law. For instance, on-the-job training will be defined, as will community service and unsubsidized employment.

The
Government Accountability Office said last year there were too many differences in how states defined work.

For instance, of 10 states reviewed, five said caring for a disabled family member would meet work participation requirements. Five did not. Six states counted substance abuse treatment as work, but four did not.

Such inconsistent definitions make for unreliable comparisons when determining which states do a good job of helping residents find work, the GAO said.

Wade Horn, the HHS assistant secretary who oversees welfare, said in an interview that the regulations will reflect the average American's definition of job training, community service, or any of the other work activities already established in law.

"The average person doesn't believe that bed rest is what they would understand as a job-readiness activity," Horn said. "The danger in not using commonsense definitions for these categories is that the American people start to believe that the government is playing games with them."

But some social services analysts worry that the new approach could stifle innovative programs undertaken by the states. They say such approaches have helped reduce the welfare rolls by 57 percent over the past decade.

"Every state's economy is different and states are dealing with different challenges among the welfare recipients that remain on the caseload," said Sheri Steisel, director of human services policy for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Steisel said there can be logical explanations for some activities the administration has ridiculed. Consider the administration's example of bed rest, she said.

"If a woman is in her ninth month of pregnancy, some states, for example, used bed rest as a way of making sure the recipient didn't lose their welfare assistance while they were either out ill or on bed rest, similar to the real work world where sometimes women have to go on leave prior to the birth of a child," Steisel said.

Changes approved to the nation's welfare program in 1996 set limits on how long people could obtain cash assistance. Since the law went into effect, the welfare rolls have dropped from about 4.4 million families to under 2 million.

Va. Senate race heats up over flag burning

Republican Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record) attacked his Democratic challenger's opposition to a flag-burning amendment, and James Webb retaliated by calling Allen a coward who sat out the Vietnam War "playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada."

The statement by a senior adviser to Webb, a decorated veteran and former secretary of the Navy, went to extraordinary lengths to question Allen's fortitude, even repeatedly using the middle name the senator detests and never uses, Felix.

"While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada," said Webb strategist Steve Jarding in the statement Tuesday.

Allen adviser Dick Wadhams called Jarding's comments pathetic and said they raise questions about Webb's fitness for office.

"They're saying we questioned (Webb's) patriotism, and that's a lie," Wadhams said. "We just raised a legitimate question about whether he supports a flag amendment or not. How is that questioning his patriotism?"

The rhetorical crossfire began after an Allen news release noted Webb's opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to ban desecration of the U.S. flag.

Allen voted in favor of the amendment Tuesday evening when the measure failed by one vote to get the two-thirds majority required.

The news release by Allen's campaign said Webb's opposition to the amendment shows he is beholden to liberal Sens.
John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer, who all voted against the amendment.

Within hours, Webb lashed back, calling Allen's news release "weak-kneed attacks by cowards."

"People who live in glass dude ranches should not question the patriotism of real soldiers who fought and bled for this country on a real battlefield," Jarding said.

Webb left the Republican party over Bush's handling of the war in
Iraq. He has written novels informed by his Vietnam experience and a recent non-fiction book "Born Fighting."

Allen is a first-term senator mentioned as a possible 2008 presidential candidate. While he was a student at the University of Virginia, Allen worked summers at ranches in the Southwest.

Flag amendment fails by single vote

The narrow defeat of a proposal to ban flag desecration marks the second time in a month Senate Republicans have lost bids to amend the Constitution in ways designed to inspire social conservatives to vote in the midterm elections.

The 66-34 tally on the flag amendment Tuesday was one less than the two-thirds, or 67 votes, required to send it to the states for ratification. The House cleared the two-thirds threshold last year, 286-130.

Sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, the amendment read: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

A proposed amendment earlier this month to ban gay marriage suffered a more decisive defeat, killed on a test vote.

Winning isn't the only goal for those measures or other social policy proposals congressional Republicans will bring up this year in an effort to energize their base of voters.

House Republicans intend to hold votes this summer and fall touching on abortion, guns, religion and other priority issues for social conservatives, part of an attempt to improve the party's prospects in the midterm elections.

The "American Values Agenda" also includes the gay marriage amendment, a prohibition on human cloning and possibly votes on several popular tax cuts.

The flag amendment's cliffhanger defeat a week before Independence Day represented Congress' response to Supreme Court rulings in 1989 and 1990 that burning and other desecration of the flag are protected as free speech by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Senate supporters said the flag amounts to a national monument in cloth that represents freedom and the sacrifice of American troops.

"Countless men and women have died defending that flag," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., closing two days of debate. "It is but a small humble act for us to defend it."

Opponents said the amendment would violate the First Amendment right to free speech. And some Democrats complained that majority Republicans were exploiting people's patriotism for political advantage.

"Our country's unique because our dissidents have a voice," said Sen. Daniel Inouye (news, bio, voting record), D-Hawaii, a World War II veteran who lost an arm in the war and was decorated with the Medal of Honor.

"While I take offense at disrespect to the flag," he said, "I nonetheless believe it is my continued duty as a veteran, as an American citizen, and as a United States senator to defend the constitutional right of protesters to use the flag in nonviolent speech."

Among possible presidential contenders in 2008, six voted yes: Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana and Republicans George Allen of Virginia, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Frist, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and John McCain of Arizona. Five, all Democrats, voted no: Joseph Biden of Delaware,
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin,
John Kerry of Massachusetts.

The Senate also rejected an alternative put forward by assistant Democratic leader Dick Durbin of Illinois. It would have made it against the law to damage the flag on federal land or with the intent of breaching the peace or intimidation. It also would have prohibited unapproved demonstrations at military funerals.

The House meanwhile passed by voice vote a measure that would bar condominium and homeowner associations from restricting how the flag can be displayed.

Sponsored by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (news, bio, voting record), R-Md., the resolution would prohibit those groups from preventing residents from displaying an American flag on their own property. The Senate is considering whether to bring up the measure this year.

It's unclear how many of the controversial bills might clear Congress and reach
President Bush's desk. Still, political strategists argue that by bringing controversial issues to a vote, one party can broadly emphasize differences with the other on an issue such as abortion, and increase the determination of its own supporters to go to the polls.

For their part, Democrats maneuvered successfully last week for a Senate vote on raising the minimum wage. Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada, the party's leader, said Tuesday they would "do everything within our power to stop a congressional pay raise from going through this year, and we're going to tie it to minimum wage."

Mayor's traffic-ticket scheme
targeted soldiers, Hispanics
Suit seeks to oust Tennessee official
over shady plan to generate revenues

DA files ouster complaint against Coopertown mayor

Prosecutors have started the legal process that could remove the embattled mayor of the small Robertson County city of Coopertown from office.

On Tuesday in Robertson County Chancery Court, District Attorney General John Carney’s office filed a petition to oust Mayor Danny Crosby from office.

In the 17-page ouster complaint, Crosby is accused of, among other things harassing and threatening political adversaries, making racist remarks, telling officers to target Hispanics and soldiers for traffic fines, and lowering speed limits to “shakedown” motorists for the city’s financial gain.

Contacted Tuesday evening, Crosby called the ouster complaint “foolishness” and a waste of taxpayer money.

“This is all full of garbage and lies,” Crosby said.

“I’ve done nothing wrong. They better be able to prove every word in that document.”

Coopertown – and Crosby himself – found themselves in the national spotlight in January, when the national motorist group AAA announced it might make the town of 3,100 its third “Traffic Trap” – a negative designation the group gives to American towns it feels unfairly targets drivers in order to make money. During the 2004-2005 fiscal year, the town expected to generate more than $450,000, or nearly 30 percent of its revenue, in traffic fines – an amount that far overshadows other towns in the area.

Crosby was tied to the speed trap flap through his decision to lower speed limits along Highway 49. He lowered limits without a vote of the city’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

Since then, he’s been accused publicly and on the Internet of harassment, intimidation and misusing city funds.

In early spring, a group of citizens started a petition drive to remove Crosby. According to the ouster complaint, 536 people ended up signing the ouster petition.

Based on several stories and complaints, the DA’s office had already started looking into a possible mayoral ouster in Coopertown, Carney said. Once the petition was filed, he said his office was bound by law to investigate the claims it set forth.

As part of that probe, Carney said, his office interviewed several who alleged Crosby threatened them, as well as some who say they witnessed the mayor step out of line – including some city employees.

The result of those investigations is a writ of ouster that accuses the 52-year-old Crosby of:

• encouraging police to write tickets, especially to Hispanic drivers, drivers from out of town and soldiers, presumably from nearby Fort Campbell, who would be more likely to pay tickets rather than going to court.

• Fostering an atmosphere of racial intolerance. The complaint specifically accuses him of displaying an “anti-black prejudice” to police officers. The DA’s filings also accuse Crosby of using slurs against homosexuals.

• Violating state public meeting laws by meeting behind closed doors with aldermen to discuss city issues. He’s also accused of failing to publicise ordinances, a misstep that could make some city ordinances invalad, according to the ouster paperwork.

• Violating child labor laws by hiring several teens, including his stepson and the son of the town’s vice mayor, to mow grass. When some of those teens were involved in an accident that damaged a city vehicle, the complaint claims, Crosby replaced the truck without putting it out for bid or getting approval of the town’s board of mayor and aldermen.

• The document alleges that Crosby “has told a Coopertown Police Officer, ‘They’re dragging my son into this. I’lll just get my gun and shoot all of them.’” The ouster complaint does not clearly state to whom Crosby is allegedly referring.

• Awarding maintenance work on city vehicles and towing business to a political supporter without putting that work out for bid.

• Threatening and/or attempting to intimidate a number of people with whom he was at odds. The complaint lists the names of about 30 people whom Crosby is accused of threatening, including a former Coopertown mayor, two city aldermen, a Coopertown teenager, a former Coopertown police chief, a high-ranking employee of the state Department of Labor and a government consultant. In several cases, ouster documents claim, the mayor told police officers to watch, ticket or arrest those people.

Throughout the process of building a case to oust the mayor, which has proceeded for several months, prosecutors have considered the possibility that some of the allegations outlined in the ouster complaints could lead to criminal charges.

“We are still looking at that,” Carney said Tuesday afternoon.

But Crosby says all of the allegations are false.

“I have never made any statements about any race or lifestyle,” Crosby said. “I have friends who are black and gay. I intend to fly a friend out here who is gay. I don’t agree with his lifestyle choice, but I still love him like a brother.

“As far as the claims that I have made threats and intimidated people, those are lies. I want the people who said that I made those statements to be present in court and say that. To say that I targeted soldiers, Hispanics and blacks (for the purposes of writing tickets) is a lie,” the mayor said.

"I have never told anyone, police officer or otherwise, to lock anyone up."

Robertson County resident Susan Slawson is among those Crosby is accused of threatening.

She’s referenced several times in the petition. Some of those stories, she said, she told authorities. Others, she learned of for the first time after reading it.

“There were several things I saw that made my jaw drop,” she said.

She’s been an outspoken critic of Crosby through most of his administration. Now, she says, she fears for her safety and her freedom because of the mayor’s threats.

The ouster filings claim Crosby told police officers to arrest her, even if it meant planting evidence of a DUI in her car.

And Slawson was arrested June 14 for disorderly conduct as a result of an altercation with a Coopertown street crew working near her home.

She was charged with disorderly conduct and harassment. According to an affidavit attached to her arrest warrant, Slawson yelled at a road crew working on the streets near her home and photographed them.

Slawson says she believes the crew was set to that location to set her up for an altercation. The area where they were working is near her home and not inside Coopertown’s city limits, she said.

“If this ouster proceeds the way we expect it to, I’ll be in seventh heaven,” Slawson said. “We’ll be able to get our city back. We’ll be able to get it out of the control of thugs.”

A court date for the ouster proceedings had not been set Tuesday afternoon. Prosecutors have indicated they’d like the proceedings to move quickly.

Crosby said he has an attorney and intends to go down fighting. He would not release the name of his attorney.

“It (the ouster) is basically from a bunch of police officers who are no longer with the city who were let go from the city for various reasons and are doing this for revenge. I have their personnel files and if General Carney had just read the files, he would see that this is all lies. I will take these personnel files to court,” Crosby said.

“They ain't seen nothing yet. I welcome this day in court. The truth will be presented. I have not done anything wrong. If I said something, I would admit it because I don't have anything to hide,” the mayor said.
“God bless them because they¹ve got a fight on their hands.”

Senate panel passes indefinite ban on Internet taxes

The Senate Finance Committee approved an amendment that would indefinitely extend a ban on Internet access taxes and ensure that most customers of Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online don't see state and local levies on their monthly bills when the current moratorium expires in 2007.

The amendment, introduced by Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, was attached to legislation that would repeal a $7 billion excise tax on local telephone service. The measure will go to the full Senate for a vote; a similar measure was introduced in the House last year.

``The last time I checked the Internet shows no sign of riding off into the sunset, or becoming obsolete,'' Wyden said in a press release. ``You can bet that once discriminatory taxes are slapped on Internet users, those discriminatory taxes won't be going away any time soon.''

Starting in 1998, federal law has blocked state and local taxes on Internet connections for customers of such companies as AOL and EarthLink Inc. Since a series of temporary measures lapsed in November 2003, state and local governments have stood pat, hesitant to impose new levies until Congress acted. President George W. Bush signed a law in December that extended that ban until 2007.

``Discriminatory and double taxation of the Internet has been banned for 8 years now,'' Wyden said. ``In all that time no one has ever come forward with evidence to show that the failure to impose discriminatory taxes has hurt them.''

Proponents such as Virginia Republican Senator George Allen have said the moratorium would allow high-speed broadband technology to expand to rural areas and keep it affordable. Bush has urged Congress to make it permanent.

Opponents of a permanent ban on Internet access taxes, including Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, said the Internet has grown to the point where it doesn't need protection from taxation and that ending state and local levies would drain $18 billion in revenue from state and municipal coffers that the federal government wouldn't replace.

Some heirs won't like tax bill before Senate

If the estate tax bill passed last week by the U.S. House of Representatives becomes law, it will benefit many wealthy families and cost the government a lot of tax revenue.

But there are likely to be other winners and losers as well.

Charities may find it harder to attract donations and some heirs may have to wait years, or even decades, longer to collect inheritances as surviving wives or husbands inherit more than they might have. States that impose estate taxes will face new pressures to repeal them.

The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, where a vote to cut off debate on a bill to repeal estate taxes fell three votes short. House leaders, who had wanted a complete repeal, pushed the bill that passed in the hope it could pick up additional votes in the Senate.

Under current law, people who die in 2006 can leave as much as $2 million to their heirs without incurring estate tax. In addition, unlimited amounts can be left to a surviving spouse and to charities without incurring tax.

Advisers to wealthy people often counsel them to leave the maximum exemption amount to heirs, with the remainder going to the surviving spouse. When that spouse dies, another $2 million can be left to heirs tax free. If the first spouse to die left everything to the surviving spouse, then only a total of $2 million could be passed on to heirs tax free.

Under the House bill, the exemption rises to $5 million, and will be indexed to inflation in later years. But the important change for heirs is that the spousal provision would become portable. If the first spouse to die left everything to the survivor, that person would have a $10 million exemption upon death.

The practical effect of that could be to delay bequests to children, said Evelyn Capassakis, a tax expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Rather than get some money when Dad died, and the rest when Mom passed away, the kids might have to wait until both parents were dead.

Charities now get billions of dollars in bequests from estates each year. How much of that money flows from generosity, and how much from a desire to reduce taxes, is impossible to know. But in 2004, 47 percent of estates of more than $10 million that were required to pay taxes had at least some charitable contributions, in contrast to just 22 percent of such estates that escaped taxation.

With higher exemptions, it seems likely that the level of donations from estates could fall sharply. For those with no estate-tax liability, tax advisers would be likely to recommend that any giving be done before death, when there would be a deduction that could reduce income taxes.

One aspect of the current law that would be preserved by the House bill is an increase in the tax basis for capital assets. Under current law, when a person leaves assets to an heir, the heir's tax basis is what determines the asset's worth when the person died, regardless of what it originally cost. That would continue.

But the current law also provides that for one year, in 2010, there will be no estate tax, before the estate tax returns the following year. In 2010, only $1.3 million in assets can get a stepped-up basis. Others would pass to heirs tax free, but would retain the original cost basis.

Thus, if an entrepreneur died in 2010 with stock in a family business worth $10.3 million that had cost only $10,000 when the company was started 30 years earlier, there would be no estate tax. But the heirs would owe capital gains tax on virtually the entire proceeds above $1.3 million if they sold the stock.

Those heirs would be far better off with the House bill than with the complete repeal.

Assets that have gained in value but are not sold before death now escape capital gains tax entirely. Since the House bill calls for an estate tax rate equal to the capital gains rate on estates from $5 million to $25 million, in effect many taxable estates would be simply paying the taxes that they would have owed had the assets been sold before death. Estates worth more than $25 million would face a tax rate of double the capital gains rate on the excess amount.

The tax rate on long-term capital gains is now 15 percent. If it were to rise, the estate tax rate would also increase.

Until 2001, the federal estate tax law allowed a credit for U.S.-state estate taxes paid, up to certain limits. Most states imposed the maximum allowed, which had no effect on taxpayers since it merely redirected money from the federal government to the states.

Since 2001, however, the law has allowed only a deduction, rather than a credit, for state estate taxes. So an estate that owed $1 million in state estate taxes could reduce the amount of estate subject to federal taxation by that amount. Since the maximum federal estate tax was 46 percent, it meant that the most it would save the taxpayer was $460,000 in federal estate taxes.

But under the House bill, there will be no credit or deduction for state estate taxes, meaning that there will be no savings. That will increase the incentive for the wealthy to move to states without state estate taxes, like Florida, and it will also put pressure on state governments to reduce or eliminate their taxes.

California Senate Committee Rejects Measure to Legalize Assisted Suicide

A California state Senate committee has rejected a measure that would make the state the second, following Oregon, to legalize assisted suicide. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday against the measure, meaning the legislation is dead for the rest of the legislative session.

The committee was dominated 3-2 by Democrats. Republican Sen. Tom Harman of Huntington Beach opposed the measure and committee chairman Sen. Joe Dunn, a Democrat from Santa Ana, joined him to defeat the proposal.

Democratic Sens. Martha Escutia of Whittier and Sheila Kuehl of Santa Monica voted for the bill but it died on a 2-2 vote. Sen. Bill Morrow, an Oceanside Republican, was not present for the vote but he opposes the bill as well.

The measure would have allowed doctors to prescribe lethal barbiturates for patients who are declared terminally ill and have less than six months to live. Patients would have had to undergo psychological examinations and waited two weeks after the request to take the drugs.

Dunn said he opposed the bill because he worried lawmakers would come back in future legislative sessions and expand assisted suicide by allowing patients who are not terminally ill to kill themselves as well.

"I could not resolve the risk that the power of money would ultimately define the parameters," said Dunn. "And so with heavy heart today, I will be a 'no' vote."

A coalition of groups including doctors organizations, disability activists, Hispanic organizations and pro-life groups banded together to oppose the measure.

Marilyn Golden, policy analyst with the Disability Rights, Education and Defense Fund, told the Los Angeles Times, "I'm just very, very glad that Sen. Dunn is not as naive as the proponents to think that assisted suicide could operate without corporate- and profit-related pressures from health insurers, from the rest of the healthcare industry, whether public or private."

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, one of the lead sponsors of AB 651, said "We'll keep fighting," according to a Times report.

This is the second time legislation to legalize assisted suicide there has failed. Last year a measure to legalize the grisly practice received the backing of two Assembly committees but did not have enough votes in the full Assembly so it never came up for a vote.

Even if the state legislature signs off on the assisted suicide bill, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in January he would veto it.

He thinks voters in the state should make the decision, not the state legislature.

"I personally think this is a decision probably that should go to the people, like the death penalty and other big issues," the governor said. "I don't think 120 legislators and I should make the decision. I think the people should make the decision, and whatever that is, that is what it ought to be."

Barbara Coombs Lee, executive director of the pro-euthanasia Compassion & Choices, lobbied for the measure but said her group would not try again to pass a measure. She also told the Times that a statewide initiative wouldn't be feasible.

A ballot measure would be "much too expensive, much too inflammatory," she said.

Thirteen years ago, California voters disapproved an assisted suicide ballot proposal. Voters rejected Proposition 161 by a 54% to 46% margin.

Nationally, an August 2005 Pew Research survey found only 44 percent of people "Favor making it legal for doctors to Assist in suicide." A May 2005 Gallup Poll found a close 49-42 percent split in favor of assisted suicide and a November 2004 CBS News survey determined that Americans were split 46-45 percent on the issue.

Senate, Assembly Pass All-Crimes DNA Bill

A bill that will require all people convicted of certain crimes to provide a DNA sample was passed in both the New York State Senate and Assembly last week. Previously, only a fingerprint was required of a person convicted of a crime other than murder or rape.

New York State Senator John Flanagan (R-Smithtown) was the prime sponsor for the Senate bill, which passed on June 21. Assemblywoman Ginny Fields (D-Sayville) sponsored the bill that was passed by the Assembly on June 22. While the bill still needs to be signed by New York State Governor George Pataki, Flanagan said, “I have every expectation that he will sign it. I have heard nothing to the contrary.”

“This is one of the most important pieces of legislation for law enforcement,” said Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco. “The two biggest things for me is legislation for parole violators and this.”

The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office pointed out that the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services has done a study on the issue. According to findings, offenders who had committed crimes that warranted taking their DNA were, on average, found to have approximately 11 prior arrests and five prior convictions when their DNA was put through the database.

Before this law, only one in every seven people convicted of a crime needed to provide a DNA sample to police authorities, on average. “That means that most criminals, 84%, walk away from a criminal conviction without the need to submit a DNA sample,” DeMarco said.

While the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office is in favor of the expansion of the DNA Database through this bill, some people have concerns. “This is clearly going to overload the forensic system in New York,” said Stephen Saloom, policy director of the Innocence Project. “By every indication, we’re having trouble in New York hiring and training qualified technicians even before the expansion.”

Set up in 1992, the Innocence Project is a non-profit legal clinic based in New York City, that handles cases where post-conviction DNA testing of evidence can yield conclusive proof of innocence. Saloom believes that many areas need to be addressed. “Lab capacity, prioritization of forensic analyses, backlogs created, probation and ability to process information,” Saloom said. “All of these unaddressed areas threaten the quality of forensic evidence in New York.”

The expansion of the DNA database will now include the crimes of menacing, reckless endangerment, petit larceny, stalking, criminal trespassing, possession of burglar’s tools, sexual abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of children or disabled people. According to Flanagan, a total of 18 offenses were added. “If you look at convictions in the state of New York, petit larceny is number one,” Flanagan said, noting that he was proud to have that particular crime on the list.

Flanagan also said the state currently only collects DNA for 14% of all criminal convictions. That number will now increase to about 50% of all convictions. “That’s a very big and positive step forward,” said Flanagan. With these inclusions, the database will grow to approximately three times the size of its current collection.

The 2006-2007 budget approved by the New York State Legislature has already set aside $20 million to support additional capacity for DNA processing and expanded casework requirements. This money would not only provide for improvements and expansion of processing capabilities, but also would allow the “review and [investigation of] cases involving reasonable possibility of innocence of persons sentenced to imprisonment,” according to the bill’s summary.

“It’s a great bill,” said Flanagan. “It’s going to save lives. Equally important, it’s going to show that people are innocent.” Fields believes this will “not only [help] to find bad guys and put them away, but also to exit the good guys.” Fields added that she believes this bill will have a very positive impact. “I think it’s going to be hugely successful,” she commented. “This is going to help police and prosecutors.”

“The first thing they should be doing is making sure that hits turn into convictions,” said Saloom. A hit is when a match is made between a DNA profile taken from a forensic evidentiary sample and that of an offender’s DNA profile stored on the Convicted Offender Index of the state DNA Databank. According to a study conducted by the Department of Criminal Justice Services in January of 2002, only four of the first 104 DNA Database hits resulted in convictions.

“But that’s four more than would have been convicted,” Fields responded. “I stood up [in front of the Assembly] and said, ‘God forbid any of the women that work here leave and get raped. You would want to know who committed the crime and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.’” She maintained, “that’s four people brought to justice. Certainly you don’t want people like that to remain out there to commit more crimes.”

Fields also mentioned that “these crimes are generally committed over and over by the same people.” According to the sheriff’s office, however, “police authorities around the state have also had well over 2,000 conviction matches.”

Saloom insists that “there’s $20 million in the budget for this. We’ve already expanded [the DNA Database] twice. With that money, figure out why hits don’t turn into convictions. We need to recognize what the weak points are so, in the future, we can then turn more hits into convictions.”

The Innocence Project is also concerned about what they call “rogue databases.” Many times, according to Saloom, DNA is collected from victims to rule their DNA out at a crime scene. Saloom believes that police enforcement may use “innocent people’s DNA in ways that innocent people have not authorized and it may cause people to resist in future investigations.”

The Senate and the Assembly had differing views of what the bill should include. “One night I think we discussed this for hours,” Fields said. “The Senate wanted more DNA. The Assembly said wait, you’re going into people’s civil liberties at that point.” After much debate about the issue of DNA testing, it was finally settled that the accused must be convicted before DNA is collected. “My wish is that everybody would give DNA so that all crimes would be able to be solved,” Fields said.

“The best part of it was that both houses were able to come together,” Fields commented. Governor Pataki agreed. “We are pleased that both houses of the Legislature came to an agreement,” he stated.

“This is not a political issue, and it is not a philosophical debate,” DeMarco stated. “It is a law that is urgently needed in New York today.”

Bill Could Bolster Trade With Vietnam as Counterweight to China

Since Congress permanently expanded trade with China six years ago, Chinese imports into the United States have more than doubled.

Now many members of Congress fear that the United States has grown too reliant on China. So they're looking to increase trade with Vietnam.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., introduced a bill this month to grant Vietnam permanent normal trade-relations status, which would allow its entry into the World Trade Organization and a reduction in tariffs. That could increase U.S. trade with Vietnam.

"I believe there is a national interest in not having all of our eggs in the China basket," Smith said.

Many trade expansion plans are stalled in Congress. Opponents point to a variety of problems with recent trade deals, including job losses in the United States, human rights violations and weak environmental standards abroad.

"A lot of the organizations that haven't liked the direction of our trade policy aren't happy with this trade proposal, given that you don't have workers' rights and environmental protections in effect there," said Larry Weiss, executive director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, a coalition whose members include unions, consumer groups and environmentalists.

But unlike other trade legislation, Smith's Vietnam bill has bipartisan support. He sponsored the legislation with Sen. Max Baucus, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, which oversees trade. And Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Darlene Hooley, both Democrats from Oregon, co-sponsored a companion bill in the House.

"I think it's absolutely critical to help heal the wounds left over from Vietnam," said Blumenauer, who visited Vietnam in 2000 with then-President Clinton. "It is an opportunity to have a strategic counterweight against the Chinese. We're making extraordinary progress with the country of Vietnam."

The bill has a wide array of U.S. business supporters, ranging from manufacturers to farmers who see Vietnam as a new market for U.S. exports.

Currently, the United States must renew Vietnam's normal trade-relations status each year. In 2005, the United States reported $6.6 billion in imports from Vietnam, representing about one-third of 1 percent of all imports into the United States.

Smith's bill would make the trade status permanent.

"The reason we like it is it is just going to give us an incredible amount of certainty about our ability to do business in Vietnam," said Brad Figel, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist for Nike. About 25 percent of Nike's footwear is manufactured in Vietnam.

But such permanent status also could reduce U.S. influence over human rights abuses in Vietnam, said Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO.

"We'd be losing some flexibility with respect to the tools we can use," Lee said.

Smith sees his bill as an opportunity to improve conditions for the Vietnamese.

"Having them subject to international norms, WTO rules, doesn't lessen our leverage," said Smith, who led a congressional delegation to Vietnam last year. "It enhances it."

Unions also worry that the trade expansion could cause further job losses in the United States and increase the already large trade deficit -- the gap between the amount that the U.S. imports and exports.

The U.S. trade deficit with China rose from $83.8 billion in 2000 to $201.5 billion in 2005.

"If you look at the China debate, people said this has to be a good thing for the U.S.," Lee said.

Trade experts say Smith's bill would provide U.S. companies with an alternative source of goods. They note that costs in China have risen as trade has grown.

"As economic development rises throughout that region after 30 years of opening of the economy, the middle class is growing, wages are growing, and it is not the low-cost area that it once was," said Christopher Runckel, president of Runckel & Associates, a Portland, Ore., consulting firm that helps clients do business in Asia. "Vietnam is substantially less expensive for labor."

But the costs of shipping from Vietnam are much greater than from China, Runckel said.

Besides the cost considerations, Runckel said, relying mostly on one nation carries risks.

"Nobody wants to be dependent on only one supplier or one area, in case of a natural disaster, a hurricane, an earthquake, a political situation, or even in case of a trade dispute," he said.

Class action suit filed v. Medicaid immigration law

Low-income citizens backed by antipoverty groups filed a proposed class action on Wednesday, challenging a federal law requiring proof of citizenship in exchange for benefits under the government's Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

Critics say the law, set to go into effect July 1, will hurt the vulnerable who may be unable to provide original documents like birth certificates. Those most in jeopardy are those in nursing homes, with mental and physical disabilities, and the victims of natural disasters, they said.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Chicago, argues the law unconstitutionally violates the Fifth Amendment's due-process guarantee by arbitrarily requiring documents and imposing deadlines.

"This law throws out a dragnet and says, all of you, all 50 million of you, have to come document your citizenship, whether we think you are a problem or not," said John Bouman, a lawyer at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of 9 people.

The suit names Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as defendant. A spokeswoman for the health agency was not available for comment.

"Medicaid coverage will be delayed or denied for many," according to a recent analysis by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. "Obtaining required documents may be difficult and costly for low-income citizens," the report found.

Plaintiffs want the court to temporarily suspend the law while it considers the suit. They also contend the law puts an onerous burden on states, which must comply to keep federal funds.

About 50 million people receive health care benefits under the state-administered Medicaid program.

The consumer group Families USA called the law a political ploy as lawmakers debate potential measures to deal with the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants believed to live in the United States.

"There is a political factor in all of this. We are in the middle of a very contentious debate on illegal immigration," Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA said.

He pointed to a recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which found between 3 million and 5 million Medicaid recipients may not be able to produce the proper identification and could lose benefits.

One of the lawsuit's plaintiffs is 95 year-old Ruby Bell, who was born in 1911 in Arkansas and who has no birth certificate.

Bell now lives in a nursing home in Northern Illinois, but the county she came from did not start keeping certificates until 1914 and she may not be able prove citizenship under the law, Bouman said.

Medicaid recipients are now required to be U.S. citizens, but documentation is only required of those under suspicion.

U.S. Supreme Court finds wetlands regulation all wet

Our constitutional way of life got a boost last week from the U.S. Supreme Court when the high court rejected the idea that federal officials have unlimited control over every pond, puddle and ditch in our country. In a scenario evocative of "Alice in Wonderland," Michigan landowner John Rapanos was convicted of "discharging a pollutant into navigable waters" without a permit under the Clean Water Act by placing clean sand on mostly dry land 20 miles away from the nearest navigable waterway.

When overzealous federal prosecutors sought more than a five-year jail term for Rapanos, the trial judge was outraged. He refused to send Rapanos to prison for "moving sand from one end of his property to another," calling that "our system gone crazy."

Nevertheless, Rapanos paid a $185,000 fine and served three years probation. For similar conduct, Rapanos was required to provide $3 million in mitigation and was potentially liable for an additional $10 million in fines. Based on his belief -- that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which claims to have authority to regulate any wetlands with a connection to navigable waters, had no jurisdiction over his property -- Rapanos exercised his civil right to be free from illegal and heavy-handed government regulation and appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Last week, the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts' decisions, as a majority of the justices said a remote connection between wetlands and truly navigable waterways is not enough for federal regulation to apply.

Chief Justice John Roberts called the decision another defeat for the corps and its "essentially boundless view of the scope of its power."

While the Clean Water Act specifically authorizes the corps to issue permits for the "discharge of dredged or fill material into the navigable waters" of the United States, the corps took its authority much further.

For more than 200 years, the term "navigable waters" has meant channels used by boats for interstate commerce. But the corps claimed that when Congress said "navigable waters" it really meant all waters in the United States.

The result of this nonsensical interpretation, which four justices said went "beyond parody," was to expand federal jurisdiction over any area over which water flows, including "storm drains, roadside ditches, [and] ripples of sand in the desert that may contain water once a year." The corps boasts that it processes 90,000 permit applications a year. But the cost of these permits is enormous. One recent study, cited by Justice Antonin Scalia, reported that even small fill projects take an average of 313 days to process and cost $28,915, whereas a larger project requires an average 788 days and a cost of $271,596. It is no wonder that Rapanos refused to comply. While last week's divided court ruling leaves questions for lower courts to answer on a case-by-case basis, the court was unwilling to accept the corps' expansive implementation of the Clean Water Act.

The majority wrote that lower courts needed to look again at Rapanos' case, saying the connection to navigable waters from Rapanos' property may not fit the requirements of the Clean Water Act.

Although the justices split three ways on what would fit the requirements of the Clean Water Act, the court was united in its view that government officials, the public and the courts would all benefit from clearer regulatory definitions. Americans deserve clear, consistent rules that are in line with the language of the act and satisfy the court's concerns for overreaching. As the high court noted, the corps hasn't provided that guidance.

Going forward, the corps should focus its enforcement efforts on rivers, lakes, and streams and integrated wetlands and not look far and wide -- 20 miles in Rapanos' case -- to regulate drainage ditches that are rarely wet and have an insubstantial connection to any navigable waterway. As both the court and Congress have recognized, it is the primary responsibility of the states to address local pollution and manage local land and water use.

Sen. Bill Frist revives stem cell bill

WASHINGTON - Urged anew by Nancy Reagan, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Thursday revived a bill to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research after conservatives who had blocked it withdrew their objections.

"It's my intention now that we've gotten over this first hurdle that we will (vote on the bill) in the not too distant future," Frist said as he brought the three-bill package to the floor.

"We'll do this before we get out of here for the October break?" asked Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

"We will," replied Frist, R-Tenn.

The announcement marked a major advance for a bill — one supported by about 70 percent of Americans — that had been stalled in the Senate since the House passed it in May 2005. Frist was still untangling objections from at least two senators that blocked the bill up to a few moments before he brought the package to the floor, according to officials close to the talks who requested anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak publicly.

The bill is expected to pass. But for all the progress, President Bush's veto threat remained, said White House spokesman Ken Lisaius.

The bill would permit the government to pay for human embryonic stem cell research, a science that carries promise in the hunt for cures to diseases that afflict millions of people.

Social conservatives liken the research to abortion because the process of extracting stem cells from a days-old embryo results in its death. Bush, who believes the practice is immoral, has threatened to veto the legislation.

Two officials close to the developments said Reagan, the former first lady whose behind-the-scenes advocacy helped the bill win House passage, spoke with Frist last week and urged him to advance it.

Her husband, former President Ronald Reagan, died in 2004 after suffering from
Alzheimer's disease for more than a decade. Some scientists say stem cell research could help relieve the effects of Alzheimer's or possibly lead to a cure.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has for months intended to block the bills Frist brought forward, but talks with Frist on Thursday persuaded him to lift his objection for now, several Republican and Democratic officials said.

Even as Frist prepared to bring the package to the floor, an objection from at least one senator threatened to block it, the officials said. They would not identify the senator.

A heart transplant surgeon, Frist stunned many in his party last year by announcing his support for the bill and promising a vote on it before the 109th Congress expires at the end of this year.

Supreme Court upholds Arizona insanity law

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Arizona's law on the insanity defense is not too restrictive in limiting evidence defendants can present at trial.

By a 6-3 vote, justices affirmed the murder conviction of Eric Clark, who thought he was being pursued by space aliens when he killed an Arizona police officer. Clark, a paranoid schizophrenic who was a teenager at the time, is serving 25 years to life in prison.

Under Arizona's law, defendants "may be found guilty except insane" if they prove they were so mentally ill that they did not know what they did was wrong. Many other states also allow insanity findings for defendants who can show they did not understand the nature of their criminal acts.

Critics had said that Arizona's standard for proving insanity is almost impossible to meet, violating the constitutional rights of mentally ill defendants.

Writing for the majority, Justice David Souter disagreed.

"Arizona's rule serves to preserve the state's chosen standard for recognizing insanity as a defense and to avoid confusion and misunderstanding on the part of jurors," he wrote.

Souter said the state can limit psychiatric testimony to avoid such confusion, given the often dueling opinions of experts and inability of anyone to truly know what is in someone else's mind.

But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said in a dissent that restricting expert testimony deprived jurors of evidence they needed to "make sense" of Clark's claims of mental illness.

"In sum, the rule forces the jury to decide guilt in a fictional world with undefined and unexplained behaviors," Kennedy wrote on behalf of himself and justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It was the first time the court has dealt with a direct constitutional challenge to insanity defense laws since lawmakers nationwide imposed new restrictions following John Hinckley's acquittal by reason of insanity in the March 1981 shooting of President Reagan.

Four states do not allow for insanity defenses at all: Idaho, Kansas, Montana and Utah.

Clark had a trial before a judge in which he was found guilty of first-degree murder. Part of Clark's appeal turned on whether the judge should have considered mental illness in weighing whether Clark intentionally killed the officer.

Before Clark started acting bizarrely the year before the killing, he was a standout football player and popular student. He began obsessing about the millennium, and ran up his parents' credit cards buying survival supplies. He became convinced that aliens had taken over his town and that his own parents were aliens.

Clark shot Officer Jeff Moritz in Flagstaff on June 21, 2000. Moritz, a 30-year-old father of a toddler, had pulled Clark over as the 17-year-old drove around his neighborhood in a truck playing loud rap music at about 5 a.m.

The case is Clark v. Arizona, 05-5966.

Military claims gains on Iraqi terrorists

The U.S. military claimed an advantage in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq on Thursday, saying raids since the death of its leader have forced many of its foreign fighters out into the open to be captured or killed.

Iraq's bloodshed continued. At least 46 deaths from violence were reported across the country, including nine bullet-riddled bodies pulled from rivers — apparent victims of sectarian death squads.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraqi, acknowledged Iraqi civilians were suffering most from the insurgency, accounting for 70 percent of all deaths and injuries, while he said the number of U.S. casualties did not appear to be on the rise.

But he said the Americans gained momentum in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq after killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and have devoted a lot of resources to targeting his successor as leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

"There is no question, if we can take him down, that will just disrupt the organization ... to the point where it would be ineffective for a long period of time," Caldwell said. "It is very disorganized right now. And it is very disrupted right now."

He said coalition and Iraqi security forces had captured or killed 57 foreign fighters this month.

"The reason we were able to pick up and track some of these mid-level people ... in the last few weeks is because they've been forced to conduct meetings, to get out and be more visible, because their system has been so disrupted," he said. "And that has given us the opportunities to find them, track them and go get them."

On Wednesday, Iraqi authorities said they had captured an al-Qaida suspect from Tunisia who allegedly bombed a Shiite shrine earlier this year, setting off a spasm of violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Caldwell said Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, also known as Abu Qudama, was captured May 20 after he was seriously wounded in a clash with security forces north of Baghdad. Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri, the alleged Iraqi mastermind of the Feb. 22 attack on the shrine in Samarra, remains at large.

While cracking down on terror groups, the Iraqi government has offered an olive branch to the Sunni-dominated insurgency, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announcing a national reconciliation plan and reaching out to militants with an amnesty proposal.

The amnesty would not absolve those who have killed Iraqis or American coalition troops. But proving which individuals have carried out fatal attacks would be a difficult task in many cases. The issue is extremely sensitive in the United States, which has lost more than 2,500 uniformed men and women in Iraq, many to insurgent bombs and ambushes.

Insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday that 11 Sunni militant groups had offered an immediate halt to all attacks — including those on American troops — if the United States agreed to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years.

On Thursday, Iraqi presidential security adviser Wafiq al-Samaraie said he received an e-mail Wednesday with an offer of cooperation from a person describing himself as a member of "one of the most dangerous violent groups abroad."

"We answered him immediately by e-mail and welcomed him, and he replied to us that there are ammunition piles at point X, go and find it, and there is a criminal in such a place ... so this is a blessing of the reconciliation initiative," al-Samaraie told state-run al-Iraqiya TV.

He did not discuss whether the information was accurate.

Shooting and bombings Thursday killed 12 people in Baghdad, including a Shiite trash collector, a university security chief, a baker, two merchants and an electrical worker.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide car bomber struck the funeral of a Shiite soldier in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing four people and wounding 27, police and hospital officials said.

Police in Kirkuk also found the body of a 15-year-old girl who had been kidnapped five days ago in the oil-rich city.

Seven bullet-riddled bodies were found floating in the Tigris River in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, while two men who had been shot to death and showed signs of torture were found in the Euphrates River in Musayyib, 40 miles south of the capital.

Highlighting the government's efforts to rein in the violence and take over control of its own security from U.S. forces, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani led a celebration at the police academy in Baghdad to swear in 560 newly graduated recruits.

He said al-Maliki's reconciliation plan "is evidence of the government's intention to restore stability and promote reconstruction."

House approves drilling 50 miles off Maine coast

Drilling for oil and natural gas would be allowed 50 miles off Maine's coast for the first time in nearly a quarter century under legislation approved in the House on Thursday.

The bill's prospects remain uncertain, however, because of a threatened filibuster in the Senate. Also, the House measure would give states power to push their boundaries out to 100 miles or authorize drilling less than 50 miles from shore. Drilling has been prohibited within 200 miles of the shore under annual provisions in spending bills.

The ban on what is called the Outer Continental Shelf began off the coast of California in 1982 and included New England two years later. But the House voted 232-187 on Thursday to allow drilling, which is expected to occur primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud, both D-Maine, voted against the bill, citing concerns that accidents could hurt tourism and commercial fishing.

"The heart of the this bill is to drive states to allow drilling offshore," Allen said. "We don't need to do that, at least at this stage."

Michaud criticized the Republican president and congressional leadership for failing to reduce consumption of fossil fuels rather than propose more drilling.

"The congressional leadership has once again threatened Maine's tourist and fishing industries with an ill-advised plan for coastal drilling," he said.

Conservationists and other critics of coastal drilling fear that mishaps could spoil commercial fishing and tourism and affect public health in Maine. Advocacy groups opposed to the legislation include the League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.

Despite House approval, Florida's two senators -- Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Mel Martinez -- vowed to filibuster the legislation. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both R-Maine, also oppose lifting the drilling ban.

The House bill would allow drilling from 50 to 200 miles off shore, though states could set the limit at 100 miles -- or under 50 -- by voting to do so every five years. Muddying the debate is the fact that former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton each signed executive orders similar to the existing 200-mile moratorium. The order is set to expire in 2011, though President Bush could abolish it at any time without a congressional vote.

Waters covered by the ban hold 19 billion of the 86 billion barrels of oil thought to lie beneath the Outer Continental Shelf, and 86 trillion of the 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., who drafted the bill as chairman of the Resources Committee, said oil and gas deposits can be developed while protecting the environment.

"It's time to stop saying no," Pombo said.

He broadened the appeal for the legislation by changing the way revenue from federal oil and gas royalties would be shared with states. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would funnel $20.6 billion to states from now until 2017, with all but $1.7 billion of that money going to four states that already have drilling: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. "This bill will spur an immediate debate on the state level regarding the safety, feasibility, and necessity of offshore energy production," said Rep. John E. Peterson, R-Pa. But California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican in Pombo's home state, opposed the legislation. Officials from other states with beaches, including New Jersey and Delaware, opposed the legislation as a threat to their multibillion-dollar tourism industries "How do we opt out when New York or Virginia has a spill and it comes to our shores?" said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J. "It would devastate our tourism." About 3 million gallons of oil spilled from offshore oil and gas wells in 73 incidents from 1980 to 1999, according to a federal Minerals Management Service report. Major oil spills occurred decades ago from offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and along the California coast. Although drilling isn't expected immediately in Maine waters, the concern among lawmakers and conservationists is that a spill would taint local fisheries. An oil spill within the Gulf Stream off the East Coast could move up to 140 miles in 24 hours, the Sierra Club warned, based on a University of Miami study. "Oil and gas drilling threatens to destroy a way of life in Maine's coastal communities," said Matthew Davis, a spokesman for Environment Maine.

Another Arab State Edges Towards Full Democracy

Women in Kuwait voted and ran for office for the first time on Thursday, a development seen as pushing the Middle East another step closer to full participatory democracy.

Kuwaiti men and women voted for some 250 candidates -- including 28 women -- to fill 50 seats in the small Gulf state's 65-seat National Assembly (the remaining 15 are appointed by the country's emir.)

Full gender equality remains a way off, however: Women were forced to use separate polling stations, due to demands by Islamists who oppose women voting.

Results available by early Friday also showed that the women candidates appeared to be faring badly, despite the fact women comprise 57 percent of the electorate.

On the eve of the election, a non-governmental organization called the Women Cultural Social Society conducted a survey showing that although for most respondents a candidate's political platform was more important than gender, many would vote according to gender -- and most voters of both sexes would support men.

In the poll, about 44 percent of female respondents said they'd vote for candidate based on platform, not gender. But another 40 percent of women said they would vote for a man, compared to just around 15 percent who said they'd vote for a woman.

Kuwait's Arab Times daily quoted one woman candidate, Khalida Al-Kheder, as decrying the conduct of "conservative tribal women" whom she said had been bussed in in large numbers to vocally support male candidates.

Some analysts argued that female candidates had not had sufficient time to lay the groundwork for their campaigns.

Women were given the vote in May 2005, they did not expect to be able to use it for the first time until scheduled elections in 2007. But last month, Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah dissolved parliament and called an early election following a dispute between the government and opposition over electoral reforms.

Despite the historic suffrage decision, the campaign was dominated not by that but by calls for political reform and an end to official corruption.

Nonetheless, Women Cultural Social Society president Shaikha Al Nusf viewed the campaign positively on both counts.

"Clearly, women have come a long way in a short time," she said in a statement released through the NGO's U.S. partner, Freedom House.

"In the one month since the emir called for elections, women candidates and voters have made this election about issues rather than traditional affiliations."

Speaking during a visit to a polling station, Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah said "the participation of women has added a new spirit to the march of democracy in Kuwait." Turnout was around 66 percent.

Suffrage for women in Kuwait leaves Saudi Arabia as the only country in the world that holds elections but does not allow women to vote. Women in Lebanon may only vote if they hold a stipulated educational qualification, not required for men.

(The United Arab Emirates and Brunei do not hold elections at all, and a number of countries that do fail to meet standards for free and fair democratic elections.)

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the U.S. congratulated Kuwait on the election, where participation by male and female voters was robust.

"The turnout demonstrates the universal value of democracy across cultures and
regions."

Mideast political commentator and Iranian author Amir Taheri says that despite Kuwait's small size, its election is important because of the effect it will have on politics in the broader Arab world.

"The exercise will help consolidate the idea of holding elections as a means of securing access to power, something new and still fragile in most Arab states," he said in a recent column.

Taheri also saw the Iraq situation as having played an important role in what he called the region's new interest in holding elections.

Arab elites saw how quickly Saddam Hussein's regime, the region's most powerful, had toppled, and observed that "an Arab regime without some mandate from the people is never more than a house of cards."

Arabs had also watched as millions of Iraqis lined up to vote, repeatedly, all within a couple of years, he said.

House OKs bill lifting offshore drilling ban

The House voted today to end a quarter-century offshore drilling ban and allow energy companies to tap natural gas and oil beneath waters from New England to Alaska.

Opponents of the federal ban argued that the nation needed to move closer to energy independence and insisted the gas and oil could be taken without threatening the environment and coastal beaches. They said a state choosing to keep the moratorium could do so.

The measure was approved 232-187.

But the bill's prospects in the Senate were uncertain. Florida's two senators have vowed to filibuster any legislation that would allow drilling within 125 miles of Florida's coast. Other senators from several coastal states also have strongly opposed ending the drilling restrictions.

Many lawmakers fear that energy development could despoil coastal beaches, should there be a spill, and threatens the multibillion-dollar recreation and tourist economies of states where offshore energy development has been barred since the early 1980s.

An attempt by a group of Florida lawmakers to allow states to maintain a protective zone of 125 miles was rejected.

``Our beaches and our coastline is what is critical to Floridians,'' declared Rep. Jim Davis, D-Fla. ``We should not be sacrificing our economy, our environment for a little oil and gas.''

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., a leading proponent for lifting the moratorium argued that drilling still would be prohibited within 50 miles of shore and states could extend the ban up to 100 miles.

He ridiculed the bill's critics as ``opposing everything'' when it comes to increasing domestic energy production. ``You can't say no on everything,'' Pombo proclaimed.

But Lois Capps, D-Calif., said states would have to overcome numerous hurdles to continue the drilling restrictions, including having state legislatures and the government seek such protection every five years.

The bill also would revamp how the federal government shares oil and gas royalties with states, producing a windfall for four Gulf states - Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama - that currently have oil and gas rigs off their shores.

The eastern and western Gulf of Mexico produces virtually all of the country's offshore oil and gas, with waters off the eastern Gulf, both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and much of Alaska under the drilling moratorium.

Under the bill, states' share of royalties would increase to 50 percent over 10 years and eventually could rise as high as 75 percent. States currently get less than 5 percent of royalties from offshore oil and gas leases in the central and western Gulf.

The Interior Department estimated that revenue sharing changes could cost the federal government as much as $69 billion in lost royalties over 15 years and ``several hundred billion dollars'' over 60 years.

The White House issued a statement saying it favors much of the bill, but strongly opposes the changes in royalty revenue sharing which it said ``would have a long-term impact on the federal deficit.''

The Interior Department estimates there are about 19 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 86 trillion cubic feet of natural gas beneath waters currently under drilling bans from New England to southern Alaska.

But supporters of the drilling moratorium argue there's four times that amount of oil and gas available in offshore waters open to energy companies, mainly in the central and western Gulf of Mexico and off parts of Alaska.

The country uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day.

``We should not be opening all of our coasts to oil drilling when we have not taken the first step to conserve oil,'' said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., who wanted to put into the bill a requirement to increase automobile fuel economy, but was prevented from doing so.

But Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., argued that developing more U.S. energy resources - especially more natural gas - is needed to ease supply shortages that have seen natural gas prices soar and America rely increasingly on oil imports.

``This is not about oil companies,'' insisted Peterson. ``This is about America competing. ... We're the only society that has said we're going to lock up our resources.''

Indo-US Nuclear Deal gets US Senate, House Committee Endorsement: American-Indian community jubilant

Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement successfully passed the most difficult first phase with an almost bi-partisan approval of the United States Senate and House committees this week assuring an easy ratification from the full Senate and the entire House.

The House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly to support the historic U.S.-India nuclear agreement.

The vote in the House committee was 37-5, and in the Senate 16-2, signaling that the agreement now enjoys strong bipartisan support in the United States Congress.

Swadesh Chatterjee, a founder of the U.S. India Friendship Council, a coalition of prominent Indian American individuals and associations, stated, “I am gratified by the strong support in both the House and the Senate for the deal. This shows the strength of our community. Our intense and systematic national lobbying effort helped to convince lawmakers that this deal is good and essential for America. Today, the Indian American community stands proud.”

This advocacy campaign marks the first time the Indian American community as a whole has come together to present a united front to American federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the Republicans and the Democrats. The coalition put together by the US-India Friendship Council included, among others, the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, the organization of Indian Institute of Technology Alumni here in the United States. The Council also worked with other well-known interest groups, especially the US-Indian Business Council, to maximize its impact.

Ray Vickery, former Under-Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration said, “I am convinced that the US-Indian Friendship Council made an enormous difference in securing passage of this agreement. I have been in Washington a long time. I have never seen the India American community as focused and mobilized as they were this time.”

Despite SCOTUS Ruling, Schlafly Suggests Congress, White House Stand Firm on Gitmo

By Chad Groening
June 30, 2006

(AgapePress) - A pro-family activist says she was shocked by Thursday's decision by the Supreme Court that said President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees. And a Pentagon advisor who recently returned from a second visit to "Gitmo" says there is absolutely no reason to close the federal detention facility there, as suggested by some liberals.

The case involving military tribunals stemmed from a complaint from a former bodyguard and driver for terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. His lawyer argued that the U.S. should not be able to hold him indefinitely without access to courts and lawyers. But a 5-3 vote, the nation's highest court supported the detainee's contention. In the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva Convention. But Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum thinks Congress needs to assert its authority in this matter.

"The founding fathers did not set up three co-equal branches," Schlafly points out. "The founding fathers put the Congress in control of the courts in that they can decide what kinds of cases the judges can hear and not hear." In fact, she notes, Congress had taken away the jurisdiction of the court over this matter -- something that was pointed out by Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, the three dissenters.

That very fact was pointed out by Justice Clarence Thomas in writing for the minority. Thomas wrote that the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction over the issue, and that it "openly flouts our well-established duty to respect the executive’s judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs."

The Eagle Forum president admits she was surprised the decision came down the way it did. "I think maybe the court should not have heard this case," she shares. "They should have left this up to the Commander in Chief in wartime."

But Mrs. Schlafly does not think the decision will compel President Bush to release any of the dangerous prisoners being held at Gitmo. "These are really bad people who really need to be locked up," she says, "and to let them loose would be a terrible thing. I just do not believe the President's going to do that."

What does she expect the president to do? "He's going to gather all his lawyers around him and find out a way to outmaneuver the court, which is what I think he should do," she offers.

The president's press secretary, Tony Snow, has already indicated that White House lawyers intend to review the decision.

Shut It Down? No Way ...
Amidst a clergy group's accusations of torture being administered to detainees at Gitmo, some have called for the detention facility to be shut down. But Lt. Col. (U.S. Army Ret.) Bob Maginnis, who recently returned from his second visit to the facility and maintains all prisoners are being treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, says there's no reason to do that.

Maginnis says he toured the facility at Guantanamo Bay, sampled the food, and witnessed some of the interrogations being conducted there. He contends the individuals being kept there are not legal prisoners of war because they do not conduct themselves according to the law and customs of war.

"They hide amongst the population, they explode improvised explosive devices, killing innocent men, women, and children in public places," he says. "They don't stand toe-to-toe and fight with us. They play by rules that no civilized people would play by."

For those reasons, Maginnis maintains the Gitmo detainees do not have to be treated as legal POWs. "If you are a true combatant, a prisoner of war, there are four criteria: being commanded by a person responsible for subordinates; having a fixed, distinctive sign, recognizable at a distance -- in other words, a uniform with insignia; carrying arms openly; and conducting operations in accordance with the arms and customs of war," he says. "These terrorists don't do that."

Consequently, he says, it is ridiculous for critics to demand the facility be shut down. "Don't ask us to open up Guantanamo and just release these [people]; they try to kill us every day down there," he says. Keeping such people "off the streets" should be America's number-one priority, he adds.

Now it's our fault again. ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

U.S. invited
Korea threat
Reports say bargaining with Iran
led to Pyongyang's missile test

Is testing the will of the world's lone superpower a profitable exercise?

Yes, say many analysts, who suggest it is more than a coincidence that North Korea began preparations for an intercontinental ballistic missile test in the direction of the United States less than two weeks after America and its allies offered Iran new incentives for backing away from its nuclear arms program.

G2 Bulletin sources in the Pentagon and in foreign intelligence and defense establishments say North Korea was just doing what should be expected following the major powers effort to appease – or buy off – Iran.

"Why wouldn't Pyongyang become just a little more bellicose?" said one foreign intelligence operative with expertise in Far East matters. "After seeing Iran getting a sweeter deal after threatening Israel's existence in a dozen different ways, it only makes sense that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. North Korea wants some grease, too."

Not only is this a lesson based on observation from afar, some say, but it could well be part of a calculated effort based on consultation between North Korea and Iran – strategic allies who both see America as the ultimate evil in the world.

"Iran has learned key insights from North Korea's negotiating and bargaining tactics, including the importance of maintaining strategic ambivalence over its nuclear program," Lee Chung Min, a Korean expert on Asian security, told the Associated Press. "Both are pariah states, fiercely nationalistic and mistrustful of the great powers. So, they probably share a common bond in terms of their world views, i.e., that nuclear weapons can provide prestige and power against a very hostile external environment."

Iran has been a longtime customer of North Korean missile technology, and both states were linked to the network of A.Q. Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program who admitted passing nuclear technology to other countries.

North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 after ejecting U.N. inspectors, resumed work at its plutonium-based reactor and shifted from denials or ambiguity to defiant affirmations that it made atomic bombs. Pyongyang is believed to have a nuclear arsenal of about eight or nine warheads.

Tehran is considering a Western incentives package offered June 6 that would require it to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for electric plants or the material for nuclear warheads. The offer is similar to one North Korea accepted in 1994, though that deal later unraveled.

"The real lesson Iran learned from North Korea is that high-stakes brinksmanship brings rewards," arms control expert Mark Fitzpatrick wrote in Survival, a publication of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Fitzpatrick said North Korea's withdrawal from the nuclear arms control treaty gives credence to Iranian threats to do the same, "especially when North Korea paid no discernible price for it."

White House ponders NG nuclear warheads

The scientists who crack open the nation's nuclear weapons for a living are never quite sure what they will find inside.

Many of the warheads were designed and built 40 years ago, and their plutonium and other components are slowly breaking down in ways that researchers do not fully understand. With no new bombs in production, the government spends billions of dollars each year tending to its aging stockpile.

The Bush administration wants to revamp the entire arsenal with a weapon now on the drawing board named the Reliable Replacement Warhead.

The redesigned weapon is needed to ensure "a safe, secure, reliable and effective nuclear deterrent for the indefinite future," said Linton Brooks, chief of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The administration ordered up a competition between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The two laboratories submitted their proposals for the weapon in March. The White House plans to pick a winner by November.

As envisioned, the next-generation nuclear weapon would have the same destructive power as existing ones, but be durable enough to last for decades.

The next bomb is also meant to be so secure that it has jokingly been dubbed the "nuclear doorstop" - useless for any other purpose, should it fall into the wrong hands.

The government and the labs refuse to discuss details of the two designs, citing national security. But they describe both proposals as "conservative" blueprints meant to assure reliability without violating a moratorium on full-scale nuclear testing in place since 1992.

"We're not going to come up with anything cutting-edge and stick it in the stockpile without testing," said David Schwoegler, spokesman for Lawrence Livermore's nuclear weapons program.

The United States has not built a nuclear warhead since 1991. The government spends about $5 billion a year maintaining the weapons, and engineers have patched problems by opening up warheads that were never meant to be opened. The accumulation of tiny engineering changes meant the bombs moved incrementally away from their original designs, with unknown effects.

The White House believes designing a replacement warhead is vital to preserving the nation's nuclear edge, particularly amid looming questions about North Korea, which reportedly possesses several nuclear weapons, and Iran, which the administration fears wants them.

The redesign project "means making sure that aging phenomena don't cause us any questions about nuclear reliability," Brooks said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It means making sure that we incorporate safety and security and use-control in a way we didn't know how to do when we designed the stockpile."

Critics, including some former nuclear weapons scientists, question the need to resume nuclear weapons production, at a cost of billions of dollars, when they believe the current stockpile is safe and reliable and can remain so for years.

They also question whether a next-generation bomb can improve reliability and safety if it cannot be tested. Congress has financed the research on the condition that the redesigned weapon reduce the need for testing.

Opponents fear the project could send the wrong signal to the world at a time when the United States and its allies are trying to curb the spread of nuclear technology.

Brooks said North Korea and Iran play into the project only "indirectly," explaining that the administration would press for the program anyway. "We didn't sit down and say, 'Look, there's problems in Iran. Let's go and invent a new design,'" he said.

The project also aims to improve safeguards against accidental detonation or use of the weapons by terrorists, Brooks said. It marks the first time that an American nuclear bomb has been designed with those goals as the top priority.

Proponents say a revamped weapon could help the United States to reduce the number of warheads held in reserve in case other weapons are found to be faulty.

A new weapons production line would be needed to produce the bomb. For instance, the Rocky Flats, Colo., plant that once made plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads was shuttered in 1989. Los Alamos can only build a handful per year; the administration is aiming for 10 next year.

The Livermore and Los Alamos labs set aside bomb-designing more than a decade ago in favor of maintaining the current stockpile.

Each year, the nation's nuclear arsenal loses about a half-dozen bombs from its reserve of several thousand as the Livermore and Los Alamos teams rip them apart in what is called "destructive analysis." Others are painstakingly dismantled and refurbished with new parts.

On Thursday, engineers gathered at a high-security plant near Amarillo, Texas, to toast a milestone: the first rebuild of a B-61 nuclear bomb. It's the oldest warhead in the arsenal, having been designed in the early 1960s and built into the 1970s.

The government is spending $470 million over nine years to refurbish the B-61s. That's money the Bush administration would rather channel into an overhaul of the entire arsenal and the mostly dormant nuclear-weapons complex.

Brooks sees the bomb-redesign project as making that complex more adaptable.

"Any weapon we have will sooner or later go through some type of modernization or have (some) problem to repair, and right now that takes a very long time," he said.

Doctors vote to oppose euthanasia

DOCTORS voted yesterday to fight any attempts to legalise euthanasia and physician-assisted dying.

It was a significant change of stance by delegates at the British Medical Association conference in Belfast - last year, they voted to adopt a neutral position, neither opposing nor supporting assisted dying. But grass-roots doctors mounted a campaign to get the issue debated again, leading to yesterday's turnaround.

Michael Wilks, the chairman of the association's ethics committee, said: "The BMA's position is now opposition to any assisted dying legislation.

"Over a period of a year, the profession has spent an enormous amount of time thinking about this and has clearly come to a decision that is different to that of the people here last year."

The debate heard from doctors who believe patients suffering unbearable pain should be helped to die in the UK rather than face travelling to clinics such as Dignitas in Switzerland.

Dr John Fitton, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, said: "It is both inhumane and disgraceful to have to be resourceful enough to travel to more enlightened countries for this service."

He said some doctors seemed to think patients should put up with pain at the end of their lives. "Some patients find themselves in places staffed by people who think suffering is a good thing, a beneficial challenge from some kind of divine entity," he said.

But Dr Andrew Davies, an oncologist from Cardiff, said that with proper end-of-life care, patients could be helped to die with dignity.

He said patients' main fears were that they were becoming a financial and emotional burden on their families. "My concern is that a right to die will become a duty to die, a duty to unburden their families," Dr Davies said.

Delegates voted to oppose physician-assisted suicide, in which a doctor prescribes drugs to allow a patient to kill themselves, and voluntary euthanasia, where doctors have to administer the drugs themselves, by 65 per cent to 35 per cent. They opposed involuntary euthanasia, involving incompetent patients and children, by a huge majority - 94 per cent to 6 per cent.

However, they rejected calls to ballot all members of the BMA on the issue.

Dr Peter Saunders, the campaign director of pressure group Care Not Killing, welcomed the BMA's decision to oppose assisted dying. He said: "I think perhaps it is a strong call for the leadership of the BMA to listen to grass-roots opinion and it has become evident over the past 12 months that the BMA has been out of touch with those at the coal face."

He said the main task now was to tackle the postcode lottery of good end-of-life care so everyone in the last stages of life could die without pain and suffering.

"We still have a massive job in helping the general public understand what palliative care can offer and the dangers of backing a bill that would allow euthanasia because of the pressure it would put on vulnerable people to request an early death because of the financial and emotional burden they feel it puts on other people," he said.

But Dignity in Dying, which supports voluntary euthanasia, was disappointed at the BMA vote. Deborah Annetts, its chief executive, said: "The vote in Belfast came amid extensive lobbying by very active and organised religious lobby groups. Millions of people in the UK will be deeply disappointed at what the religious lobby groups have done. The BMA must now engage on a doctrinaire basis in this debate instead of a neutral and professional one."

Direct euthanasia, involving a clinician giving a lethal drug by injection when the patient is not capable of doing so, is legal only in Belgium, Colombia, the Netherlands, Japan and one US state - Oregon.

In the past five years, more than 20 terminally-ill Britons have approached a Swiss-based charity that helps people who decide to commit suicide. Assisted suicide is not illegal in Switzerland as long as the drugs are self-administered and the person is making a rational decision.

Some evangelicals starting to embrace Democrats

A convention of evangelical Christians gave standing ovations this week to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill.

And that's news, because pro-choice, pro-gay rights Democrats aren't usually favorites of evangelicals. But that could be changing as the Democratic Party tries to reconnect with "values voters," and some evangelical leaders try to extend religious debates beyond gay marriage and abortion.

"It's been terribly politicized and polarized. Moral values can't be narrowed to those two," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of the Sojourners. His "progressive evangelical" group organized a three-day conference in Washington this week to lobby politicians on behalf of the poor. Six hundred clergy and their followers attended workshops, listened to speeches and visited their congressional representatives.

Influential politicians from both sides of the political spectrum came to speak about poverty as a moral issue, including Republican evangelical favorites such as Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Sam Brownback of Kansas.

But there was Dean, too, a star speaker, even though he once proclaimed the Book of Job his favorite part of the New Testament. (It's in the Old Testament.)

Democrats were eager to cast many of their traditional issues, such as Social Security, affordable healthcare and a higher minimum wage, as moral concerns. America needs "a social safety net that will take care of people. That is the mark of true Christianity," Dean said.

"The budget is a moral document," Clinton said.

Obama said Democrats shouldn't let the "fear of getting preachy" stop them from talking about issues in terms of morality.

"Keeping the environment pristine and green and passing it on, I think that's a faith issue," said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.

Some speeches even had the air of a revival, with supporters shouting, "Amen" and "All right, preach it!"

The DNC confirmed that this was part of a larger program to reach out to religious voters. "These are part of ongoing efforts. I think you will definitely see more of this on our part," DNC spokeswoman Amaya Smith said. "This is part of our overall strategy."

Wallis is adamant that his anti-poverty movement is nonpartisan.

"God is not a Republican or a Democrat," he said. "I want Republicans to talk about more than gay marriage and abortion. I want Democrats to talk about abortion and poverty in moral terms."

Former NYPD Chief Kerik Pleads Guilty

NEW YORK -- Former police commissioner Bernard Kerik, whose rise from beat cop to nominee for Homeland Security head was derailed by ethics questions, dodged prison Friday in a plea bargain by admitting he took $165,000 in gifts from a company attempting to do business with the city.

Kerik, at a 10-minute hearing in state Supreme Court in the Bronx, pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanors under a deal that allows him to continue without interruption his new career as a security consultant in the Middle East.

Kerik acknowledged accepting $165,000 in renovations on his Bronx apartment from a company attempting to land city contracts _ Interstate Industrial Corp., a business reputedly linked to organized crime. And he admitted failing to report a $28,000 loan from a real estate developer as required by city law.

The transgressions occurred while Kerik was head of the city Correction Department.

In entering his plea, Kerik admitted speaking to city officials about Interstate, but never acknowledged a link between the renovations and his support of the company. Outside court, Kerik showed no sign of remorse and offered no apology.

"The last year and a half has been a tremendous burden," said Kerik, who must pay $221,000 in fines. "But today it's over. Now I can get on with my business."

City officials defended the deal with Kerik, saying he received the same treatment as any other defendant.

"He was arrested and booked, plain and simple," said Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the Department of Investigation. "He was fingerprinted and photographed, just like every other perp who gets arrested and processed by the agency he used to lead."

Kerik's close friend and former business partner, ex-mayor Rudolph Giuliani, said the guilty pleas do not diminish the former police commissioner's accomplishments.

"Bernard Kerik has acknowledged his violations, but this should be evaluated in light of his service to the United States of America and the City of New York," Giuliani said in a statement. Giuliani has said he was unaware of the Interstate links when he selected Kerik as police commissioner in 2000.

Kerik first drew national attention while leading the Police Department's response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. By late 2004, President Bush wanted him for homeland security chief, but he withdrew after acknowledging he had not paid all taxes for a family nanny-housekeeper and that the woman may have been in the country illegally.

More problems surfaced last year when the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement filed court papers seeking to revoke Interstate Industrial's license to work on casinos in Atlantic City. The papers cited testimony by mob turncoats that owners Frank and Peter DiTommaso were associates of the Gambino organized crime family.

The civil complaint also detailed Kerik's cozy relationship with an Interstate official. In 1999, he sent a series of e-mails to the official that "indicated his lack of sufficient funds to both purchase and renovate his new Bronx apartment" and "indicated he would provide information to Frank DiTommaso regarding New York City contracts," the papers said.

In recent months, a grand jury has heard conflicting testimony from the DiTommaso brothers _ who denied paying for the renovations _ and from a contractor who said they picked up most of the tab.

As a result of Kerik's plea, a city jail facility in lower Manhattan _ the Bernard B. Kerik Complex _ is now named for someone saddled with a criminal record. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not made a decision about whether the facility should be renamed, spokesman Stu Loeser said.

Congress scurries to create legislation for military tribunals

Wasting little time, Congress is moving quickly to begin writing legislation to allow the creation of military tribunals, following a Supreme Court decision that repudiated the Bush administration's use of such tribunals to try Guantanamo detainees without authorization from Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he would introduce legislation on the tribunals after the 4th of July recess, which extends through next week. Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he wants to work with the White House on crafting a bill to punish terrorists using legal procedures.

And Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., introduced a bill Thursday night, just hours after the court's decision, that he said would balance the need for national security with the need for due process.

But not all lawmakers are sure that Congress should write new legislation. Some believe that civilian courts or courts-martial convened according to military law are sufficient to resolve the cases regarding the detainees.

"We should stay as close as possible to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the assistant Democratic leader who serves on the Judiciary Committee.

Durbin said it is not clear whether the military tribunals that the administration created would be able to continue.

"That is going to be the challenge, whether we can create a separate tribunal and meet the guidelines the Supreme Court set," he said.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, plans to hold a series of hearings beginning the week of July 10 to examine what needs to be done and whether legislation is required, said John Ullyot, the committee's spokesman. He said the committee would hear from lawyers from every branch of the military service to determine the best way to move forward.

Specter said the Judiciary Committee would hold a hearing on July 11. His legislation would authorize the use of a military commission, or tribunal, for people charged with specific offenses.

Ullyot, however, said Warner has not formed a view as to whether legislation is necessary. "He wants to make sure we get it right," Ullyot said.

House leaders were less vocal about their plans, and it is not clear whether they will proceed as quickly as the Senate. The House Republican leadership may be waiting to consult with the White House.

Shortly after the decision, President Bush said he was looking forward to working with Congress to craft legislation authorizing the tribunals. But with congressional elections four months away, it is not clear how such a course would play out politically.

Democrats could try to use congressional hearings and any debate on tribunals to air their criticisms of the panels, of Bush's assertion of presidential powers and of the administration's fight against terror generally. At the same time, the White House and GOP leaders could portray Democrats as soft on terrorism, a political tactic that has proven effective in the past.

The congressional debate is likely to include a politically fraught argument on what procedures the tribunals should use and what sorts of rights should be accorded the defendants, whom the administration suspects of being terrorists.

In Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that Congress could legalize the administration's military tribunal system. The court also kept open the option of using the U.S. court system or the military justice system.

In a statement, Frist said he preferred the use of military tribunals to consider the cases of individual detainees.

"To keep America safe in the war on terror, I believe we should try terrorists only before military commissions, not in our civilian courts," he said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the ruling would help Congress "get this system unstuck."

"I'm confident that we can come up with a framework that guarantees we comply with the court's order but at the same time none of the bad people are set free," McCain said Friday on NBC's "Today" show.

The U.S. military began sending people suspected of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba four years ago. Many of the nearly 500 prisoners have never been charged with a crime, and the court's ruling does not clarify their situation.

Despite the court's suggestion that it is up to Congress to create some sort of legal framework, however, there is little guarantee that lawmakers will agree on a plan and be able to move quickly during an extremely contentious election year.

Some members of Congress said they had repeatedly offered to work with the White House, only to be rebuffed.

"I introduced a bill more than four years ago that would have ensured the constitutionality of military tribunals and protected any convictions they might yield, while at the same time showing the world that we will fight terrorists without sacrificing our values," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

"My bill offered the president a bipartisan model of how to avoid this mess," Leahy said. "He refused to work with me or the Congress but insisted on going it alone."

U.S. Senate Weighs Risks and Attractions of Medical Tourism

The U.S. Senate Committee on Aging spent some time Tuesday morning considering the subject of medical tourism. Thousands of Americans each year are finding travel abroad a reasonable alternative to the high cost of getting well at home.

Private health insurance offers Americans access to some of the world's best medical care . but millions of Americans, mostly working class people, can't afford coverage. As a result, some travel abroad for surgery and other care, paying a fraction of what it would cost here in the United States.

One of them is Howard Staab. Two years ago, he discovered he needed heart valve surgery. He didn't have health insurance. His partner, Maggi Ann Grace, told the Senate committee they got a cost estimate from a hospital near their home in North Carolina.

"The hospital bill alone was estimated at $100,000," she said. "The valve itself, the surgeon, cardiologist, anesthesiologist, radiologist, and pathologist - all billed separately - would bring the total closer to $200,000 - if there were no complications."

Instead, after considering their options, they flew to India, where Staab had a mitral valve replacement. The cost, including travel and all expenses for the both of them, was less than $7,000. Their doctor, [Naresh Trehan] at the Escorts Heart Institute in New Delhi, had spent years teaching and in practice in New York, and Staab says, compared with his experience in American hospitals, his hospitalization in India was superior.

"In the promptness, in the degree of expertise, the experience of the surgeons and staff. We had typically one to two nurses around the clock, push-button was answered within seconds. They offered and administered baths and massages, and changed the bedding daily. It was truly excellent care," Stabb said in an interview.

Not all the stories have a happy ending, however. In some cases, the result of medical tourism can be "disastrous outcomes" - that's the phrase used by Dr. Bruce Cunningham, who heads the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. "I'm personally well aware of cases which are reported in the media and which confront myself and my colleagues and other physicians of patients returning to this country with disfigurement and nearly fatal infections associated with unaccredited hospitals and unlicensed providers. Patients simply cannot make informed decisions about medical care or establish a proper patient-physician relationship from a travel brochure."

The plastic surgeons represented by Dr. Cunningham's organization might see surgeons in India or Thailand or Mexico as business competitors. Financial considerations, as well as medical quality, are a key part of this health care debate. And not just for patients and doctors.

Except for the very poor and the elderly, most Americans who have heath insurance get it through their jobs, so the cost of health care is also a concern for employers.

Blue Ridge Paper Products is a small manufacturing company. It has been employee-owned since 1999, and with a workforce of mostly men in their 40s and older, health care costs were getting out of hand. The company is unionized, and American unions have been among the strongest opponents of outsourcing. But company benefits director Bonnie Blackley said workers were enthusiastic at a presentation that explained a new health plan that would pay for medical treatments abroad.

"You could tell every slide that they showed, more and more people were going, 'Oh my gosh, we never knew about this.' We really had some excitement there," she recalled. "'This sounds like a good deal, sounds like excellent health care. It's affordable. This will save our company a lot of money.'"

But in the end, American patients and their families want the assurance that a foreign facility will be offering them or their loved ones the best possible care. As long ago as 1997, the Joint Committee on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which certifies the quality of U.S. hospitals, set up an international affiliate. JCI, as it is known, certifies hospitals in about 25 countries, with highly credentialed doctors.

"Many of these hospitals offer board-certified surgeons who trained at U.S. teaching hospitals," said Arnold Milstein of the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents large employers who spend a lot of money on health care for their workers. His group found that select accredited hospitals in India, Thailand and Mexico provided quality surgical care at costs 60 - 85 % lower than in U.S. hospitals. At the same time, he stressed that sending patients abroad is not the answer to the high cost of medical care in the United States. "The out-migration of Americans for surgical care is a symptom, not a solution," Milstein concluded.

The American healthcare system delivers high quality for those who can afford it, or those who have good insurance. For the rest, a hospital stay in Thailand or India, followed by recuperation at a five-star resort, is starting to look like just what the doctor ordered.

US Senate spending plan would cut security funding for big cities
The bulk of the money targeted for the Coast Guard and border security programs

The Senate Appropriations Committee agreed Thursday to delay requirements for passports or other secure documents from travelers--including Americans-- entering the U.S. from Canada or Mexico until June 2009.

The committee also agreed to make a $12 million (euro9.58 million) cut next year for counterterror funding to cities under a spending plan approved by the Senate panel.

The proposed funding drop follows bitter protests from New York and Washington, D.C.,--two cities targeted in the 9/11 terror attacks after the Homeland Security Department last month slashed their annual share by 40 percent.

The changes were part of an overall $31.7 billion (euro25.3 billion) Homeland Security spending blueprint for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The plan wouldboost security funding by $715 million (euro570.68 million) more than what the White House requested, and $1.4 million (euro1.12 million) beyond current spending levels.

But it would reduce spending for the nation's high-risk big cities from the $757 million (euro604.2 million) in 2006 to $745 million (euro594.62 million) in fiscal 2007. The White House had requested $838 million (euro668.85 million) for such cities in 2007.

Last month, New York and Washington officials howled after watching their 2006 funding levels drop by 40 percent while cities like Omaha, Nebraska, got a boost.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said the Senate spending plan does not cover needs for New York ''or anywhere else.'' ''This drop in funding starts us off already in a hole,'' Schumer said.

The spending plan also would delay a controversial border security program for 17 months as lawmakers said the Bush administration appears unable to meet its initial January 2008 deadline. The program would require passports or a small number of other tamper-resistant identification from travelers who now enter the U.S. from Mexico and Canada using birth certificates and drivers' licenses.

The bulk of the money in the spending plan is targeted for the Coast Guard and for transportation and border security programs.

Sen. Judd Gregg, who oversees the panel's homeland security spending, said the plan makes sure the funding ''is concentrated on the greatest threats facing our nation: border security, preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence gathering capacity.'' He said the plan will be considered by the full Senate as soon as lawmakers return from a weeklong July 4 recess.

The House approved a $32 billion (euro25.54 billion) Homeland Security spending plan in early June.

Corzine Shuts N.J. Gov't Down Amid Dispute Over Sales Tax

Gov. Jon S. Corzine closed the state government Saturday amid a bitter dispute with fellow Democrats in the Assembly over his plan to increase the sales tax, threatening to shutter beaches, parks and possibly casinos in the coming days.

After Saturday's constitutional deadline to adopt a new balanced budget passed without agreement, Corzine signed an executive order just after 9:30 a.m., a grim climax to weeks of budget squabbling among Democrats who control state government but haven't been able to agree on a budget bill.

"It gives me no joy, no satisfaction, no sense of empowerment to do what I'm forced to do here," Corzine said.

Within minutes of Corzine signing the order, road construction projects were required to begin winding down. Motor vehicle offices planned to close at noon. About 45,000 state employees were immediately furloughed. State courts were closed for anything but emergencies. State-run beaches are set to close Wednesday morning.

Services such as state police, prisons, mental hospitals and child welfare were to keep operating. The casinos could be forced to close because they require state monitoring, though the casino industry is challenging a possible closure in court.

A bid by Atlantic City's 12 casinos Friday to get state monitors declared "essential employees" who would stay on the job despite a government shutdown is now before an emergency appellate court panel, casino association lawyer John Kearney said Saturday.

The dispute centers on Corzine's determination to raise the state sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent to help close a $4.5 billion budget deficit.

Corzine sees the increase as a vital step toward providing reliable annual revenue, but most Democrats in the Assembly — the lower house of the state Legislature — and several Senate Democrats say the plan is unnecessary.

Opponents have questioned the need for a sales tax increase, predicting voter backlash and demanding that any increase be reserved for property tax reform.

The state Constitution requires a balanced budget by July 1, but the deadline has been missed four times in five years. Nothing happened when deadlines were missed before, but the state never went past the morning of July 2 without an adopted budget. Without one, the state has no authority to spend money.

Mexican ex-president ordered arrested in massacre

A judge on Friday ordered the arrest of Mexico's former President Luis Echeverria for a 1968 student massacre in a surprise move just two days before a presidential election.

An appeals court found enough evidence to support the charge of genocide brought against Echeverria, 84, by special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo and hold the former president for trial, reversing a lower court decision last year.

The arrest order, after two failed attempts in recent years to charge Echeverria with genocide, is a breakthrough in outgoing President Vicente Fox's halting drive to punish those responsible for past government brutality. Fox leaves office in December.

"For the first time in Mexico's history a president will be tried in this way," Carrillo said after receiving Judge Jose Angel Mattar's 1,200-page resolution in the complex case. "This will work against a repetition of abuse of power, to impede it forever."

Echeverria is expected to be held under house arrest due to his age and health concerns, defense attorney Juan Velasquez said. Echeverria was president from 1970 to 1976, at the height of a so-called dirty war against leftists.

He was interior minister in charge of national security when government troops stormed a student rally in the capital on October 2, 1968, days before the opening of the Mexico City Olympics in a tragedy that remains an open wound for many Mexicans.

'HISTORIC ACCOMPLISHMENT'

"This is an historic accomplishment after a long struggle by many for justice and truth in the face of a criminal state in the Echeverria era," said Joel Ortega, who witnessed the massacre as a student protester.

Voters go to the polls on Sunday in the first presidential election since 2000, when Fox ousted the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for seven decades, at times using repression to crush dissent.

It was not clear what impact the arrest order could have on the vote, which is seen as a test of Mexico's young democracy after a history of authoritarian and often corrupt presidents.

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has a wafer-thin lead in the polls over ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon.

PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo is in third place in opinion polls and his party has criticized the probe into past rights abuses.

Officials said about 30 people were killed in what came to be known as the Tlatelolco massacre. But witnesses and rights activists put the death toll as high as 300. Echeverria has denied responsibility for the blood bath.

Carrillo, named by Fox to investigate and prosecute dirty-war crimes, says Echeverria oversaw a bloody campaign to stamp out dissidents when he was interior minister and president.

International rights groups question the charge, however, saying that the 1968 massacre and other crimes of the period do not meet international definitions of genocide.

But Carrillo said Judge Mattar's decision on Friday upheld the prosecution's argument that genocide had occurred in the Tlatelolco massacre and there was evidence that Echeverria was behind it.

Hundreds of leftists were killed or disappeared at the hands of government security forces from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Government to vote on supplying electricity to Gaza

The government will vote Sunday on a proposal to supply electricity from Israel to the Gaza Strip, in order to resume electricity to the area after an Israel Air Force strike on a Palestinian power station there.

If approved, the Israel Electric Corporation will erect special electrical lines stretching from Israel into Gaza. According to government sources, Sunday's vote follows days of international pressure.

The Gaza Strip requires 200 megawatts of electricity, half of which is provided by the power station, and half which is supplied by the Israel Electric Corporation. After the IAF strike, the power station's capacity was cut by half.

United States officials said Saturday that U.S. funds would be used to pay for the damages caused by the strike. The power station was insured by a U.S. government agency, according to The Boston Globe.

The U.S. Foreign and Defense Ministry departments that oversee foreign relations were unaware of the decision to target civilian facilities in the Strip, or the decision to attack the power station. Because of this, officials did not know that the station was insured by a U.S. government agency. Israel did not inform the U.S. prior to attacking the power station.

The power station in Gaza was built over a period of five years, at a cost of $150 million. In 1999, the Enron Corporation, along with Palestinian businessman Said Khoury, began working on the project. In 2000, Khoury's Morganti Group purchased Enron's share of the project.

The power station began operating in 2002, reaching full commercial capacity in 2004. The owners of the power station insured it, through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, for a sum of $48 million due to "political risks." OPIC is a U.S. government authority that insures U.S. investments in developing markets.

A spokesman for the agency said the insurance purchased by the Morganti Group covers instances of political violence, which include wars and acts of terror.

The plant supplies electricity to some 860,000 people.

Mexican conservative could buck trend

For all the talk of the rise of Latin America's left, Mexican presidential hopeful Felipe Calderon could show on Sunday that, while unfashionable, U.S.-style conservatives can still win hearts and minds.

Years of stuttering market reforms under outgoing President
Vicente Fox from free trade to a credit card bonanza have taken root among many voters who fear leftists so popular in countries like Venezuela and Bolivia could bring ruin.

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is a slight favorite in Sunday's elections but polls are so close that a win for the Harvard-educated Calderon, promising more foreign investment and pro-business reforms, is a real possibility.

The core of Calderon's support lies with an emerging middle class in Mexico enjoying years of relative financial stability following the currency devaluations and debt crises that plagued the country in the 1980s and 1990s.

Under Fox, who ended 71 years of Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, rule six years ago, many Mexicans have enjoyed greater access to consumer credit despite tepid growth. The number of credit cards in Mexico has nearly tripled during his term and a stable peso has spawned more savings accounts and mortgages.

The NAFTA free trade deal has sparked an explosion in U.S. goods. Consumers flock to Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Shopping malls that would not be out of place in U.S. suburbia litter many wealthier Mexican cities near the U.S. border.

Many middle-class Mexicans now have something to lose.

"(With Calderon) we'll have stability," said 36-year-old aerobics teacher Maripi Ablanedo Vargas, who bought a house with a mortgage thanks to lower interest rates.

"(Lopez Obrador) only speaks about raising wages, but where's the money going to come from? He'll increase debts, everything will rise, inflation," Vargas added.

BENEFITING THE RICH?

For Vargas, these benefits under Fox are in danger from Lopez Obrador's populist anti-poverty crusade, which she fears will mean a return to wasteful high spending.

Calderon is hoping to follow the electoral successes of pro-U.S. conservatives like Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

But many other Latin Americans are rebelling against decades of market reforms and millions of poor Mexicans distrust conservatives. They feel governments like Fox's benefit the rich and do little to create jobs.

Much of Calderon's support comes from northern Mexico, where factories catering to U.S. consumers have led to rising wages, auto and housing booms. Lopez Obrador's support is strongest in southern states, where poverty is endemic.

Calderon, a stiffish 43-year-old lawyer, was for months an underdog in the race. His message of continuity from Fox was uninspiring for many Mexicans who packed rallies to hear the more charismatic Lopez Obrador promise better pensions and health care.

But Calderon gathered support midway through the campaign by playing on fears of radicalism, portraying Lopez Obrador as "danger for Mexico."

"Calderon has the more coherent economic policies. He is not going to make us suffer as small businessmen," said cantina owner Mundo Tavera, a lifelong PRI supporter.

"With Lopez Obrador, all I can think about is shielding myself from devaluations."

While Calderon's enemies paint him as elitist, he has tried to swing independent voters by selling himself as the image of modernity against the out-of-date economic nationalism of his rival.

"Calderon represents the consolidation of Mexico's modernization project. This is a project that has been taking root in Mexico," said Carlos Sirvent, a political science professor at Mexico's UNAM university.

"People talk about a leftist backlash in Latin America but it's not so simple. Much of the impact of free trade is here to stay, no matter who wins," he added.

Historic shutdown 'no joy' for Corzine
The governor's closing of the N.J. government was a first. And until the budget is balanced, some services will stay shut. Efforts are under way today.

TRENTON - Gov. Corzine declared an unprecedented New Jersey state government shutdown yesterday after failing to come to a budget agreement with lawmakers by yesterday's constitutional deadline.

Corzine's historic action brought a quick halt to lottery sales, horse racing and road construction projects.

Atlantic City's 12 casinos were in court, fighting a possible closure.

And if the budget standoff continues through the holiday weekend, state campgrounds and parks - including Island Beach State Park - could close Wednesday.

"It gives me no joy, no satisfaction, no sense of empowerment to do what I am forced to do today," Corzine said at a morning Statehouse news conference.

The Democratic freshman governor and majority-party Democratic lawmakers remain locked in a stalemate over legislative resistance to the governor's proposed increase in the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent to solve years-long fiscal crises.

Without a state budget, the state has no legal authority to spend money.

Corzine signed an executive order yesterday allowing the normal operation of prisons, state police, state hospitals, child-welfare work and other services considered essential.

But the order closes motor vehicle offices, mostly shutters state court activity, and puts 45,000 of the 80,000 state employees on furlough until the shutdown ends.

Atlantic City casinos were operating normally yesterday, but were legally fighting their possible closure. The casinos require the presence of state inspectors.

No action was expected until at least noon today, the deadline for the casino association to file more information before the state appellate court, said casino attorney John Kearney. Corzine said he would allow the court to decide whether the casinos would shut down.

That the state's constitutional deadline fell on a weekend allowed a bit of a breather before the first official business day tomorrow. And state parks would not close until after the busy holiday weekend, officials said.

But the shutdown dismayed racing officials, who were forced to shut down racing and simulcasting at the Meadowlands Racetrack and Monmouth Park yesterday evening because state regulators could not be on duty.

Racing officials said that the July Fourth weekend was one of their busiest each year and that they could lose $1 million in revenue if the shutdown continued through the holiday.

Corzine said yesterday that the shutdown would cost the state money, but no estimates were available. State employees considered nonessential would not get paid for the shutdown, but the governor said he hoped to negotiate with lawmakers to provide some compensation after the shutdown is over.

If it continues for several weeks, it could also affect state employees' health benefits and the payment of welfare checks, state officials said.

Though the statehouse was mostly quiet yesterday, legislators said they were determined to end the shutdown within days.

Still, Corzine continued to press for the sales-tax increase. And Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, who is leading the opposition, wasn't budging from his position, either.

"It is our view, and it is a majority view, that there is a better way to balance the budget than relying on the regressive sales tax," Roberts said.

He called the shutdown "avoidable and extraordinarily unfortunate" and has told Assembly budget committee members to be prepared to work today into tomorrow "so that Democrats and Republicans can redouble efforts to find a consensus budget," he said.

Senate President Richard J. Codey also asked all senators to come back at noon tomorrow and to be prepared to remain in session until a budget was adopted.

Roberts said that he, Corzine and Codey plan to meet today.

Codey has offered a compromise that would reserve half the sales-tax proceeds for property-tax relief. Corzine has said he is interested in it, but Roberts has rejected it in favor of an alternative plan that would raise payroll taxes and impose other fees on furs, rental cars and magazines.

So the Corzine administration remained $1 billion apart from an agreement with Assembly leaders - about the same amount the sales-tax increase would raise, said state Treasurer Bradley Abelow. Talks on Friday got the sides only about $8 million closer, he said.

Around mid-afternoon yesterday, Abelow said he was surprised at the lack of action. "I'm walking around and there's no one here," said Abelow, shrugging his shoulders. "I take it they don't feel the same sense of urgency."

The constitution does not address what happens if the deadline is not met. In past years, lawmakers have frozen the clock at 11:59 p.m. for more time to work out budget disputes without consequence - hence avoiding a previous shutdown.

But Corzine's chief counsel, Stuart Rabner, said that wasn't happening this year.

"The problem with the so-called notion of 'stopping the clock,' " Rabner said, "is that it does not, in fact, stop the passage of time."

The Issue

Gov. Corzine, who remains at odds with legislators about his proposed increase in the state sales tax, ordered a shutdown of state government yesterday.

Corzine sought a tax increase to close a $4.5 billion deficit in the state's $31 billion budget. But some legislators argued that cutting spending and expanding existing taxes could achieve the same goal.

New Jersey has missed the June 30 budget deadline three times in the last five years, but no governor had ever ordered a shutdown, says the state's Office of Legislative Services, the research arm of the Legislature.

Effect of Shutdown

• No lottery tickets, no payouts. The lottery stopped selling tickets. Drawings will continue for any tickets sold, but winners will not be paid until the shutdown ends.

No horse racing. Horse racing and simulcasting at the Meadowlands Racetrack and Monmouth Park stopped.

• Casinos could shut Atlantic City's 12 casinos, which can't operate without state inspectors, face a noon deadline today to file more information to court to prevent closure. Corzine said he would let the court decide.

• Parks open on the Fourth. The state campgrounds and parks - including the state's two beaches - are expected to be open through the holiday. They would close Wednesday.

• Motor Vehicle Commission shut.Motor vehicle offices closed yesterday.

• Employees furloughed. About 45,000 of the state's 80,000 employees, considered nonessential workers, are on furlough.

• Courts shut. Courts will be mainly closed beginning tomorrow.

• Still operating. New Jersey Transit operations, prisons, state police, developmental centers, veterans' homes, mental hospitals, disease prevention and health officers, child welfare, transportation safety work, environmental contamination response, amusement park inspectors.

California anti-terror agency denies monitoring rallies
Security director says draft memos were produced by consultants

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Saturday that he was ordering the release of dozens of intelligence reports prepared for the state Office of Homeland Security — a step that comes as lawmakers from both parties are denouncing a practice in which state intelligence agents compiled information about political and anti-war rallies.

Schwarzenegger administration officials say there were only two cases in which state homeland security agents collected material on political protests in recent months.

Releasing the full trove of intelligence reports will prove that point, according to those officials.

State lawmakers from both parties said it was inexcusable that two such intelligence reports from March and April carried details about the location and purpose of political rallies throughout California.

The two reports were obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

"The governor believes that any inappropriate information gathering like this is totally unacceptable," said Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger's communications director.

The governor's homeland security director, Matthew Bettenhausen, said the material was mistakenly included in the reports by a private contractor working for his office.

Schwarzenegger will allow the press to review the approximately 60 intelligence reports, but no copies will be allowed, Mendelsohn said.

The homeland security office quickly arranged a news conference Saturday morning to offer some reassurances.

Bettenhausen said there was no surveillance of any of the political demonstrations that were listed in the intelligence reports.

One of the rallies was staged by animal advocates protesting the slaughter of Canadian seals.

Another was a women's peace protest aimed at showing support for a Salinas woman facing charges of trespassing at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Several other protests concerned the war in Iraq.

Lopez Obrador stirs deeply divided race
Critics say his ideas are a danger to the country, while others say he has solutions

MEXICO CITY - About 40 million Mexicans head to the polls today to choose a president in a down-to-the-wire race, with Mexico poised to join Latin America's political left.

The vote comes against a backdrop of political division and social unrest not seen in years.

Wildcat strikes about work conditions, urban peasant clashes with riot police and drug-cartel violence in which police have been decapitated underscore calls for change.

"The whole justice system is bad," said Maria Isabel Miranda, whose son was kidnapped and murdered by a gang led by a corrupt cop.

Others say despite the violence, the government is more open than ever, the economy is stable and social programs have delivered cement floors for homes, computers for classrooms and mortgages for families.

Mexico's internationally respected electoral institute is expected to deliver a clean vote.

To combat fraud, officials are deploying observers, guarding ballots and voters' thumbs will be dipped in ink.

To reduce rowdiness, bars are closed for the weekend.

And to avoid the appearance of meddling, outgoing President Vicente Fox won't address the nation until vote totals are released.

If the margin is close, officials will likely hold off projections from partial totals.

A close election is complicated by the possibility of the loser not conceding.

Most Mexicans don't trust the government to honestly tally ballots, and if incited, could protest, block highways and carry out work stoppages.

However it turns out, the election amounts to a referendum on leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party.

The vote could render him a footnote or give him the chance to save the masses and become a bogeyman to the wealthy, whose privileges he threatens.

"His proposals, like giving away money, will take us nowhere," said Jorge Aguilarv, 38, an insurance agent, as he walked along posh Avenida Masaryk, where everything from Ferraris to diamond watches are sold. "A lot of investment will flee the country."

Standing in Lopez Obrador's way is Felipe Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party.

The Harvard-educated conservative promises to keep Mexico on a course of economic stability and push reforms that he says will lead to more and better-paying jobs.

Neither candidate has directly bad-mouthed Washington, but both say they want to lead a strong, independent government. They've also said they want to see more Mexicans legally working in the United States, but create jobs so people won't go north as immigrants.

Time is running out for people like Porfirio Espinosa Rojanov, a down-on-his luck farmer who lives outside Mexico City and doesn't even have enough money to buy enough seed to plant his entire football-field size plot of land.

"I do not know what I am going do. Let's see if the next president brings us more work," said Espinosa, 48. "If not, I am going to go the United States."

He wouldn't say who he supports.

If Calderon defeats Lopez Obrador, the former Mexico City mayor isn't expected to go quietly.

A master at mobilizing the masses, it would surprise few if he challenged the vote in the courts and led massive marches.

Win or lose, this election is about Lopez Obrador.

He is portrayed by the PAN as "a danger to Mexico," but supporters think he is the solution for poverty and corruption.

"Our society is strongly divided; there is a left and right like we have never seen before, but it is not like the left of (Cuban leader Fidel) Castro or (Venezuelan leader) Hugo Chavez," said leftist intellectual Carlos Monsivais.

"We must not be defeated by pacifism and conformity; we need to try an alternative and to me that alternative is Lopez Obrador," Monsivais said.

But Jorge Castañeda, who was Fox's foreign minister, calls Lopez Obrador dangerous and said he had no respect for laws that get in his way.

"He is ideologically quite similar to Chavez and the Cuban government," Castañeda said. "He is someone who will do a lot of harm to U.S.-Mexican relations."

There is a consensus on one thing: Lopez Obrador is the candidate most likely to challenge Washington. He's also more likely to forge ties with a Latin America that is increasingly moving to the left.

"Behind closed doors, the United States is somewhat concerned about," a Lopez Obrador victory, said Pamela Starr, a Latin America analyst.

"Clearly, the United States would prefer somebody like Felipe Calderon. ... Lopez Obrador is somewhat an unknown commodity for the United States," she said.

Calderon said he will demand respect from Washington, but he is seen as less a risk than Lopez Obrador for furthering the divide with the Bush administration.

For some families, a president fighting for the poor could have a lasting effect.

As mayor of Mexico City, where he governed with high approval ratings until resigning to campaign, Lopez Obrador started pension-like programs for the elderly, disabled and single mothers.

He used his daily 6 a.m. news conferences as a springboard to bolster his national profile in preparation for a presidential run, and was admired for having an economy car and modest apartment. He is known for paranoid tendencies.

As president, critics fear he would use his powers to manipulate Mexico's weak justice system.

Starr calls these concerns exaggerated, as Lopez Obrador promises fiscal discipline.

"From the perspective of the elite, they are rightfully concerned, because Lopez Obrador will try to dramatically reduce their historic and economic privileges in the country," said Starr, adding that he'd make them pay taxes and halt corporate monopolies.

That's a stark contrast to Calderon, who promises to broaden Mexico's tax base without scaring off investment, which he insists is key to improving life for the poor.

Calderon is seen as a safe bet for those who support democratic and economic reforms envisioned by Fox, and aims to bolster Mexico's global competitiveness and leadership role in Latin America.

While most Mexicans might not trust institutions from courts to police to the presidency there is a feeling that their presidential vote will really count for only the second time in modern history.

In 2000, Mexicans from all along the political spectrum came together to elect Fox, who defeated the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled for 71 years.

Prior to that, presidential elections were seen as a rubber stamp on the presidential tradition of handpicking a successor.

Although Lopez Obrador is running first in most polls and Calderon a close second, some observers have suggested that Roberto Madrazo, candidate for the flailing PRI, has an outside shot. Local offices are still the PRI's strong point. The party governs 17 of Mexico's 32 states and 70 percent of its municipalities.

FEMA to aid 8 counties
Tioga County, individuals could be included later; Pataki rips feds for not giving more funding now

BINGHAMTON -- The federal government Saturday declared eight flood-ravaged counties in New York eligible for cleanup aid but excluded Tioga County and four others the state had requested be covered.

In addition, no money was made available for individuals who suffered losses, though that may change.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency declaration includes money for only infrastructure repair and debris removal.

However, the top FEMA official in New York said she expects other counties to be declared disaster areas shortly, and that individuals in the hardest-hit counties will eventually get FEMA help.

The FEMA decision brought a sharp rebuke from Gov. George E. Pataki.

"While we appreciate the complexity and magnitude of the enormous task at hand, some determinations are simply self-evident," Pataki said in a statement.

"As we move forward with state relief efforts, I will continue to press FEMA for a swift, complete and full disaster declaration that meets not only the needs of local government but also the needs of individual hard-pressed New Yorkers," he said.

Under the declaration announced Saturday, the agency will provide aid for Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Herkimer, Montgomery, Otsego, Sullivan and Ulster counties. But the state had asked for aid for five more: Tioga, Cortland, Orange, Schoharie and Oneida. All were left off the list, according to Jason Brown, a Pataki spokesman.

But the top FEMA official, Maryanne Jackson, said the Saturday declaration merely represented "up-front money."

"We want to get assistance out as quickly as possible," she said, and expects there will be more once damage estimates from local governments are verified. "Other determinations will be made quickly," she said, meaning "within days, certainly."

The FEMA declaration means that the federal government will pay 75 percent of the costs of eligible projects like the repair of roads, bridges and water-treatment plants in the covered counties, as well as three-quarters of the cost of removing debris. Pataki has already pledged $10 million in state money to pay the rest.

There is not yet a reliable estimate for how much it will cost to repair flood damage, but Pataki said earlier this week he thinks it will be at least $100 million. He also has pledged $25 million more in state money for grants of up to $5,000 for individuals.

"FEMA needs to come down there and see the damage," said Assemblywoman Donna A. Lupardo, D-Endwell, who spent Saturday checking out damaged homes and facilities in Johnson City and Endicott. She said the number of damaged homes runs into the thousands.

"We have to keep pushing the point with FEMA that individuals need help," she said.

McCain talks war, religion, immigration

Music Festival crowd peppers former presidential candidate with questions

Republican Sen. John McCain told a crowd gathered at the Benedict Music Tent he thinks the war on terror will "go on for a long time" and that he supports the Bush administration's approach to preventing Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

The one-time presidential candidate fielded questions from an audience assembled Saturday night for the Aspen Music Festival's "Evening of Words and Music."

McCain sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 but then supported his opponent, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, after losing the nomination to him in the primaries.

A veteran of the Vietnam War, McCain was a prisoner of war in Hanoi for more than five years. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958, and one of his sons followed in his footsteps, marking the fourth generation of McCains to attend that service academy. Another son recently enlisted in the Marines, and McCain told Saturday's crowd he will report for duty on Sept. 11.

In a CNN poll conducted June 1-6, 60 percent of respondents said they "might consider" or "would definitely vote for" McCain if he runs for president in 2008.

The Arizona senator identified finding new sources of oil and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction "as they become easier and easier to acquire" as other priorities for the United States.

On the home front, McCain said Congress must address a failure to control spending and broken Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid systems.

"It's not a matter of whether - it's a matter of when these two safety systems are no longer there," he said.

Although the national economy is good and unemployment is low, McCain said most Americans still fear they won't have jobs or health care in the future.

"We have a booming economy, [but] 65-70 percent feel America is on the wrong track," he said.

Audience members, including California Congresswoman Jane Harman, drilled McCain on immigration issues, ongoing controversy surrounding prisoner abuse at military prisons, how the United States should be involved in combating genocide in Sudan, teaching evolution and creationism in schools and on the government's eavesdropping on Americans' phone calls.

McCain said the current immigration problem is a "product of 40-50 years of broken American policy" and that to stem the tide of incoming illegals, he "would enforce the borders - we're doing that now."

With regard to the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country, McCain said there are three options: the status quo, which he said is "not acceptable"; sending the immigrants back to their homelands - unlikely; and making them become citizens. He said the United States' current system for earning citizenship is lengthy and complicated and does not fit the definition of amnesty.

"Four-hundred and ten people died in the desert of Arizona last year," he said. "Many of [those who survive] are exploited and abused and mistreated."

McCain said those immigrants are offered no protection under American laws.

On the question of the United States' failure to act against acts of genocide in Rwanda and what the country's role should be in Sudan, McCain noted that the U.S. did intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo, and he said he is proud of the nation's actions there. However, he called the country's failure to act in Rwanda a "black mark" on American history.

As for Sudan, the senator said he would want the nation to "provide whatever logistic assistance we need to get African troops into the area." And if that fails, he would "send American troops rather than see millions of people die."

In the final question of the evening, an audience member asked McCain to outline his stance on teaching evolution and creationism in schools.

"I think Americans should be exposed to every point of view," he said. "I happen to believe in evolution. ... I respect those who think the world was created in seven days. Should it be taught as a science class? Probably not."

Nevertheless, the senator said he does believe in God, and he doesn't think Christian groups have too much influence on the Republican Party.

"I think there's room for the religious right in our party," he said.

And for those who think that faction holds too much sway, McCain had a strong message: "Get in the arena. Go out there and register to vote and recruit candidates."

Today, Mexicans choose a U.S. ally or large changes

A deeply divided Mexico goes to the polls today to decide whether to stick with the U.S.-friendly policies of President Vicente Fox or to clean house.

At the end of the most competitive, negative campaign in Mexican history, the results of the two-man, left-vs.-right race could be even more important to the prosperity of the United States' southern neighbor than Fox's landmark victory six years ago.

Perlita Hernandez Monteyo, 33, plans to vote for Fox ally Felipe Calderon. Why? As a result of the conservative Fox's "government of change," her family qualified for a housing credit that allowed them to own their first home and feel part of a small but growing middle class.

Hilda Cruz Martinez, 30, will vote for former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Her family lives in a two-room shack with no running water and hijacked electricity. She said she believes only a fresh start with the leftist ex-mayor will help poor people like her have a decent life.

The two families' dreams and passions explain why the race between Lopez Obrador and Calderon is so close and divisive, and why Mexico faces such a crossroads so soon after Fox ended 71 years of one-party rule by the corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

The results matter greatly to the United States. A Lopez Obrador victory would put Mexico among a growing number of Latin American nations governed by leftists suspicious of U.S.-backed policies. And the candidates have far different ideas about how to create jobs and keep millions of people from illegally crossing the border.

The two countries' billions of dollars in trade also could be affected. Calderon talks about making Mexico an investor's heaven. Lopez Obrador speaks of halting excesses of globalization and renegotiating unfair parts of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexicans breathed a sigh of relief when the attack ads ended by law last Wednesday. A record 40 million are expected to vote.

On one side is a prospering, optimistic Mexico, mainly residing in the more urban north and best positioned to benefit from the pro-business path pushed by Fox.

On the other side is a disappointed Mexico, still waiting for the change that Fox promised in 2000. It resides mostly in the rural south, where few if any benefits arrived from NAFTA, farmers have watched their markets disappear and more and more people are a decision away from illegally migrating.

"It is indeed two Mexicos, and that helps us understand why people are so passionate for and against these candidates," said Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst. "The problem is that each camp exaggerated what the other side stands for."

Prison Program Appeals Judge's Ruling that Aims to Boot God from U.S. Prisons

InnerChange Freedom Initiative & Prison Fellowship to Fight Shutdown of Effective Program that Reduces Recidivism, Enhances Public Safety, & Cuts Corrections Costs

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Christian Newswire) -- Today Prison Fellowship, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, and the State of Iowa gave notice to the U.S. District Court in Iowa and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that they will appeal Iowa District Court Judge Robert Pratt’s ruling in the lawsuit brought by the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

On June 2, Judge Pratt ordered that the Iowa InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI), a comprehensive, faith-based pre-release program for prisoners that is affiliated with Prison Fellowship, be shut down and that Prison Fellowship and IFI repay the State of Iowa the $1.5 million paid IFI under a contract for services over the past six years. Judge Pratt ruled that the IFI program was “pervasively sectarian” and thus violated the separation of church and state.

“It is ironic,” said Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley, “that within one week of Judge Pratt’s ruling closing down IFI in Iowa, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons released a report stating that comprehensive rehabilitation programs are the key factor in reducing recidivism, enhancing security in prisons, and protecting the public.”

For more than 10 years, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative has produced dramatic results in changing the lives of hardened criminals and stopping the revolving door of crime. The program presents viable solutions to challenges that state and local governments have struggled with for decades, with the vast majority of funds provided by private sources.

“Clearly, IFI, with its demonstrated ability to reduce recidivism, offers exactly the kind of programming state correctional systems need to enhance public safety and reduce the skyrocketing costs of corrections,” said Earley.

Earley maintains that the effort to remove faith-based programs from prisons “fosters a ‘lock 'em up and throw away the key’ approach to fighting crime. It assumes that by warehousing criminals and providing no services to help them change, society will be safer when they get out. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

He and other supporters of faith-based prison programming believe the outcome of the appeal will have ramifications beyond the Iowa case.

“It is our belief that the InnerChange Freedom Initiative is constitutional and well within the framework of the safeguards of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” said Earley.

Activist: Clubs Promoting Risky Behavior Should Be Booted from Campus

(AgapePress) - A Michigan school board is defying the requests of parents who want Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs banned in the district.

Despite the objections of concerned parents, the Forest Hills School Board has vowed it will not shut down three GSA clubs in the district. The board claims the federal Equal Access Act requires schools to allow sex-based clubs. But Gary Glenn, director of the American Family Association of Michigan, says schools can ban student groups that promote risky behavior -- and it has already been done, he adds.

"In fact, the Lubbock (Texas) School District did exactly that. They found that the so-called Gay Straight Alliance would be promoting behavior that was self-destructive and harmful to young people," Glenn says, "and on that basis refused to allow such homosexual propaganda to take place in the public schools."

Glenn notes that the courts backed the district's decision. "Of course, the ACLU and homosexual activists sued [but] the federal court upheld the right of the school district to act in the way it thought was in the best interests for the health of the students," he points out. In that case two years ago, a federal judge barred the Lubbock Gay Straight Alliance from meeting on campus, citing the school district's right to determine "what subject matter is considered obscene or inappropriate."

Glenn says if the Forest Hills School Board in Michigan "truly cared about young people who are ensnared by deviant behavior, they would tell them the truth that homosexuality is harmful and to be avoided." The family advocate explains that no school is mandated to allow clubs that promote deviancy.

"This issue is an opportunity for concerned parents to educate themselves, their students, their children, and also the public at large about the health hazards, the public health consequences, of homosexual behavior," Glenn states. In addition, he says it is an opportunity to explain why it is inappropriate "spiritually, morally, physically, mentally, and emotionally" to promote homosexual behavior to pre-teens and teens as being normal. "It's not," says the Michigan activist. "It's self-destructive."

Mexico conservative claims win as chaos fears ease

Mexico's conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon declared victory on Monday in a bitterly contested election and official returns appeared to show his leftist rival could no longer catch him.

Calderon had a lead of almost 400,000 votes over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with returns in from 96.6 percent of polling stations and a senior election official said it was unlikely to change with a recount ordered for later this week.

A Calderon victory would ensure Mexico sticks to the free-market policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox and hold steady as a U.S. ally, bucking a trend of Latin American nations who have turned to the left and away from Washington in recent years.

"There is an irreversible result and it is in my favor," a confident Calderon of the ruling National Action Party said in a television interview. "The result gives me a very clear victory that cannot be reversed."

Arturo Sanchez, one of the nine board members of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, said he expected a recount to make no difference to the result.

"What is going to happen with these results? The truth is they will be the same," he told Reuters.

Lopez Obrador said on Sunday night he won the election by 500,000 votes and would insist that his victory be respected in an official recount but he appeared more open to a possible defeat on Monday.

"If in the count we conduct, it turns out the final result does not favor us, I am going to abide by the result," he said. However, he added, "We are going to defend the will of the people if it favors us."

The official returns and Lopez Obrador's softer tone reduced the risk of a major political crisis of a contested election, and Mexico's financial markets jumped on a wave of investor optimism.

CONGRESS GAINS

Legislative election results from Sunday showed Calderon's party made major gains and would be the largest single party in the next Congress, although it fell short of a majority.

The stock market jumped 3.8 percent in early trade and Mexico's peso currency rose about 1.5 percent.

Mexico's top election official said late on Sunday the race was too close to declare a winner and a recount was needed, but Calderon insisted that was no longer necessary.

With returns in from 96.6 percent of polling stations, the conservative had 36.4 percent support, 1 percentage point ahead of his rival. Lopez Obrador would have to see a dramatic swing in the remaining polling stations to catch up.

If the Federal Electoral Institute goes ahead with a recount, however, it could be days before a final vote count is in.

Some fear that delay and a combative Lopez Obrador could push Mexico toward political deadlock, street protests and volatility in financial markets.

Unrest would also worry the United States, which relies on Mexican help in securing its borders and tackling immigration and violent drug smuggling gangs.

The U.S. government took a cautious attitude on Monday, preferring to wait for the official final results.

"We note that the final results are still not available," said Frederick Jones, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "We along with the Mexican people look forward to the announcement of the results."

Lopez Obrador supporters, remembering a 1988 presidential election widely believed to have been stolen from another left-wing candidate, claimed foul play.

"They are up to their tricks because everyone knows Andres Manuel won," Gabriela Ramirez, a Mexico City student, said late on Sunday night.

Critics of Lopez Obrador, a feisty and austere figure who pledged to put Mexico's poor first if elected, said the close race played into his hands and that he was looking for an excuse to mobilize supporters and cause trouble.

"Now if he loses, he can say the rich guys stole it from us. It could lead to chaos," real estate agent Victor Perera said at an upscale Mexico City neighborhood restaurant.

Lieberman May Run as Independent

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), the Democratic Party's 2000 vice presidential nominee and a leading voice of its centrist wing, announced yesterday that he will run as an independent in the November general election if he loses a primary battle next month to an increasingly popular antiwar candidate.

Lieberman, who not long ago appeared to be coasting to easy reelection with strong bipartisan support, now faces a potentially career-ending challenge from Greenwich millionaire Ned Lamont. The challenger has climbed in recent polls by tapping support from Connecticut liberals and others who recoil at Lieberman's strong support for the Iraq war.

A Quinnipiac University survey conducted in early June showed Lamont gaining ground against Lieberman. Among all Democrats, Lieberman led Lamont 57 percent to 32 percent, compared with 65 percent to 19 percent in a Quinnipiac poll taken a month earlier.

The margin was slimmer among likely Democratic primary voters, including undecided voters who are leaning toward a candidate, with Lamont trailing the incumbent 55 percent to 40 percent, the June poll found.

As his lead narrows, Lieberman has weighed an alternative option: collecting 7,500 voter signatures to secure a place on the November ballot as an independent. But the due date for that option is Aug. 9, one day after the primary -- meaning that Lieberman must begin collecting signatures well before he knows the outcome against Lamont.

Lieberman said that his bid had no bearing on his party affiliation and that he would present himself as a "petitioning Democrat" rather than an independent, although that is how he would be listed on the ballot.

"I have been a proud, loyal and progressive Democrat since John F. Kennedy inspired my generation of Americans into public service," Lieberman said yesterday on the steps of the state Capitol in Hartford. "And I will stay a Democrat."

Although Lieberman said he remains confident that he will beat Lamont, two wild cards make him and his supporters exceedingly nervous.

One is that the primary will take place in early August, when many voters may be on vacation. A low turnout could draw a disproportionate share of highly motivated Lamont supporters. Lieberman predicted that turnout could be as low as 25 percent.

The other factor is Lamont's wealth, amassed from a cable-television business he founded. "What if my opponent, who says he is worth somewhere between $90 [million] and $300 million, decides to write bigger and bigger checks in the last weeks of the campaign?" asked Lieberman, addressing his supporters.

Democratic leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), spoke to Lieberman yesterday morning and said they will continue to back him in the August contest.

"Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and the DSCC are supporting Joe Lieberman in the primary," said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and its chairman, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). "We aren't going to speculate about what happens next because that would undermine our candidate."

But senior Democratic sources acknowledged that Lieberman had placed his party in a difficult position by potentially throwing into chaos a Senate race that Democrats had long assumed they would easily win.

Last month's Quinnipiac poll found that Lieberman would have the clear advantage in November. He would easily defeat Republican Alan Schlesinger, 68 percent to 14 percent, while Lamont would lead Schlesinger 37 percent to 20 percent, with 34 percent undecided. Running as an independent, Lieberman would win 56 percent of support, compared with 18 percent for Lamont and 8 percent for Schlesinger.

Lamont, who will debate Lieberman on Thursday night in Hartford, said his opponent's move shows a lack of respect for Democratic voters.

"We are confident that the voters in November will find in our campaign a positive voice for the change in Washington that we all deserve," Lamont said in a statement.

Republicans fight back on Guantanamo

SENIOR congressional Republicans have vowed to quickly draw up legislation giving the Bush Administration the power to set up military tribunals to try detainees at Guantanamo, including David Hicks.

Last week's Supreme Court judgement ruled that the military commissions set up after the September 11 attacks contravened US and international law, but key Republicans in Congress have made it clear they intend to come up with a military tribunal system offering prisoners a watered-down version of a court martial.

John McCain, who successfully introduced legislation in Congress to ban torture and inhumane treatment of detainees, said the tribunals should be based on the US Code of Military Justice, the basis of the US court martial system. "But they shouldn't be exactly the same as that which applies to a member of the US military," he said.

"The US Code of Military Justice is a good framework and we should work from there.

"Using the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, we can make sure that bad guys - and there are bad guys - are not released and those who deserve to be released will be."

Other Republicans echoed Senator McCain's response to the Supreme Court ruling, which was viewed as a serious setback for the Administration's strategy for fighting the "war on terrorism".

Senator Lindsay Graham, a former US Navy senior prosecutor, said he hoped Congress would pass a law allowing the Administration to proceed with tribunals for 14 Guantanamo detainees, including Hicks, who have been charged with offences, by the end of September.

"I intend to sit down with the Administration and come up with a process that holds terrorists accountable, to give them a fair trial, but to make sure that if they do the things we're alleging, they're fairly punished," he said.

Most observers do not believe that legislation will be ready for Congress to consider, let alone pass, by September, and congressional Democrats are unlikely to pass any legislation without vigorous debate.

Some Democrats are calling for a wide-ranging review of the Bush Administration's anti-terrorist activities, including the controversial warrantless wire-tapping program by the National Security Agency.

Major Michael Mori, Hicks's lawyer, has said nothing less than a regular court martial or a Federal Court trial would be acceptable for his client.

"We have said all along that we would accept a regular court martial," he said.

Even if Congress can agree on legislation to set up military tribunals, these tribunals would almost inevitably be challenged in the courts by defence lawyers for prisoners.

"You have to ask just why they have been so keen to avoid normal court martial proceedings for detainees like David," Major Mori said. "Is it because a court martial would not guarantee a conviction?"

White House tells rabbis U.S. won't pressure Israel
Assures Jewish leaders any unilateral withdrawal is PM Olmert's idea

JERUSALEM – The Bush administration will not pressure Israel into making unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, top White House officials told representatives of the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish outreach movement during a meeting in Washington.

Chabad last week culminated a two-day commemoration of the 12th anniversary of the death of its leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, with an event attended by Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten.

Participants in the meeting said Bolten assured the Chabad group Bush would not strong-hand Israel into ceding territory unless it was within the framework of a negotiated settlement that involved important incentives for Israel.

Bolten reportedly said Bush would follow Olmert's lead in deciding which Israeli concessions to support.

Some analysts here have contended U.S. pressure has been crucial in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to vacate Judea and Samaria, mountainous terrain within rocket-firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the country's international airport.

But U.S. officials told WND the withdrawal was an Israeli initiative and that Olmert has been petitioning Bush for support.

"It is Olmert that is pressuring us to go along with his withdrawal plan," said a Bush administration official who was part of a U.S. delegation in May that received Olmert during the Israeli leader's visit to Washington.

During his Washington visit, Olmert formally presented his Judea and Samaria withdrawal to Bush. The American leader expressed some reservations and refrained during a joint press conference from issuing an endorsement.

While giving Olmert credit for proposing "bold ideas" that "could be an important step" toward peace, Bush stressed the U.S.-led "Road Map" which offers a Palestinian state, and urged talks with Abbas. He stated a negotiated agreement "best serves Israelis and Palestinians and the cause of peace."

A member of the Israeli delegation at the White House meeting described the U.S. attitude toward the Judea and Samaria withdrawal as "lukewarm," explaining the White House raised a number of concerns, including the possibility a terrorist entity would be created in the areas evacuated, reservations expressed about the plan by Jordan and Egypt and the effects of the plan on U.S. regional interests.

Political sources close to Olmert's office told WND the Israeli prime minister has been pressed to convince the Bush administration he has the political clout necessary to carry out his Judea and Samaria withdrawal.

"The Bush administration does not have faith that Olmert has the parliamentary coalition needed to sustain the firestorm of political activity that is sure to surround the implementation of the withdrawal," said a political source. "They do not see him as the strongman Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to them."

Olmert leads a slim governing coalition of 67 out of 120 Knesset seats. Typically, Israeli governments composed of ongoing coalitions with fewer than 70 seats are unstable and short-lived.

Olmert's government relies heavily on 12 seats from the Ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which traditionally opposes land concessions and which some analysts have predicted may bolt the government as the Judea and Samaria withdrawal plan gets closer to implementation. According to yesterday's Haaretz poll, 83 percent of Shas voters oppose the evacuation.

If Shas bolts, Olmert may then be forced to bring Arab parties into his government or form a coalition with the Knesset's right-wing bloc, which would likely only enter the government on condition a Judea and Samaria withdrawal is either cancelled or postponed.

Polls here have shown dwindling support for Olmert's government and withdrawal plan.

One survey, commissioned two weeks ago by a local company and supervised by American strategist Arthur Finkelstein, revealed 70 percent of the general Israeli population oppose a Judea and Samaria withdrawal. Some 65 to 70 percent of those who backed last summer's Gaza evacuation now object to Olmert's Judea and Samaria pullout plan.

Another poll commissioned a week earlier by the Haaretz newspaper found only 35 percent of the Israeli public is pleased with Olmert's performance as prime minister. Israeli leaders typically enjoy wide public support in the early stages of their terms.

Ten months ago, Israel evacuated the entire Gaza Strip. Since then, rockets have been fired regularly into nearby Jewish communities, Hamas has been elected to power and both Israeli and Palestinian officials have stated al-Qaida has infiltrated the territory. Israel last week sent ground troops back into Gaza. Also, Egypt recently announced the terrorists who carried out April's deadly triple-bomb blasts in the Sinai resort town of Dahab trained for the operation in the Gaza Strip with local Palestinians.

Central American trade pact hits snags

The Central American Free Trade Agreement isn't working out as planned.
"It's caused a lot of apparel importers a lot of pain," said Jason Copland, president of Copland Industries, a Burlington, N.C., manufacturer. Copland exports material to Central America, where companies sew it into clothes that are bound for U.S. stores.
CAFTA was supposed to boost U.S. trade with six Latin American nations. Instead, the one-at-a-time addition of countries has complicated and disrupted commerce, with an especially sharp effect on the textile and apparel industries.
Congress approved CAFTA less than a year ago after a bruising political battle. The agreement was set to take effect Jan. 1, but U.S. trade officials said the Latin American nations had not sufficiently changed their laws to meet terms of the deal. Some countries still have not.
The U.S. enacted CAFTA with El Salvador March 1 and with Honduras and Nicaragua a month later. Guatemala joined Saturday. The four countries are fully participating in the agreement.
The Dominican Republic likely will accede later this year. Costa Rica's legislature has not approved the accord and may not join until December or later.
El Salvador's reward for being first was a sharp decline in exports to the United States, from $187 million in March 2005 to $88 million this March, U.S. International Trade Commission data show.
Much of that drop occurred in the textile and apparel industry.
Before CAFTA, El Salvador had easy access to the U.S. market under a trade program for Caribbean basin countries. The country was allowed to use thread and other components from 22 countries in the region and export finished products with duties averaging 4 percent to 6 percent.
Once the country joined CAFTA, it gained access for more products, but could use components only from the United States or other CAFTA countries. The problem was, no other countries were part of CAFTA. Because El Salvador was using materials from countries that had not implemented CAFTA, duties temporarily jumped to an average of 14 percent.
"Goods not subject to duty before [CAFTA] are subject to duty now. It's a disaster," said Mr. Copland, who last year opposed the deal because of provisions that allow Chinese fabric to be incorporated into Central American-sewn clothes.
Trade with other CAFTA countries also has been disrupted. U.S. apparel imports from the six-nation region are down almost 18 percent by volume from January through April, compared with the same period last year.
It is an especially troubling development for the hemisphere's textile and apparel industry, which has been losing ground to imports from Asia, especially China.
CAFTA is supposed to set up the region as a competitive bulwark against Asian companies, with fabric and yarn from high-tech U.S. factories sewn into garments by Central America's low-cost labor.
So far, it is not working that way.
"Absolute imports [from CAFTA countries] are dropping. Market share continues to tank. [U.S.] yarn exports are flattening and fabric exports to the region are way down. None of these are good trends," said Stephen Lamar, senior vice president at the American Apparel and Footwear Association, a Washington trade group.
Still, Mr. Lamar said, it is too soon to write off the trade accord.
"There's clearly hope that it is going to get squared away. The challenge will be to make sure there isn't a loss of confidence in the region and the program," he said.
Countries that signed on to the agreement have not lost enthusiasm. El Salvador credits CAFTA for salvaging its apparel industry from Chinese competition and for boosting foreign investment.
"So far, the implementation of CAFTA has been a huge benefit for the Salvadoran economy," said Rene Leon, the country's ambassador to the United States.
The Bush administration says the problems are temporary glitches.
"We will see an expansion of trade," said a U.S. trade official who asked not to be named. "We have this startup cost, but as more countries come on board, the situation will get better."
The initial setbacks have not stopped major investments in Central America, and some companies remain optimistic the deal will help the United States and Central America compete against Asia.
Cone Denim, for example, earlier this year announced a $90 million investment in Nicaragua to build a denim-manufacturing plant. The facility will employ about 750 people and support as many as 20,000 additional jobs at sewing operations, said John Bakane, president and chief executive of Cone Denim, which is part of the International Textile Group conglomerate.
"We still think there is a very important place in the U.S. supply chain for Central America," Mr. Bakane said from the company's Greensboro, N.C., offices.
The countries provide cheap labor (Nicaragua has lower wages than China), have stable currencies and are close enough to the United States to respond quickly to fashion trends, he said.
"The one thing that the Central American countries need to do to capitalize on this opportunity is to work as a seamless region," Mr. Bakane said. "That hasn't happened yet."

Candidate: Millions of ballots missing in Mexico

Mexico faces the possibility of weeks of political uncertainty after the leftist presidential candidate -- trailing his conservative rival by a percentage point -- called for a vote-by-vote recount to find what he believes are millions of missing votes.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who promised to govern for Mexico's poor, trailed business friendly rival Felipe Calderon by more than 400,000 votes in a preliminary count -- although electoral officials say they'll declare no winner until after a time-consuming official count that begins Wednesday.

Financial markets have rallied as preliminary results showed the fiscally conservative former energy secretary in the lead, and Calderon said Tuesday that "the people are right, the markets are right" in assuming he has won.

Mexico must now focus on the future, he said in an interview with Radio Formula. "The problems are big, but Mexico is bigger than its problems," he said.

There were some fears that Lopez Obrador's refusal to accept Calderon's apparent victory could throw the country into turmoil. Allegations of irregularities threaten to drag out the process for weeks, if not months, putting Mexico's young democracy to the test. (Watch why two candidates think they're winners -- 2:13)

"There are about 3 million votes missing," Lopez Obrador told reporters at his campaign headquarters Monday night.

The former Mexico City mayor explained that officials had estimated a voter turnout of about 41 million or 42 million, yet preliminary vote tallies by Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute only showed about 38 million ballots cast.

As a result, the institute's first count is something that "we cannot accept," he said.

Jesus Ortega, Lopez Obrador's campaign manager, added that "in some cases, we are going to demand the opening of ballot packages and vote-by-vote recounts."

Members of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party said there were indications that the preliminary count may have been manipulated to favor Calderon's National Action Party, the party of President Vicente Fox. The Federal Electoral Institute did not respond to the allegation.

The official vote count starting Wednesday could take days. Even if a winner is declared, those results can be challenged in court.

After Sunday night's rapid vote-sampling, both candidates immediately declared victory. Representatives of Roberto Madrazo, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, conceded the race Monday night.

Lopez Obrador continued to claim victory, saying, "we have a commitment to the citizens to defend the will of millions of Mexicans."

"We are going to employ whatever legal means," he told supporters.

He claimed there were "many irregularities" in the election, including badly reported results and the double counting of votes. He also asked how it was possible that his party won 155 of 300 electoral districts without winning the presidency.

In an interview Tuesday with the Televisa network, Luis Carlos Ugalde, president of the autonomous Federal Electoral Institute, said oficials would review irregularities during the official count.

With 98.45 percent of polling stations reporting, Calderon had 36.38 percent and Lopez Obrador had 35.34 percent.

Madrazo was a distant third with 21.57 percent, and minor candidates and write-ins accounted for the rest.

Mexican leftist won't concede
Despite apparent 370,000-vote margin by ruling-party presidential candidate

Mexico's Calderon Says Lead Insurmountable

Ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon declared Monday that his 370,000-vote lead in Mexico's closest-ever presidential race lead was insurmountable. But his leftist rival refused to concede and electoral officials said they would not declare a winner for days.

Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador huddled in his apartment with close advisers, trying to determine how to challenge results that increasingly indicated a loss. He insisted in a television appearance that he had won, and did not rule out street protests.

CountryWatch: Mexico

Mexico's stock market, currency and bonds rallied sharply on news of Calderon's lead.

The preliminary tally, with results from 97.38 percent of polling places, gave Calderon 36.37 percent of the vote and Lopez Obrador 35.4 percent.

But the Federal Electoral Institute stressed those results were not final — and said it would not declare a victor until an official count of the tallies from tens of thousands of ballot boxes, which it would not start until Wednesday.

Both candidates' declarations of victory raised questions about their pledges to respect an electoral process in which Mexicans invested hundreds of millions of dollars to overcome decades of systematic fraud.

"We have no doubt that we have won the presidential election," Calderon told supporters.

Monday morning, Lopez Obrador raised questions about the tally and said his party's polls showed him winning by 500,000 votes. In an appearance on the Televisa network, he did not rule out calling protests, but said he wanted to gather the facts first.

"Have patience," he told backers. "We are going to be keeping our supporters informed. We are always going to act responsibly. If we lose the elections I will recognize that. But if we won the vote, I'm going to defend my triumph."

Early Monday, Lopez Obrador's Web site showed an animated cartoon version of him climbing on an Olympic-style winner's podium and donning the red, white and green presidential sash. Calderon's Web site showed a photo of him in front of a large, applauding crowd, overlaid with a headline reading "Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico."

Tensions already were running high after a two-year campaign marked by vicious personal attacks. Calderon painted Lopez Obrador as a radical leftist who would ruin the economy, while Lopez Obrador called Calderon a liar who doled out million-dollar favors to a brother-in-law while serving as energy secretary.

The campaign exposed Mexico's deep class divisions, with Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, pledging to govern for the poor and Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party, seen by many as the candidate of the rich.

Many feared the close result could cause the tensions to explode.

For decades, elections were rigged to ensure the ruling party's victory — fraud that allegedly included the 1988 presidential count in which a computer crash was blamed for a stunning turnaround that ensured another six years in power for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Many members of Democratic Revolution regret not fighting harder to challenge the loss of leftist Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who went on to found their party.

"This is no longer the era of fraud, because the people will not accept it. It is no longer '88," Lopez Obrador said Sunday night.

In part because of outrage over the 1988 elections, PRI was defeated in 2000 after 71 years in power, and sank to a distant third Sunday.

President Vicente Fox, who finishes his single six-year term in December, appealed for patience and calm, saying: "It is the responsibility of all of the political actors to follow the law and respect the time the institute needs to announce the election results."

U.S. Ambassador Antonio Garza, who served as an election observer in a poor Mexico City neighborhood Sunday, said he was "convinced Mexicans will wait patiently and prudently as the Federal Electoral Institute reviews today's voting records."

Some voters said they had no problem waiting because they were convinced the official results would confirm their candidates' victory.

"Now we just have to wait for them to officially confirm Felipe's victory," said Marcela Chavez, 25, a Calderon supporter. "The tendency is clear and he is going to win."

In other races, National Action did well in three governor contests — Morelos, Guanajuato and Jalisco — while Marcelo Ebrard of Democratic Revolution easily won the Mexico City mayor's post, exit polls indicated.

National Action appeared to win the most seats in both houses of Congress — but was far from a majority in either. PRI fell into third place in Congress for the first time.

The estimated 11 million Mexicans living in the United States were allowed to vote from abroad for the first time, but the more than 32,000 ballots they cast weren't likely to make much of a difference.

"The main thing is, the door has been opened," said Jesus Hernandez, who sent in his ballot from California. "Later, we can reconstruct the procedures to make it easier in the future."

US$100 million transferred to Abbas

The Arab League and Saudi Arabia have transferred some US$ 100 million (euro 78 million) to the Palestinians, the first funding since international aid was cut off after Hamas militant won legislative elections, a top Palestinian official and the Arab League said Tuesday.

Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the Arab aid money bypassed the Hamas government and was transferred directly to Abbas on Monday.

The Palestinian president will control how the funds are spent, he said.

The EU, the US and other donors froze hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) in direct aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas won elections in January, demanding that the group recognize Israel and cease all support of terrorism.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa in Cairo, Shaath said the Arab League had transferred half of the US $100 million (euro 78 million), while Saudi Arabia directly transferred the other half.

"This is a glimpse of hope ... and a step toward squeezing-out of the siege," said Shaath.
Moussa said the Hamas-led government had had knowledge of the transfer. "The transfer was in complete coordination with the Palestinian government," he said.

Since March, Arab states have collected more than US $100 in aid for the Palestinians, but the money could not be transferred because international banks refused to allow the Arab League to transfer funds electronically to Palestinian territories, fearing sanctions from the US, which labels Hamas a terror group.

Shaath and Moussa did not specify how the funds were transferred to the Palestinian Authority on Monday, or where the money had come from.

The Hamas government, nearly bankrupted by the international sanctions, has resorted to bringing cash in suitcases to help keep it afloat.

Twice last month, globe-trotting Palestinian cabinet ministers returned to the impoverished Gaza Strip at the border crossing with Egypt with millions of dollars stuffed in their luggage.

The ministers did not specify who had donated the cash.

"Money can be transferred if it is going to the President and if it is under his supervision," his deputy Mohammed Sobeih told The Associated Press.

Shaath did not specify on Tuesday how Abbas will disburse the money received from the Arab League and Saudi Arabia.

N.J. Assembly Dems Moving Forward With Budget Plan
Extending Casino Taxes To Take Place Of Sales Tax Hike

TRENTON With Atlantic City's casinos closed and New Jersey's government shutdown lingering without sign of compromise, Assembly Democrats opposed to Gov. Jon S. Corzine's sales tax increase planned to introduce their own budget.

Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Lou Greenwald said the committee would meet Wednesday evening to introduce a budget that proposes neither a sales tax nor an income tax increase, but would extend casino taxes that were to expire and apply the sales tax to more services.

Corzine has rejected such ideas in recent weeks, but Greenwald said the governor must work with Assembly legislators opposed to increasing the state's sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent. Greenwald said the new taxes they propose are less burdensome than the sales tax increase that experts estimate would cost the average state family $275 per year.

"It doesn't affect the average taxpayer," said Greenwald, D-Camden.

But with at least 15 Assembly Democrats supporting Corzine's plan, it was uncertain if the new proposal could pass. The Democrats control the Assembly 49-31; Republicans oppose any tax increase.

"We'll find out," Greenwald said of the proposal's fate.

The governor's office didn't immediately respond, but Corzine on Wednesday morning in his second speech in as many days to the full Legislature pleaded with lawmakers to present him with a budget plan. The state had a constitutional deadline to adopt a new budget by midnight Friday, and on Saturday Corzine signed an order to begin shutting down government services.

"I cannot sign, veto or amend a budget that has not come to my desk," Corzine said.

Corzine has said the sales tax increase is necessary to close a $4.5 billion budget gap and to provide reliable revenue to help solve future budget woes.

"This debate is about whether we will have a budget with predictable, reliable and recurring revenue streams," Corzine said. "Or, if we will have a budget with a patchwork quilt of unknown, untested and unvetted ideas that we hope will once again, simply get us to the finish line."

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr., D-Camden, said the new proposal meets the governor's requirements.

"We're following the governor's mandate, which is that revenues need to be responsible and recurring," Roberts said.

Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, expressed skepticism about the Assembly ideas and said he wouldn't post any budget bills until an agreement is reached.

"No action until such time as a compromise," said Codey, who added Corzine would veto a budget with the Assembly Democrats' ideas.

The Assembly Democrats' move came after Atlantic City gambling halted Wednesday morning. It was the first mass closing in the 28-year history of Atlantic City's casinos, with all 12 ordered closed because the state cannot pay gaming inspectors.

Greenwald pinned the blame on Corzine for failing to give up his sales tax plan.

"The reality is the governor shut the casinos," Greenwald said. "It wasn't necessary."

The shutdown could cost the 12 casinos more than $16 million per day and the state some $1.3 million in taxes it takes in daily.

Since the first casino opened in 1978, the gambling business has blossomed into a $5 billion-a-year juggernaut employing 46,000 people. The closures forced an estimated 20,000 people off their jobs as dealers, pit bosses and cocktail servers.

"No one wants to see people lose their jobs. We hope this gets resolved as quickly as possible," said Linda Kassekert, chairwoman of the state Casino Control Commission.

"I never thought this would happen," said Ruth Dodies, 77, of Philadelphia, standing at a closed entrance to Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. "It doesn't make sense."

In the lobby, gambler Ray Capozucca, 67, of Pittston, Pa., stood beside his packed bags. He had been playing video poker on a slot machine at 7:30 a.m. when a slot attendant told him to leave.

"As a dealer, you rely on tips. So it's money out of our pockets," said Lloyd Hopkins, 41, a dealer at Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino.

Without a spending plan, Corzine ordered state offices shut down Saturday and all nonessential state government operations closed. He furloughed more than half the state's employees. Only about 36,000 people in vital roles such as child welfare, state police and mental hospitals remained on the job.

Horse racing tracks did not open for business Wednesday and state parks and beaches also were closed.

In Jersey City, Felix Morales showed up at the gate of Liberty State Park with his family to do some fishing, but was turned away.

"Why should the citizens pay for something that the government should have fixed before it got to this point?" he said. "It should never have gone this far."

The multimillionaire Corzine, meanwhile, is considering self-financing an ad campaign about the shutdown so he could speak directly to voters.

Miami judge denies bond for 6 accused of terror plot

MIAMI - A federal judge Wednesday denied bond to six men accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower and conspiring to help al-Qaida blow up several federal buildings.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ted Bandstra ruled that the men posed too great a risk to the community to be released.

"The charges against each of the defendants are serious charges and constitute counts of violence," Bandstra stated, adding that it was "not relevant that the plans appear to be beyond the abilities of the defendants."

A seventh man, Lyglenson Lemorin, 31, was charged in the case in Atlanta. He was also being held without bond and was scheduled to be moved to Miami.

The six men, who have pleaded not guilty, were arrested June 22 in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood as part of an undercover FBI sting operation. They are accused of seeking to support what they thought was an al-Qaida operative's effort to bomb FBI buildings in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington.

Bandstra said he did not make his decision based on the defendants' risk of flight, given their strong family ties and their lawyers' assertions that a number their relatives would be willing to post their own property as bond.

Many of the six accused men's relatives also attended the hearing, one clasping her hands in prayer, another man offering a brief "thumbs up" sign.

Attorneys for the defendants argued in vain that the government's case was overblown and that their clients should be released pending trial.

"The case is essentially something the government set up to knock down, " said John Wylie, an attorney for the group's alleged ringleader, Narseal Batiste. Wylie and the other attorneys suggested that the informants continually sought out Batiste to bait him and his group into offering to help conduct surveillance of the federal buildings. They also questioned how many conversations occurred between Batiste and the informants before the authorities were alerted and the FBI began monitoring their communication.

In a written request to have Batiste released until trial, Wylie said that he was unable to find any other cases where the government had provided a meeting place, materials and "a sham Al-Quaeda representative (a cooperating witness) to create the basis for charges of terrorist conspiracy."

Nathan Clark, an attorney for defendant Rotschild Augustin, 33, said after the hearing that he was not surprised by the judges decision given the charges.

"We didn't put on any witnesses or testimony because we have yet to investigate the case," he said. "But the government's case is not as strong as it appears."

According to the prosecution, Batiste, 32, allegedly approached an acquaintance and asked the man to put him in touch with someone in the Middle East who might be able to fund their plan.

The acquaintance alerted the FBI, which helped put Batiste in touch with a man pretending to be an al-Qaida contact who had them swear an oath of allegiance to the terrorist group. But the men never had explosives or contact with the terrorist network, according to officials.

The other defendants in the case include Stanley Grant Phanor, 31, Patrick Abraham, 26, Naudimar Herrera, 22, and Burson Augustin, 21.

Each of the men face four counts including two counts of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and one count each of conspiracy to destroy buildings by explosives and sedition against the U.S. government. The counts carry maximum sentences of between 15 and 20 years.

Several relatives of the men have denied that they were violent. They described the defendants as deeply religious people who studied the Bible and Islam.

Army charges officer who refused to deploy to Iraq

The Army filed three charges today, including conduct unbecoming an officer, against a lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq last month because he believes the war there is illegal.

Military lawyers calculated that 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, 28, could face nearly eight years in prison and a dishonorable discharge if convicted, said his attorney, Eric Seitz of Honolulu. The other charges are missing movement and contempt toward officials.

"The Army has made a very serious mistake by charging him with the content of the statements he has made, which are not only true with regard to the manner with which the war was initiated and conducted, but are not disrespectful or contemptuous as alleged," Seitz said. "He was fully entitled to make those statements in the manner in which he did."

Watada, a member of the Army's first Stryker Brigade Combat Team, refused to go to Iraq after researching the war and determining it to be illegal. He said he would be willing to serve in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The Army refused to allow him to resign his commission because his unit is covered by a stop-loss policy and he has not fulfilled his service obligation, which ends in December.

Watada's stance prompted rallies of support near Fort Lewis, in Seattle and in Honolulu, his hometown, as well as some counter-demonstrations. Watada's commanders barred him from attending a news conference by his supporters last month, but they played a video in which he said the "war in Iraq is not only morally wrong but a horrible breach of American law."

"Although I have tried to resign out of protest, I will be forced to participate in a war that is manifestly illegal," Watada said. "As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order."

Army officials warned then that the public announcement of his intent to disobey orders could lead to sanctions.

"Officers are held to a high moral and legal standard," the Army said in a news release announcing the charges. "Acts contrary to this standard may be tried by court-martial."

Watada did not apply for status as a conscientious objector because he isn't opposed to war in principle, just the war in Iraq. Army regulations define conscientious objection as a "firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, because of religious training and belief."

Watada will face a preliminary military hearing on the charges to determine whether he will be court-martialed.

US eyes next step after court ruling on Guantanamo
Core group of 100 a hurdle to closure

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court decision striking down military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has renewed calls for the government to close the facility that has held terrorism suspects for four years. The problem facing US officials is how to shut it and what to do with the 450 men still there.

Of particular concern to the Bush administration are about 100 prisoners it considers too dangerous to ever release.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said yesterday that the court's ruling may be the first step toward closing the prison. ``The president has said he'd like to see Guantanamo shut down, but it's not Guantanamo itself, it's the status of these detainees," he said on ABC-TV's ``This Week."

``If we use the Supreme Court decision correctly, we will move forward and adjudicate these cases," McCain said.

Officials acknowledge that closing Guantanamo Bay is likely, though there is no timetable and no plan for how to do it. While the State Department works to repatriate nearly two-thirds of the prison's population via complex negotiations with other nations, the administration will have to decide what to do with the core group who officials have contended would kill Americans if they were freed.

Senior members of the administration, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said there are only two options for the men the United States deems too dangerous to release: transfer them to federal or military prisons in the United States -- such as the supermax facilities or Fort Leavenworth -- or arrange for another country to assume responsibility for their detention.

So far, no third country has said it would be willing to take the men, and the Bush administration has been reluctant to consider allowing them to be transferred onto US soil. Senior officials said in interviews that it is possible that any suspects who are convicted of crimes could land in US prisons.

The United States has taken that step previously with international criminals, such as Panamanian general Manuel Noriega, who was convicted in 1992 on drug trafficking and racketeering charges and is incarcerated in a federal prison near Miami.

Admitted Al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui is serving a life sentence in a Colorado supermax prison along with Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that closing the facility will not be easy, adding that the administration does not want some of the people there to cross the US border. ``As we've said many times, you don't simply shut it down," Snow said. ``There are some people who you do not want on American soil."

President Bush and senior members of the administration have said they want Guantanamo Bay to close, in large part because the detention center has become an enormously negative symbol.

John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said last week that there are about 300 detainees from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen who are likely to be returned to the custody of their home countries when agreements can be worked out.

Retired Army general Barry R. McCaffrey wrote in a recent academic paper for the US Military Academy that the United States should ``rapidly weed out as many detainees as possible and return them to their host nation," urging countries to try their nationals for war crimes and terrorist actions. If detainees appear back on the battlefield fighting the United States, ``it may be cheaper and cleaner to kill them in combat than sit on them for the next 15 years," McCaffrey wrote.

`No Child' Law Found Leading States to Weaken Tests (Update1)

U.S. states are ``dumbing down'' their grade-school tests, where high failure rates could bring penalties under the federal ``No Child Left Behind'' law, University of California researchers reported.

The study, covering test results for fourth-graders in 12 states, found the states are reporting more than twice as many of their students proficient in math and reading as in a separate nationwide set of tests.

``State results consistently exaggerate the percentage of fourth-graders deemed proficient or above in reading and math,'' according to the study by Policy Analysis for California Education, a research center at the University of California campuses in Berkeley and Davis and at Stanford University.

The report follows previous private studies contending states appear to be weakening their testing standards, and comes as Congress prepares next year to consider whether and how to renew the No Child Left Behind law.

The law, enacted in 2002, requires states to show annual improvement in student test scores in subjects that include reading and math. Failing districts face penalties that initially include granting students special tutoring and the right to transfer to other schools, and eventually can include the replacement of school management.

Test Discrepancies

The study led by University of California education professor Bruce Fuller found the states reported that about 68 percent of their fourth-graders were proficient in reading, while the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress test put the figure at 31 percent. In math, the states found 65 percent proficient while NAEP found 30 percent.

The study covered Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington, chosen for reasons that include their geographical and educational diversity.

The figures covered the period from 1992 to 2005. That period begins before No Child Left Behind was enacted, though the gap between state tests and the NAEP assessment has grown wider over time, the researchers said.

A U.S. Education Department spokeswoman, Samara Yudof, criticized the study group, Policy Analysis for California Education, as having ``a track record of putting out flawed and misleading information about No Child Left Behind.''

The Bush administration also recognizes ``the disparity between state proficiency levels and NAEP,'' and the No Child Left Behind law responds to that by calling for more frequent NAEP tests, Yudof said.

Minority Improvement

NAEP already is showing more improvement among minority 9- year-olds in reading in the last five years than in the previous 28 years combined, Yudof said. ``The fact that state scores have risen more quickly than NAEP scores does nothing to diminish the gains we have seen on both state and NAEP scores,'' she said.

The Washington-based policy study group Education Sector, in a report in May, also described states as exaggerating their test results and other performance measures considered by No Child Left Behind, including graduation rates, teacher qualifications and school safety.

Education Sector named its findings the ``Pangloss Index,'' in reference to the excessively optimistic character created by the 18th century French author Voltaire.

Michael Petrilli, a former U.S. Education Department official who helped the Bush administration implement the No Child Left Behind law, said such studies demonstrate the need for nationally uniform testing standards.

``Letting the states measure their own progress in student learning is like letting a soccer team's coach also play referee,'' said Petrilli, now vice president for policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, an education reform group, in Washington.

U.S. lawmakers have resisted such suggestions, fearing it would be seen as an attack on local control of schools, said Representative Vernon Ehlers, a Michigan Republican, who serves as chairman of the House Science Committee's subcommittee on environment, technology and standards.

North Korean missile test to go unpunished after UN split

CHINA and Russia moved yesterday to block attempts to impose UN sanctions on North Korea as the reclusive communist nation fired a seventh ballistic missile.

Britain and the US backed the Japanese call for a mandatory Security Council resolution demanding a halt to testing as well as sanctions on funding, parts and technology for Pyongyang’s missile programme. The three countries’ ambassadors also appeared shoulder-to-shoulder outside the council chamber to send a united message.

“We hope the response of the Security Council will be swift, strong and resolute,” Kenzo Oshima, the Japanese representative to the UN, said.

President Bush called on North Korea last night to “verifiably abandon” its weapons programmes. He said that the apparent failure of the long-range Taepodong 2 missile, which fizzled 42 seconds after lift-off, did not diminish the urgency of pushing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programme.

“One thing we have learnt is that the rocket didn’t stay up for very long,” he said. “It tumbled into the sea. It doesn’t diminish my desire to solve this problem.” He said that top US officials were working with other nations to coax Pyongyang back to the multinational talks.

Japan’s proposal, invoking the “enforcement provisions” of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, would require that North Korea, “immediately cease the development, testing, deployment and proliferation of ballistic missiles”. The draft resolution would outlaw “the transfer of financial resources, items, materials, goods and technology to end users that could contribute to [North Korea’s] missile and other weapons of mass destruction programs”.

The text would also call for North Korea to return to the six-party talks, which it has been boycotting in protest at an American crackdown on counterfeiting and other alleged financial crimes.

But China and Russia, which hold veto power on the 15- nation council, quickly signalled their opposition to sanctions and called for action to be limited to a non-binding statement, rather than a resolution.

“Thirteen delegations were in favour of a resolution and two delegations have recommended that a presidential statement would be more appropriate,” Jean-Marc de La Sablière, the French ambassador who holds the council presidency, said.

Vitali Churkin, Russia’s UN envoy, suggested that his Government, while particularly concerned by information that some missile fragments may have fallen near Russian territory, did not envisage any punitive measures. “The goal should be the resumption of the six-party talks and the ultimate diplomatic solution.”

Wang Guangya, the Chinese ambassador, cited the precedent of the Security Council’s response to North Korea’s 1998 test-firing of a Taepodong 1 missile that flew over Japan. Then the council issued a statement expressing “regret” over the missile launch, which “poses harm to the fishing and shipping activities in the region”.

North Korea remained defiant. “Maintenance of peace in our country is entirely made possible by our strong war deterrent,” a commentator on the state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station said.

Ruling disappoints, angers Ithaca 50

ITHACA — Disappointment, rage and the eventual need to regroup characterized many local reactions to Thursday's ruling by New York's highest court on same-sex marriage.

In the 4-2 decision, the Court of Appeals said that the New York State constitution does not require the legalization of same-sex marriages.

“The decision is not only behind the times, but it leaves us as second-class citizens,” said Ross Haarstad, a member of the Ithaca 50 who has been in a same-sex relationship for 20 years. “The court ducked an issue that they should've decided on constitutional grounds.”
The Ithaca 50 refers to 25 same-sex couples who sued the City of Ithaca in 2004 after being denied marriage licenses by the city clerk's office. That suit, Seymour vs. Holcomb, was one of four included in the Court of Appeals case. The attorneys Richard Stumbar, Mariette Geldenhuys and Elizabeth Bixler represented the Ithaca 50.

There can be no appeal in the case because it addresses an issue dealing with the state constitution, and the next level of appeal would cross into the federal jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court.

With that in mind, those pushing for same-sex marriages said their next step will be to start pressuring the state Legislature and candidates running for state office to act on the issue.

Locally there has been little faith that turning to the Legislature will offer a quick or easy resolution to the issue.

“It took them 30 years to pass (the Sexual Non-Discrimination Act). I'm not waiting 30 years for them to recognize the rights included in marriage,” said Jason Hungerford, another member of the Ithaca 50.

Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, D-125th District, who announced her plan to run for re-election a few hours after the court decision was made public, said this about the court ruling:

“Let's get government out of the wedding business and have everyone, equally, have a civil arrangement,” she said.

The proposal Lifton supports would replace the word “marriage” with “civil commitment” in state laws, creating a legal contract she said would be accessible to everyone, while leaving the religious aspect of the union to religious institutions.

“Why should state government become a religious institution?” she asked.

As she was leaving the event announcing Lifton's candidacy, Carolyn Peterson, mayor of the City of Ithaca, reiterated her support for ongoing efforts to legalize same-sex unions.

“They deserve that equal protection under the law,” she said.

Richard Driscoll, executive director of the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County, saw the ruling as a confusion of the separation between church and state.

“If the church says you can't get married that's their business, but what does it have to do with the state?” he asked.

Despite this view, supporters of same-sex unions expressed their commitment to continue fighting for equal protection under the law.

“I think it will change in my lifetime. It should now but we'll keep at it,” Haarstad said. “We knew it was a long haul. Now it's longer.”

EU says disputed Mexico vote fair

Election monitors from the European Union say they found no irregularities in last Sunday's hotly disputed presidential election.

The EU said its 80 monitors nationwide did not witness any wrongdoing.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to launch protests after the razor-thin victory of his rival Felipe Calderon.

But Mr Calderon has already begun to spell out his policies and has taken congratulatory calls from overseas leaders, including US President Bush.

The final tally from the election showed that just a few thousand votes separated the two candidates.

Conservative candidate Mr Calderon finished with 35.88%, against 35.31% for Mr Lopez Obrador, the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Mass rally

The European Union monitoring team said its monitors "did not report any incidents or irregularities that could have affected the transparency of the counting process and that could have impacted the results".

Mr Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), on Friday began to set out his policies, including support for US immigration reforms.

He also pledged to close the wealth gap between rich and poor and aid Mexican farmers.

Mr Calderon took calls of congratulations from Canada, Spain and US President George W Bush.

Mr Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said the president had called to tell Mr Calderon he "looked forward to working with him on issues of mutual interest".

However, Mr Lopez Obrador has not yet admitted defeat and has announced he will mount a legal challenge, citing "many irregularities".

Ricardo Monreal, a spokesman for Mr Lopez Obrador, said: "Demonstrations are allowed by the constitution", although he vowed that they would be peaceful.

A mass rally has been called for Saturday in Mexico City.

The vote will not be declared complete until the Federal Electoral Tribunal certifies the count.

Parties must file complaints by Monday and the tribunal must certify the winner by 6 September. It has the power to alter results and even call new polls.

Angelides says he would sign gay marriage bill

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides said Friday that if he unseats Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November he would sign a bill legalizing gay marriage in California.

Angelides talked about the issue the day after New York's high court upheld that state's one-man, one-woman marriage laws and as a California appeals court prepared to consider whether a trial judge erred in declaring the state's marriage laws unconstitutional.

"I would sign the marriage equality bill because I believe if we can get behind people to build a lasting relationship, that is a good thing," Angelides said at a news conference where Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., urged voters to support him.

The California Legislature last year became the first lawmaking body in the nation to legalize gay marriage. Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, saying it was up to voters or the courts, not lawmakers, to settle the matter.

The measure's sponsor, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, plans to reintroduce it in December after the election.

Clinton, who does not support gay marriage, refused to answer questions about Thursday's court ruling in her home state, but made a brief pitch on Angelides' behalf.

She said she had known Angelides since his days as head of the California Democratic Party in the early 1990s, when her husband, former President Clinton, was running against President George Herbert Walker Bush. That race, she said, mirrors the one Angelides is in now.

"He brought passion and commitment to a campaign that was on an uphill side," Clinton said of the 1992 race, adding that in taking on Schwarzenegger, Angelides "was unafraid when it looked like a hopeless cause because he believed California could do better."

Appearing with Angelides on Friday were other state Democrats: U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Angelides' primary opponent, Controller Steve Westly. Westly dismissed suggestions that he reluctantly supported Angelides after their bruising primary, which Angelides won 48 percent to Westly's 43 percent.

"California wants a change in Sacramento," he said. "We want a Democratic governor and we will have a Democratic governor come November 2006."

N.Y. ruling denies gay marriage
Similar California case to hear arguments from both sides Monday

Lawyers who will argue for and against same-sex marriage Monday before a California appeals court offered disparate views of Thursday's ruling by New York's highest court in a similar case.

The New York State Court of Appeals ruled 4-2 that a state law excluding same-sex couples from marriage doesn't violate that state's constitution, and is an issue best addressed by lawmakers.

"The idea that same-sex marriage is even possible is a relatively new one," Associate Judge Robert Smith wrote for the majority, adding that until recent decades, societies throughout history condoned marriages only between men and women. "A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted. We do not so conclude."

The California Court of Appeal in San Francisco will hear arguments Monday in six consolidated cases challenging the constitutionality of California's same-sex marriage ban. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer in March 2005 ruled the statutory ban serves "no rational purpose" and unconstitutionally denies same-sex couples equal protection under the law.

National Center for Lesbian Rights legal director Shannon Minter, who will argue four of the cases Monday, issued a statement Thursday saying California courts are unlikely to mirror the New York court's reasoning.

California lawmakers have taken a stronger stand that same-sex parents and their children deserve equal legal protections, he said: "Because of this clear policy, a California court could not accept a desire to treat some families as superior to others as a legitimate basis for discrimination in marriage."

The Legislature has supported marriage equality by enacting California's domestic partnership law and passing a same-sex marriage bill, although the latter was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he noted. And the California Supreme Court in 2005 ruled government can't discriminate against children based on their parents gender or sexual orientation.

In contrast, New York has no statewide civil union or domestic partnership protections, and New York courts have rejected most equality claims made by same-sex couples.

Minter also noted California has a history of interpreting its state constitution to provide "stronger and broader protections for civil liberties than the federal constitution." As an example he cited a 1948 California Supreme Court decision striking down the law against interracial marriage; the U.S. Supreme Court didn't do so until 1967.

"Our courts have a proud legacy of standing up for personal dignity and individual freedom," he said. "We are confident they will continue to do so for lesbian and gay people as well."

Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office must defend the current same-sex marriage ban, but the Campaign for California Families has sued San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for letting city officials issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004.

Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of the Florida-based conservative legal and educational group Liberty Counsel, will argue Monday on the campaign's behalf. He also had filed a friend-of-the-court brief for conservative groups in New York, and on Thursday he said the New York ruling "certainly is persuasive" and "was a good prelude to the arguments on Monday, from our perspective."

"It mirrors the exact same argument that we are making in our briefs, which is that it is a legislative matter" and lawmakers can base their decisions in the best interests of procreation and child rearing, Staver said.

Male-female marriage underpins the well-being of couples, children and society, Staver had said in a statement issued earlier Thursday, but recognizing same-sex marriage "would result in the abolition of male and female by making gender irrelevant, and the abolition of gender would have devastating effects on children."

"We must not rest until we have once and for all defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the United States Constitution," the statement said.

The Georgia Supreme Court also issued a same-sex marriage ruling Thursday, upholding that state's constitutional ban. That case didn't involve the ban's substance, but only whether the amendment was properly placed on the ballot in 2004.

Twenty states have enacted constitutional same-sex marriage bans; 25 others have only statutory bans. Massachusetts is the only state now allowing gay marriage, although Vermont and Connecticut allow same-sex civil unions. High courts in Washington state and New Jersey are mulling whether same-sex couples have the right to marry.

Same-sex marriage dealt setbacks

Advocates of gay marriage have lost court battles in two of the largest US states, New York and Georgia.

New York's Court of Appeals ruled the state constitution does not grant a right to gay marriage, but left open the option for a change in the law.

In Georgia, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the state ban on gay marriage had been improperly passed.

American proponents of gay marriage have had success with court battles only in the state of Massachusetts.

The New York case combined four different suits brought by more than 40 same-sex couples who had spent two years fighting their case through the New York courts.

Three judges ruled that the state constitution did not require New York to recognise same-sex marriages.

A fourth judge concurred, though she added that it may be time "for the Legislature to address the needs of same-sex couples and their families".

Two judges wrote a heartfelt dissent, and one declined to participate in the case because his daughter has lobbied for gay marriage in California.

'Long haul'

The ruling is the end of the line for this particular case, which the gay marriage advocates fought only on state law, not federal law.

Gov George Pataki and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer - a leading candidate to be the next governor - had argued that lawmakers could reasonably believe marriage should be limited to one man and one woman.

Kathy Burke, one of the plaintiffs, said it was "a sad day for New York families", the Associated Press reported.

Another plaintiff, Regina Cicchetti, said she and Susan Zimmer, her partner of 36 years, had not given up.

"We're in this for the long haul. If we can't get it done for us, we'll get it done for the people behind us," AP quoted her as saying.

Georgia's Supreme Court decided its case on narrower grounds than New York's - where the plaintiffs claimed the ban on gay marriage was discriminatory.

The Georgia case concerned whether the state ban on gay marriage was imposed properly when it was approved by more than three in four voters state-wide in 2004.

A lower court ruled the ballot was improper, but the Supreme Court disagreed, thus reinstating the ban.

Rove: Bush to veto DeGette bill

President Bush will likely cast the first veto of his presidency if the Senate, as expected, passes legislation to expand federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, White House aide Karl Rove said today.

"The president is emphatic about this," Rove - Bush's top political advisor and architect of his 2000 and 2004 campaigns - said in a meeting with the editorial board of The Denver Post.

The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed the legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. If the Senate approves the bill it would go to the president's desk.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who backs the bill, has said he will try to bring it up for a Senate vote soon.

"It is something we would, frankly, like to avoid," Rove said when asked if the White House would welcome, or dread, vetoing legislation passed by a Republican Congress, especially on so emotional an issue as embryonic stem cell research.

But Rove said that he believes the legislation will pass the Senate with more than 60 votes this month, "and as a result the president would, as he has previously said emphatically, veto the Castle bill."

"I'm appalled that Bush would use the first veto of his presidency to veto a bill that could help 110 million people and their families," DeGette said today after being informed of Rove's remarks.

On another volatile issue - congressional attempts to reform the nation's immigration system - Rove said that immigration legislation had to be "comprehensive" to win Bush's support, but that more controversial proposals like a temporary-worker program might be phased in as the U.S. improves its border security.

Rove said that the behind-the-scene talks between House and Senate negotiators were making "good" progress toward an immigration compromise and that there is still a chance that a bill could be passed before the November election.

In a wide-ranging, 90-minute interview, Rove also defended the Bush administration's policy in Iraq and predicted that Republicans would maintain control of both the House and the Senate in the November election.

The Bush administration's stem cell policy, adopted in 2001, has been to allow federal research funding only for existing lines of embryonic stem cells.

Researchers and patients groups have complained that the policy hinders vital research into treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.

The stem cell legislation is not likely to become law, Rove said, because backers lack the votes needed - two-thirds of each house of Congress - to override a veto.

"We were all an embryo at one point, and we ought to as a society be very careful about being callous about the wanton destruction of embryos, of life," Rove said. Recent research, he said, shows that researchers "have far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells."

If Bush vetoes the stem cell bill, "we will try to override it," DeGette said, adding that support among lawmakers is growing.

Castle and DeGette have requested a meeting with Bush to present their case. "I still hold out hope that the president would give us that courtesy for a meeting," she said.

Rove was in Colorado to speak Sunday at an Aspen Institute forum and to attend several political events, including a Republican gathering tonight in Parker.

Addressing immigration at the editorial board meeting, Rove was receptive to proposals by some congressional Republicans to establish checkpoints at ports of entry to the United States, where existing illegal immigrants would have to go to register, pay a penalty and show proof of employment.

He said that such checkpoints didn't necessarily have to be on the border, but could be located at airports in Denver or Los Angeles, for example, or at ports of entry like New Orleans.

Comprehensive reform is needed because illegal immigrants will inevitably find ways to enter the United States, so long as wages are so high here when compared to other countries.

"You cannot control the border. ... We don't have enough resources," he said. "You've got to do it all together."

Rove said that he advises GOP candidates to back the president's comprehensive approach, despite the fierce opposition of hard-liners within the Republican Party such as Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Littleton.

"I cannot see a single district in which a Republican is going to be advantaged by opposing a comprehensive solution," said Rove.

When asked about the November election, Rove expressed confidence that the Republicans will weather the recent dip in public opinion.

"They are not going to be able to run the table," Rove said, when asked about Democratic hopes to seize the Senate. He predicted that that the GOP would pull off some "surprise" upsets of its own.

And though the public is sour on the ongoing costs of the war, the new Iraqi government "looks like (it will be) able to get this job done," Rove said. As long as there are signs of progress, "at the end of the day, ... the American people do not want the U.S. to be defeated."

Judge: FBI Raid on Lawmaker's Office Legal

An FBI raid on a Louisiana congressman's Capitol Hill office was legal, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said members of Congress are not above the law. He rejected requests from lawmakers and Democratic Rep. William Jefferson to return material seized by the FBI in a May 20-21 search of Jefferson's office.

In a 28-page opinion, Hogan dismissed arguments that the first-ever raid on a congressman's office violated the Constitution's protections against intimidation of elected officials.

"Congress' capacity to function effectively is not threatened by permitting congressional offices to be searched pursuant to validly issued search warrants," said Hogan, who had approved the FBI's request to conduct the overnight search of Jefferson's office.

Jefferson had sought the return of several computer hard drives, floppy disks and two boxes of paper documents that FBI agents seized during an 18-hour search of his Rayburn Building office.

At issue was a constitutional provision known as the speech and debate clause, which protects elected officials from being questioned by the president, a prosecutor or a plaintiff in a lawsuit about their legislative work.

"No one argues that the warrant executed upon Congressman Jefferson's office was not properly administered," Hogan wrote. "Therefore, there was no impermissible intrusion on the Legislature. The fact that some privileged material was incidentally captured by the search does not constitute an unlawful intrusion."

The raid on Jefferson's office angered members of Congress, some of whom threatened to retaliate by tinkering with the FBI and Justice Department budgets.

President Bush stepped in and ordered the solicitor general to take custody of the seized materials so Congress and the Justice Department could work out procedures to deal with similar situations in the future.

The president's 45-day "cooling off period" ended Sunday with no compromise worked out but with assurances from the Justice Department that it would not seek to regain custody of the materials until Hogan ruled on Jefferson's request.

Because Hogan signed the search warrant authorizing the search, Jefferson's legal team was not surprised by his ruling upholding it.

"While a Congressman is not above the law, the executive branch must also follow the law," said Jefferson's lawyer, Robert Trout. "We appreciate the consideration the judge accorded our motion for the return of the seized property, but we respectfully disagree with his conclusion, and we intend to appeal the ruling."

Hogan said a search warrant seeking material is very different than a subpoena seeking testimony.

"Jefferson may never be questioned regarding his legitimate legislative activities, is immune from civil or criminal liability for those activities, and no privileged material may ever be used against him in court," the judge wrote.

Jefferson has been under investigation since March 2005 for allegedly using his position to promote the sale of telecommunications equipment and services offered by iGate, a Louisville-based firm, that sought contracts with Nigeria, Ghana and other African nations.

In return for his help, Jefferson allegedly demanded stock and cash payments. Jefferson has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing.

Mass. Court Backs Gay Marriage on Ballot

The same court that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage ruled Monday that a proposed constitutional amendment to ban future same-sex marriages can be placed on the ballot, if approved by the Legislature.

The ruling was in a lawsuit brought by gay-rights supporters who argued that Attorney General Tom Reilly was wrong to approve the ballot measure because they said the state constitution bars any citizen-initiated amendment that seeks to reverse a judicial ruling.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Judicial Court said the proposed amendment is not a "reversal" of the court's ruling legalizing gay marriage but a proposed change to the state constitution, which can be legally done through a citizen initiative.

"The underlying substantive law is simply changed to reflect the present intentions of the people, and that new law will be applied thereafter in any subsequent case or cases," the court said in its ruling.

Justice John M. Greaney, in a concurring opinion, warned that approving an amendment banning gay marriage would be discriminatory because it would remove the rights of same-sex couples to the legal, social and financial benefits of marriage.

"The only effect of a positive vote will be to make same-sex couples, and their families, unequal to everyone else; this is discrimination in its rawest form," Greaney wrote.

With a landmark 2003 ruling, the court cleared the way for same-sex marriages to begin in Massachusetts in May 2004. More than 8,000 gay couples have married since.

The state Legislature is expected to take up the ballot question Wednesday during a constitutional convention.

Citizen-initiated ballot questions must be certified by the attorney general and then approved by two consecutive legislative sessions. Before the marriage question could be placed on the 2008 ballot, supporters would need to win the votes of 50 lawmakers _ 25 percent of the Legislature _ in two consecutive sessions.

Lee Swislow, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said she was disappointed but knew it would be an uphill battle. She said the fight is not over.

"So now obviously the focus is going to turn to the Legislature, which has a chance on Wednesday during the constitutional convention to do the right thing and defeat this amendment," said Swislow, whose organization filed the lawsuit in January.

Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay marriage, although Vermont and Connecticut allow same-sex civil unions that confer the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples.

Forty-five states have specifically barred same-sex marriage through statutes or constitutional amendments. Last week, justices on New York's highest court ruled gay marriage is illegal there under state law, and Georgia's high court ruled its state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was legal.

Supporters of a constitutional amendment in Massachusetts predict they will have enough votes to win the first round of approval from the Legislature. They would also need to win approval in the next legislative session.

"We are comfortably in excess of 50 votes," said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

"We are very, very excited, elated and pleased with the SJC ruling," he said. "All I can say is justice is alive and well in Massachusetts."

Senate to Hear Detainee Issue After Recess

WASHINGTON — The Senate is unlikely to take up legislation addressing the legal rights of suspected terrorists until after Congress'August recess, Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday.

Frist's plan not to act until this fall pushes the Guantanamo issue squarely into election season, when Republicans will be seeking support from voters by focusing on national security issues.

Republicans are discussing their legislative options among themselves, Democrats and the Bush administration, said Frist, R-Tenn.

"We will act legislatively,"he said.

The Supreme Court on June 29 ruled 5-to-3 that President Bush's plan to try detainees captured in the war on terror through military tribunals violated U.S. and international law. Some 450 detainees are being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

The decision put the ball in Congress'court to pass legislation dictating how suspected terrorists should be prosecuted.

Lawmakers and congressional aides say there are a range of options that could be pursued, including passing legislation specifically authorizing Bush's proposed military tribunals or setting up a system similar to military courts-martial.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, plans to hold the first of several hearings this week on the issue. The committee, followed by the House and Senate Armed Services committees, plans to hear from active and retired military officials and legal experts.

"We need to have a body of law directed at this new battlefield"against terrorists, said Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and an advocate of the administration's treatment of detainees.

Hunter, Frist and other lawmakers have said they remain undecided on how the legislation should look, and several congressional aides said members are waiting to hear from the administration before moving forward. The exception is Specter, who has introduced legislation that would authorize a tribunal system but impose requirements on the Defense Department to ensure each prisoner is afforded sufficient"due process."

The matter of detainees'legal treatment has long been the subject of much debate in Congress, including among Republicans. Some conservatives have supported the Bush administration's desire to prosecute suspected terrorists using the military tribunals, whereas others suggest there should be less secrecy in the system.

Intended to protect classified information, the military tribunals would grant fewer rights to suspected terrorists. Unlike the military courts-martial system and civil courts, defendents have limited rights to appeal.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly last year to ban cruel and inhumane treatment when interrogating prisoners, but only after fierce debate on whether Taliban fighters and other suspected terrorists should be afforded certain legal rights.

The Bush administration has asserted that its tribunal system is lawful and detainees are not protected under the Geneva Conventions, intended to safeguard prisoners of war, including U.S. troops, from abusive treatment.

The Supreme Court ruled last month, however, that Bush's military commissions would violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.

A group of retired military officers who oppose the administration's position on the treatment of detainees asked members of Congress on Monday to block the appointment of the Pentagon's general counsel to a seat on a federal U.S. court because of his role in crafting the Pentagon's detainee policy. William J. Haynes II has been nominated for a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"What compels us to take this unusual step is our profound concern about the role Mr. Haynes played in establishing _ over the objections of uniformed military lawyers _ detention and interrogation policies ... which led not only to the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody but to a dangerous abrogation of the military's longstanding commitment to the rule of law,"the retired officers wrote in a letter to Specter and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

The letter was signed by about 20 retired military officers, including Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, former head of U.S. Central Command.

Sens. George Allen, R-Va., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., are scheduled to visit the Guantanamo Bay military prison this week. Allen is running for re-election and is frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. Durbin has sharply criticized the treatment of prisoners.

US applies Geneva Convention to military detainees

The Pentagon acknowledged for the first time that all detainees held by the U.S. military are covered by the protections of an article of the Geneva Conventions that bars inhumane treatment, according to a memo made public on Tuesday.

The memo signed by Gordon England, the No. 2 official in the Defense department, followed a June 29 Supreme Court ruling that struck down as illegal the military tribunal system set up by the Bush administration to try foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The United States previously has determined that certain prisoners taken in Washington's war on terrorism are not deserving of all of the protections of the Geneva Conventions -- international agreements governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

The memo was made public on the day Congress began hearings on how to proceed in trying Guantanamo prisoners after the high court ruling.

The United States has come under international criticism for how it has treated detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere.

The memo, dated July 7, stated that detainees held in U.S. military custody worldwide are covered by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which ensures their humane treatment.

The article prohibits violence against detainees, including mutilation, cruel treatment and torture, and "outrages upon personal dignity" including humiliating and degrading treatment." It also ensures care for the sick and wounded.

It also bars sentencing or executing prisoners without a decision by "a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

The administration argued the move was not a dramatic change because the Defense Department already had a policy of treating detainees humanely.

"It is not really a reversal of policy," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "Humane treatment has always been the standard, and that is something that they followed at Guantanamo."

England, the deputy secretary of defense, said in his memo that it was "my understanding" that aside from the military trial procedures that the Supreme Court struck down, "existing DoD (Department of Defense) orders, policies, directives, execute orders, and doctrine comply with the standards of Common Article 3..."

These include existing military manuals governing interrogations and medical care for detainees, the memo said.

$US110m towards anti-Castro activists

As Cuban President Fidel Castro prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday, the Government of the United States is spending up on a birthday gift the longstanding leader won't appreciate.

President George W. Bush has approved a $110-million program aimed at bolstering anti-Castro activists in Cuba and moving the country towards democracy.

But analysts say a transition to democracy in Cuba won't be as seamless as the US hopes.

North America Correspondent Michael Rowland reports.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: The US Government clearly hopes the end may be in sight for its Cuban nemesis.

Fidel Castro is not the robust revolutionary he used to be. After frustrating successive US presidents since he seized power in 1959, the Cuban leader is starting to show signs of age.

Analysts say his health has deteriorated and his legendary and lengthy public speeches are now few and far between.

In less than a month the one time firebrand turns 80, and the Bush administration has decided it's clearly time to step up preparations for life after Castro.

The State Department has released a democracy blueprint drawn up by the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the US is actively working for change in Cuba, and not simply waiting for change to happen.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: We are laying the groundwork to offer specific substantial assistance for a democratic transition in Cuba, including humanitarian aid and support for the recovery of those fundamental democratic rights and economic freedoms that lead to prosperity.

The Commission's second report keeps the promise that the United States has made to the people of Cuba: you have no greater friend than America, you can always count on our support, and we will be ready to stand with you through the process of transformation to your democratic future.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: The $110-million democracy fund will help finance opposition groups in Cuba and provide what the US calls uncensored information to Cuba through satellite radio and TV broadcasts.

The Cuban-born US Commerce Secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, says America stands ready to act once Fidel Castro dies.

CARLOS GUTIERREZ: We will do all this and more, provided we are asked by a Cuban transition government that is committed to dismantling all instruments of state repression and implementing internationally respected human rights and fundamental freedoms, including organising free and fair elections for a democratically elected new Cuban government within a period of no more than 18 months.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Needless to say, the US plan hasn't gone down well with the Cuban Government.

The President of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, says it amounts to a sinister plan for regime change.

Other Cuban officials believe the ultimate US transition plan for Cuba continues to involve the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Analysts say the US strategy discounts the role of President Castro's 75-year-old brother, and heir apparent, Raul.

Jaime Suchlicki, the Director of Cuba Transition Project at the University of Miami, says Raul Castro is likely to be even more of a hardliner.

JAIME SUCHLICKI: Ah, and it's clear now, and there's a greater prominence of Raul now in the state-controlled media and other places, that he is the anointed successor. The question is, 1) is this going to be an individual succession, or is this going to be more of an institutionalised succession, and in the past month we have seen a strengthening of the party, the Communist Party of Cuba, the only party in Cuba.

We have seen the creation or the re-establishment of the secretariat of the party, with Raul and Fidel at the helm, so there is a vision that the Cuban leadership has that the succession not be an individual succession but an institutionalised succession, led by the party, the military and the security apparatus.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: So given that, and given the determination of Raul Castro to ensure things are largely unchanged, if and when he does succeed his brother, hopes of a, US hopes of a transition of government in Cuba from communism to democracy, at this stage, seem to be fairly far-fetched, don't they?

JAIME SUCHLICKI: Well, my view is … well, nothing is far-fetched because anything can happen in international relations, and there is always the imponderable.

My view is that the succession will be easier and quick, the transition in Cuba will be long and difficult.

ELEANOR HALL: And that's Jaime Suchlicki, the Director of the Cuba Transition Project at the University of Miami. He was speaking to our Washington Correspondent, Michael Rowland.

US set to sign Russian WTO deal before G8

MOSCOW - The United States and Russia are poised to sign a deal on the eve of the Group of Eight summit paving the way for Russia to join the World Trade Organization, officials and diplomats said on Tuesday.

The White House played up hopes that Russia's decade-old bid to join the WTO could clear the last major hurdle when presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin meet on Friday, the eve of the G8 summit in St Petersburg.

International leaders sought to seize on the momentum that a U.S.-Russia trade deal would create to revive the stalled Doha round of global free trade talks.

Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted Bush as telling foreign correspondents he had sent a letter to Putin setting out the U.S. position.

"There is no lack of clarity about what should happen on the market access issue, from both sides' point of view," Bush said.

"I hope that we'll sort it out. I'm an optimist on this."

A bilateral trade deal would kick-start the first G8 summit to be hosted by Russia, and help ease recent antagonism over Moscow's growing assertiveness as a strategic energy exporter.

"I hope that we will manage to successfully conclude talks with the Americans before the start of the summit," Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov told reporters.

GOOD BET

A Western diplomat said: "If I was allowed to bet, I would put good money on a U.S.-Russia bilateral deal on WTO."

The head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia also forecast a WTO deal and said it could unlock billions of dollars in investments, above all in the energy and aircraft sectors.

"We are very confident that the United States and Russia will sign a bilateral agreement at the G8 or the day before," Andrew Somers told a news briefing in Moscow. "It's a historic opportunity that should not be missed."

Somers said U.S. Boeing Co. could subsequently sign a deal to sell 22 B-787 'Dreamliner' jets to Russian flag carrier Aeroflot. Boeing is competing with Europe's Airbus for the $3 billion order.

And, Somers said, "one or two" U.S. oil firms could be invited to join state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom in developing the vast Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea.

Chevron Corp and ConocoPhillips are on a five-firm shortlist for the $20 billion project to supply North America with liquefied natural gas shipped by tanker.

DOHA PUSH

Russia's Kommersant daily said the Americans had dropped demands that foreign banks should be able to open branches in Russia and that Russia crack down immediately on intellectual property abuses.

For its part, Russia would agree to open up its insurance market over seven years and agree to cut agricultural subsidies, which the paper said amounted to $9.2 billion annually.

A U.S. deal is the last big hurdle to WTO entry for Russia, the largest economy outside the 149-member club. Diplomats said this might, if it came off, change the atmosphere and get Russia interested in putting world trade on the G8 summit agenda.

The European Union urged progress on Doha in St Petersburg, calling on the United States to yield ground on farming subsidies, a key sticking point in the five-year-old Doha round.

"We hope that signal can come from this meeting ... We expect (the) Americans to make some positive moves," European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said in Brussels.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on G8 leaders to ensure that the Doha round succeeds, giving a fair deal to poorer countries. The Doha process is up against the clock, as Bush's fast-track power to sign trade deals expires in mid-2007.

Paulson: U.S. Won't Retreat From Economy
Henry Paulson Takes Over As Treasury Secretary, Pledges U.S. Won't Retreat From Global Economy

WASHINGTON - Henry M. Paulson took over Monday as the nation's 74th Treasury secretary, pledging to make sure the country does not retreat from the global economy.

Paulson, the former head of Goldman Sachs Group, was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Treasury Department's ornate Cash Room with President Bush, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other dignitaries from the administration and Congress looking on.

"We must always remember that the strength of the U.S. economy is linked to the strength of the global economy," Paulson said in his brief remarks. "If we retreat from the global stage, the void is likely to be filled by those who do not share our commitment to economic reform."

Paulson said he planned to expand trade and investment, modernize international financial markets and "be vigilant in identifying and managing potential financial vulnerability."

Bush praised Paulson for giving up the top job at Goldman Sachs to become his third Treasury secretary as part of a Cabinet shake-up designed to bolster the president's sagging public approval ratings and stalled second term economic agenda.

With Paulson, the administration hopes it has obtained the same kind of economic star power that Robert Rubin, another former head of Goldman Sachs, brought to government when he served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration.

Paulson succeeds John Snow, who was praised by Bush for his leadership in the war against terrorism, including a formerly secret Treasury program to track thousands of international money transfers. Snow had succeeded Paul O'Neill, who was forced to resign over policy differences with the administration.

The president said Paulson would be his "leading policy adviser" and principal economic spokesman as the administration works to make the tax cuts of Bush's first term permanent while bringing federal spending under control and reigning in the growth of Social Security and Medicare.

Bush said the government's big benefit programs were "growing at a rate faster than inflation and faster than the economy and faster than we can afford." Bush's drive to overhaul Social Security with the introduction of private savings accounts went nowhere in Congress last year.

During his confirmation hearing, Paulson stuck close to the administration's economic policies, saying he strongly opposed tax increases, wanted to address the long-term obligations of Social Security and Medicare and wanted China to move more quickly in changing its currency policy.

Paulson, whose wife, two children and mother witnessed his oath taking, said during his remarks that he would work to make sure that the U.S. economy "remains a model of strength, flexibility and openness."

The head of Goldman Sachs since 1999, Paulson, who is reportedly worth more than $700 million, has agreed to divest his extensive holdings in the company. In a recent regulatory filing, Goldman Sachs said it paid Paulson a cash bonus of $18.7 million for a half-year's work for the company.

In a rare move, Bush walked rather than traveling by motorcade from the White House to the Treasury Department next door for the ceremony. Paulson was waiting for the president on the building's west steps.

Congress to ban MySpace in schools?
Lawmakers look to restrict access to popular social-networking sites

Bill would limit access to social networking sites

WASHINGTON - MySpace.com and other immensely popular social networking sites on the Internet were portrayed Tuesday as emerging playgrounds for sexual predators as lawmakers considered a measure to restrict their access in publicly funded schools and libraries.

"This is the hottest issue of the day," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott told reporters after testifying before a House subcommittee examining possible new federal restrictions to protect young Internet users from pedophiles.

A bill by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., would require schools and libraries that get federal funds to limit or ban access to social networking sites that could expose minors to sexual advances from adults.

The bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, has drawn opposition among schools, librarians and free-speech advocates, who warn that it would have limited effect and could unintentionally block access to scores of other Web sites. Officials of the sites also say they are taking aggressive steps to protect their users.

News Corp., MySpace's parent corporation, is committed to playing a lead role in helping develop safeguards on the Internet but does not believe that the legislation "will be effective in helping reach this shared goal," Rick Lane, a News Corp. vice president, said in a statement.

But Abbott called the measure a good step in combating Internet trolling by sexual predators who try to exploit the surging popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and Xanga.

Abbott briefed subcommittee members on the results of his office's three-year-old Cyber Crimes Unit, in which undercover investigators posing as 13- and 14-year-old girls operate on popular Internet sites. The undercover investigations have resulted in the arrests of 84 suspected sexual offenders, including one man who was free on bail after being arrested five months earlier on a similar charge.

"In other words, while he was out on bond awaiting trial for illegal Internet solicitation of a minor, he was back on the Internet trolling for his next victim," Abbott said.

MySpace, which had 92 million members as of Tuesday and is one of the most widely used sites on the Internet, provides a forum for posting personality profiles, photos, music, instant messages and video streams. A 14-year-old girl in Austin, Texas, sued MySpace last month for $30 million, alleging that she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old MySpace user.

MySpace did not have a representative at the hearing. But News Corp. officials have said they work regularly with law enforcement agencies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to protect its clients. The site also provides safety tips and warns its younger users to avoid meeting anyone they don't fully know.

Judge orders Republican off ballot in Senate race

A judge on Wednesday ruled that a Republican legislator committed petition forgery and ordered him removed from the ballot in a key Senate race.

If upheld on an expected appeal, Judge Kenneth Fields' ruling removing Rep. Russell Jones from the ballot would deal a major blow to GOP hopes of winning a veto-proof majority in the Arizona Legislature in November.

Earlier Wednesday, a lawyer for Arizona Democrats argued that Jones repeatedly and deliberately misrepresented whether he personally collected voter signatures on nominating petitions for a key Senate seat and should be barred from running for office.

"I don't know whether it rises to the level of perjury ... but it wasn't the truth," attorney Paul Eckstein said of l Jones' testimony that he obtained signatures on petitions he signed as having personally collected.

Fields ruled last week that Jones could remain on the ballot the District 24 Senate race in La Paz and Yuma counties even though some of Jones' nominating petitions were invalid because he misrepresented that he had circulated them.

However, Fields reopened the case Tuesday after Democrats submitted new evidence they said indicated Jones misrepresented that he circulated additional petitions.

The Senate race in District 24 has statewide importance because Republicans hope to capture the seat now held by Sen. Robert Cannell, a Democrat not seeking re-election. They need the seat to help build a Senate majority big enough to override a veto by Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Eckstein said House records submitted into evidence Wednesday indicated Jones was in Phoenix doing legislative business when he supposedly was collecting petition signatures at a Yuma retirement center on May 1.

"Being in the same state when signatures are being obtained isn't being present," Eckstein said Wednesday. "The more he talks and the more we dig, the more we find what he said wasn't true."

Jones attorney Scott Williams had objected to Fields' decision to reopen the case, and Williams said Wednesday at the close of the hearing that the Democrats hadn't met the required legal burden to prove their allegations.

Williams said the House attendance records for the days in question indicated that daily floor sessions typically lasted an hour or less. He said Jones often flew back and forth between Yuma and Phoenix.

Any irregularities with Jones' petitions don't rise to the level of petition forgery, as alleged by the Democrats, and shouldn't trigger a five-year candidacy ban intended for actual forgery of voter signatures, Williams said. "It should be reserved for those extreme cases."

Fields earlier in the hearing called both the allegations and the requested sanction extremely serious. "It is a pretty Draconian penalty," he said.

Said Eckstein: "This is the case to do it. This case is very bad."

Mass. lawmakers don't address gay marriage

BOSTON - Massachusetts lawmakers ended debate on proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday before dealing with the most volatile issue on their agenda: a proposal to outlaw marriage for same-sex couples in the only state where it is legal.

The move to recess until Nov. 9 put off the decision on the politically charged issue until after the general election.

Senate President Robert Travaglini had said he intended to bring all 20 proposed amendments to a vote, but had warned lawmakers might not be able to get to every proposed amendment on Wednesday.

The House gallery erupted in applause from gay-rights activists after the vote to recess was announced. Opponents, however, condemned lawmakers for postponing debate.

"It's a real cop-out," said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute. "Trying to get legislators back two days after an election is really asking for the moon. I think that is really disingenuous to pick that date."

Lawmakers, who voted on half the amendments before recessing, could have voted to extend their work into the night. Opponents of gay marriage had been optimistic that they had the votes to move a step closer to putting the amendment on the 2008 ballot, and gay-rights supporters were happy to get a reprieve.

"We now have four more months to show legislators how well marriage equality is working in Massachusetts. We hope they will see that Massachusetts is ready to move on," said Marc Solomon, campaign director for gay rights group MassEquality.

If approved, the gay marriage amendment would block future gay marriages in Massachusetts. More than 8,000 same-sex couples have taken vows since gay marriages began in May 2004.

To get on the ballot, the question must twice win the backing of 25 percent — or 50 — of the state's 200 lawmakers: once during the current session and again during the session starting in January.

Rep. Mike Festa, a Democrat and gay marriage supporter, said that most members wanted to vote on the issue, but that "it's just that we have a lot of other business to do."

Hundreds of people on both sides of the issue rallied outside the Statehouse Wednesday as lawmakers made their way through a stack of proposed constitutional amendments dealing with everything from health care to redistricting.

"I think this is an issue for the people to decide," said Jonathan Gal, 39, of Lexington, wearing a sticker that read "Support One Man, One Woman." "I don't like the way this is being imposed on us by a small minority — the courts and the Legislature."

Across the street, supporters of same-sex unions cast the issue as one of civil rights.

"When does civil rights get put on the ballot for everyone to vote on?" said Jim Singletary, 44, of Salem, who last year married his longtime partner, Jim Maynard.

"This is for fairness for my family," Maynard said.

The debate came less than a week after New York's highest court rejected same-sex couples' bid to win marriage rights and Georgia's high court reinstated that state's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Gay marriage opponents in Massachusetts got a boost Monday from the Supreme Judicial Court, the same court that handed down the historic ruling legalizing gay marriage.

The court ruled that the proposed amendment could go forward, provided it clear the remaining legislative hurdles. Gay marriage supporters had sued to block the question.

Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay marriage, although neighboring Vermont and Connecticut allow same-sex civil unions that confer the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples.

A judge in Connecticut on Wednesday ruled that gay and lesbian couples have not been harmed by the state's decision to grant them civil unions but not marriage. Judge Patty Jenkins Pittman found that the difference is essentially one of semantics.

"The Connecticut Constitution requires that there be equal protection and due process of law, not that there be equivalent nomenclature for such protection and process," the judge wrote.

The plaintiffs, eight same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses, plan to appeal to the state's highest court.

Ga. judge blocks voter ID law enforcement

The same federal judge who threw out Georgia's voter ID law last year blocked the state Wednesday from enforcing its revised law during this year's elections.

The ruling came less than two hours after the Georgia Supreme Court denied the state's emergency request to overrule a state court order that blocked enforcement of the new photo ID law during next week's primary elections and any runoffs.

U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy's ruling, which he delivered verbally from the bench, was much broader, also including the Nov. 7 general elections and any runoffs.

If the rulings stand, Georgia voters will not have to show a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot this year. The state's primary election — which would have been the first election for which the IDs were required — is scheduled for Tuesday. The general elections are Nov. 7.

Murphy said the state's latest attempt at requiring voter photo IDs discriminated against people who don't have driver's licenses, passports or other government IDs.

"That is the failure of this legislation as it stands," he said.

The judge last October rejected a more stringent voter ID requirement, saying it amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax because of the fees associated with getting the required ID. The Legislature this year passed a new law that made the IDs free and available in all counties.

Murphy commended lawmakers for addressing problems with the previous version but said more work is needed. The latest version still denies citizens equal protection under the law, he said.

"The court never said there cannot be a proper voter ID law," he said.

Mark Cohen, the state's lead attorney, declined to comment on whether the state would appeal. Unless the ruling is reversed, Murphy's injunction will remain in place through the November runoff elections.

Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue and other supporters of the IDs had argued they were needed to prevent election fraud. Civil rights groups challenged the law in both federal and state court, arguing that it discriminated against poor, elderly and rural voters. They also argued that voter fraud in Georgia stems from absentee ballot voting, an issue not even addressed by the law.

"They have chosen deliberately to legislate only in an area where there was no problem," Emmett Bondurant, the critics' lead attorney, told Murphy in court.

Cohen argued that Georgia must restore confidence in the election system.

"The public in general in this country has a great distrust for the voting system," he said. "People are questioning whether voting is going on properly."

He also said the law does not deny Georgians the right to vote, because voters may cast an absentee ballot.

On July 7, a county judge issued a temporary order blocking Georgia from enforcing the voter ID law in the primary and any runoffs.

The Supreme Court's decision pertained only to that order and does not prevent the case from coming before the high court again.

House may renew landmark Voting Rights Act

House leaders cleared the way for a vote Thursday on renewing the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act after granting conservatives a chance to loosen requirements for bilingual ballots and restrictions on Southern states.

The changes were not expected to be added to the legislation, which would renew for 25 years a law widely considered the centerpiece of the civil rights movement. The original legislation abolished racist voting practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests.

Forty years have passed, but a dozen House hearings in the last year uncovered evidence that congressional districts still are sometimes drawn to water down the influence of ethnic communities and that minority voters are in some places disenfranchised.

House leaders scheduled a vote last month but then canceled it when a group of conservatives — mostly Southerners — said the bill singled out their states for Justice Department scrutiny without giving them credit for strides on civil rights.

Hours of negotiations in recent days yielded an agreement, approved 8-3 Wednesday by the Rules Committee, to allow votes on amendments proposing the changes pushed by the objectors.

Immigration and civil rights groups and lawmakers who support them are mobilized for a fight over what they see as the latest in a long history of attempts to undercut burgeoning political influence of racial minorities.

"I hope the House will see this for what it is and vote against these amendments," said Rep. John Lewis (news, bio, voting record), D-Ga., a veteran of the civil rights movement.

Late Wednesday, the supporters got some firepower from big business. Tyco, Comcast and Disney released letters to congressional leaders urging renewal of the act.

"Comcast's credo is to respect and reflect the customers, communities and cultures we serve," wrote executive vice president David L. Cohen, who noted that his company serves 21 million customers in 36 states and the District of Columbia. "We believe our support for the Voting Rights Act reauthorization is an important part of this commitment."

The amendments' sponsors — who hail from Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Florida and Alabama — say the renewal as written would unfairly single out their states for another quarter of a century.

The amendment with the most appeal, sponsored by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, would renew the law for a decade rather than 25 years.

Others would strip the law of requirements to provide multilingual ballots in districts with high populations of non-English speakers, and change the formula for which states are subject to the Justice Department oversight.

House passage would send the measure to the Senate, where the leaders support the legislation. But some senators were voicing the same objections as their counterparts in the House.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., on Wednesday questioned why Congress needed to act now, when the act doesn't expire until next year.

Senate deal would open up Florida drilling

WASHINGTON - Senate GOP leaders said Wednesday they had forged an agreement to open up a potentially rich area for oil and natural gas exploration off Florida's Gulf coast.

But the proposal, which senators suggested was their final offer, may prove politically difficult to reconcile with an offshore drilling plan approved by the House. That plan could open a far larger area of the East and West Coasts for energy exploration.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, described the measure to expand exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, as "the best single energy arrangement we can make for the American people this year."

The plan would allow leasing in 8 million acres within so-called Lease Area 181, which is off the western coast of Florida, and another 6.3 million acres just south of the 181 site.

To protect the Florida coast, the plan would stipulate that drilling could not be undertaken within 125 miles of the state's shoreline through 2022.

The plan would also direct 37.5 percent of the future royalties from development in this area to four energy producing Gulf states, including Texas. Another 12.5 percent of the revenue would be deposited in a federal land and water conservation fund. The remainder of the royalties would go to the federal government.

"Through federal royalty sharing, the Gulf Coast states will be provided a means to protect important national eco- systems and prepare themselves for unforeseen natural disasters," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, said.

Lawmakers said the area contains an estimated 1.1 billion barrels of crude oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Designed for support
The measure was designed to draw the support of Florida's two senators, who had previously threatened to filibuster any plan that involved drilling that could affect the state's beaches, which are a major draw for tourists.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said he believed the plan would protect the state's beaches. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said that while the proposal was promising, he warned that the "devil is in the details."

While Domenici described the plan in general, he has not released details on where drilling would be allowed.

Nelson warned that he would fight any compromise with the House bill, which would end an Outer Continental Shelf drilling moratorium that Congress has renewed every year since 1981.

The House bill would allow drilling within 50 miles of the shoreline in an area that covers 85 percent of the country's coastal waters everywhere except the central and western Gulf of Mexico and some areas off Alaska. That law would allow state governments to decide to block drilling.

It is unclear whether the House and Senate could bridge differences on vastly different versions of energy legislation. Majority Leader Bill Frist said he had not talked to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., about the bill. The majority leader said he hoped to vote on the Senate measure by the end of this month, before Congress adjourns for August recess.

'Long overdue'
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., hailed the deal, calling it "great news" and "long overdue." But drilling supporters in the House complain the Senate proposal pushes the offshore debate back to where it was years ago, when the Clinton administration proposed opening up the 181 Area to exploration.

Despite the 125-mile buffer off Florida, some environmentalists were unhappy with the Senate deal.

"Today, Sen. Mel Martinez sold out Floridians and their coastline to Big Oil," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters.

From an industry perspective, Tom Kearns, director of public affairs for the National Ocean Industries Association, said that while his group was encouraged that senators were moving on legislation, it opposed the ban through 2022 on drilling 125 miles off the Florida coast.

"We don't think moratoriums are good public policy," he said.

Suspect Padilla gets access to secrets

Amid tight security, alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla is being permitted to personally view U.S. government secrets in advance of his trial on charges of conspiring to wage and support international terrorism.

Under a federal judge's order, Padilla is being allowed to examine classified documents and videotapes detailing his statements during 3 1/2 years in Defense Department custody as an unlawful "enemy combatant." That designation was dropped last fall when he was charged in a Miami terrorism case.

Defense lawyers in terrorism cases are regularly permitted to examine such classified material if they obtain government security clearances.

But it is unusual for an actual terror suspect to be given direct access to secrets. Padilla is a U.S. citizen once accused by the Bush administration of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb."

"There is not a long history of this. There have not been a lot of terrorist prosecutions in civilian courts," said Aitan Goelman, a former Justice Department terrorism prosecutor now in private practice in Washington.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke's order issued July 5 allows Padilla to view 32 Defense Department documents that summarize statements Padilla made during his years in military custody. He also can examine 57 videotapes of interrogations he underwent during that same period.

Padilla's attorneys said in court papers that they must examine the materials with their client to discover whether he was mistreated by interrogators, to refresh his memory and find possible leads for their defense and to ensure that prosecutors have turned over all the necessary material and accurately.

The attorneys and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Miami declined comment Thursday on the arrangement.

Security will be extraordinarily tight for these sessions. Padilla will be brought to a secure, inner area in the court complex but the door must remain open so a U.S. marshal can keep constant watch.

Cooke's order said the marshal must maintain "an appropriate distance" to prevent overhearing defense trial strategy. But if the marshal does overhear, "those communications shall not be communicated to any member of the government prosecution team," the judge said.

The challenge in national security cases is in striking a balance between a defendant's right to prepare an adequate defense and the government's interest in protecting its secrets, particularly sources and methods used to obtain intelligence.

"I think the government, in an abundance of caution these days, is protecting as much as it can," said Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond. "There is a tension between his constitutional rights to defend himself and see the evidence against him on the one hand and national security on the other hand."

Padilla and two co-defendants are scheduled to go to trial in September on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to Islamic extremist groups around the country. All three have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and south Florida resident, was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare Airport. Authorities claimed then he had plotted to set off the "dirty bomb" as an al-Qaida soldier, but the Miami indictment does not mention that.

Valerie Plame Sues Cheney, Rove, Libby
by Jay

USA Today:

The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of revealing Plame’s CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration’s motives in Iraq.

Several news organizations wrote about Plame after syndicated columnist Robert Novak named her in a column on July 14, 2003. Novak’s column appeared eight days after Wilson alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Saddam Hussein’s government had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports, but the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address.

The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives of putting the Wilsons and their children’s lives at risk by exposing Plame.

“This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of … (Plame), whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country,” the Wilsons’ lawyers said in the lawsuit.

The Democratic Underground are ecstatic as the celebrate! No political agenda at all, move along.

The Corner:

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Valerie. Because, you see, if the suit is summarily dismissed, she and Joe will be laughingstocks. And if it goes any further, Dick and Karl and Scooter will have the right to do discovery — and then, I believe, Val ‘n’ Joe will reap the whirlwind.

Hizbullah wants soldiers moved to Iran

Unless you live on another planet, you are probably aware that things have escalated into full out war for Israel. In retaliation for the kidnapping of two soliders, Israel has declared war and already bombed Beirut Airport.

Iran is itching to get involved to the point of spreading the war all over the middle east. After all they do want to usher in the apocalypse and “wipe Israel off the map.” Well now it looks like Hizbullah wants to give them a chance to get involved.

Israel has information that Hizbullah guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

Regev did not disclose the source of his information.

The IDF released the names of the two soldiers on Thursday. According to the IDF Spokesperson, the two reserve are Ehud Goldwasser, 31, from Nahariya, and Eldad Regev, 26, from Kiryat Motzkin.

Hizbullah guerrillas, who are backed by Iran, seized the soldiers Wednesday in a cross-border raid.

OC Northern Command Lt.-Gen. Udi Adam said Thursday evening that the army has hit hundreds of targets in Lebanon since Wednesday night.

Adam added that Israel has not ruled out sending ground forces into Lebanon. He told reporters that even Northern Command had come under Katyusha fire during the day.

“I imagine over time that we will be able to rid ourselves of this threat entirely,” he said.

Is it only a matter of time before we get pulled into this? I’m afraid to answer my own question.

Wizbang is following this closely.

Atlass Shrugs says that Iran is neck deep in all of this and the ultimate puppet master behind all of it. She also says that war with Iran has begun!

Years from now, the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit will be regarded like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Against the backdrop of Kassam rocket fire on Israelis living within range of the Gaza Strip, it was the fate of Corporal Shalit that triggered the Israeli return to Gaza, which in turn brought the Hezbollah forces into the game.NY Sun

A friend sends me this link which has all kinds of exclusive good information in it on the situation.

Captain’s Quarters:

One has to wonder about the timing of these terrorist attacks on Israel. Either Syria or Iran, or both, have decided to start provoking Israel into some kind of response. Perhaps all they wanted was to force Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, and recalled that kidnappings have successfully done so with past Israeli administrations. In that case, they made a major miscalculation, and they may have a war for which they are unprepared. That would tend to indicate Bashar Assad’s incompetent handiwork.

On the other hand, perhap the entire idea was to start a regional war. The flashpoints being in Gaza and Israel’s northern border, the conspiracy would have intended to paint this as Israeli aggression — and given Europe’s normal response to fighting in the region, that would have been a pretty good prediction. What purpose would a regional war serve? It might play into the hands of a regime needing an excuse to test out a missile program on Tel Aviv, and perhaps a new warhead, too — and that would point to Ahmadinejad and the mad mullahcracy.

This could get ugly fast — and if it plays out like every other war against Israel in the last sixty years, it could clean up a lot of dictatorships.

Yes, I am afraid this could get very ugly indeed.

Bush agrees to submit NSA wiretaps Program to FISA courts

Via Allahpundit

Can ACLU and liberals now rejoice???!!!

Announced by Arlen Specter, reported by CNN and Fox. Hasn’t hit the wires yet but I should have a link soon. Specter called the negotiations with the White House “torturous.”

I’m waiting to see the actual news on the wire and digest this before I comment too much. I do agree with Allapundit that after giving Geneva rights to the terrorists, the administration are really taking it in the pants this week. My initial reaction is a bit of shock and some disappointment. I’m still digesting this.

Reuters

The White House, in a policy reversal, has agreed to allow a federal court review of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program, a top Senate Republican announced on Thursday.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he has negotiated a proposed bill with the White House that would do that and voiced hope his panel would approve it.

“We have structured a bill which is agreeable to the White House and I think will be agreeable to this committee,” Specter told the panel.

Again, I’m still digesting this, but if Arlen Specter is happy about this it can’t be much of a good thing. Some of us are wondering what happened to Bush’s spine. This was an issue he was so stubborn on for so long. Why the sudden about face? It won’t take long for the ACLU to applaud this decision followed by how many other things they still have to work on.

Update: Maybe not.

AP seems to be saying that the deal is to submit the program itself to the FISA court to review its Constitutionality.

The legislation would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s most high-profile monitoring operations, said the Pennsylvania Republican.

“You have here a recognition by the president that he does not have a blank check,” Specter told his committee.

….

Specter told the committee that the bill, among other things, would:

• Require the attorney general to give the intelligence court information on the program’s constitutionality, the government’s efforts to protect Americans’ identities and the basis used to determine that the intercepted communications involve terrorism.

• Expand the time for emergency warrants secured under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from three to seven days.

• Create a new offense if government officials misuse information.

• At the NSA’s request, clarify that international calls that merely pass through terminals in the United States are not subject to the judicial process established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The administration official, who asked not to be identified because discussions are still ongoing, said the bill also would give the attorney general power to consolidate the 100 lawsuits filed against the surveillance operations into one case before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Specter did not explain to his committee that detail, which is likely to raise the ire of civil liberties groups.

Oh!! We may have to hold that applause ACLU! As the details unfold, could it be that consolidating the lawsuits into a secret court like this would protect certain government secrets at the same time still reviewing its constitutionality? I’m still not convinced, but maybe this is more compromise than cave in? Something just doesn’t feel right about it all.

Lorie Byrd is still digesting all of this too:

I have not digested the specifics yet (actually no real details are known yet) but this may end up being a smart move in some ways. The first thing that occured to me is that if the program gets the FISA court stamp of approval, the critics hollering that the President broke the law will look even more foolish than they currently do. If that is possible.

Lawsuit challenges massive spotted owl 'habitat'
8 million acres in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico at stake

The U.S. government broke the law when it designated more than eight million acres in the western United States as "critical habitat" for the Mexican spotted owl, charges a lawsuit filed today by Pacific Legal Foundation.

"The critical habitat designation for the Mexican spotted owl runs afoul of the law in a number of ways," claimed Pacific Legal attorney Damien Schiff. "Some of the areas that have been set aside by the regulators clearly don't have physical and biological features that are essential for the owl's conservation. Other areas are described in such vague terms that it's anyone's guess whether it's necessary to take them out of public use."

In addition, said Schiff, "the regulators ignored their legal duty to consider and factor in the economic impact of the designation."

The suit is being filed in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association, which claims the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, responsible for the August 2004 habitat designation, failed to abide by requirements of the Endangered Species Act in designating more than eight million acres in Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico as federally protected spotted owl habitat.

Back in 1990, as WND has reported, the designation of the northern spotted owl as a threatened species resulted in the closure of 187 mills throughout Oregon, Washington and California and the loss of 22,654 jobs. Over the next decade, the public timber harvest in the region plummeted by at least 80 percent, devastating Oregon's largely timber-based economy.

Today's lawsuit is being filed in an attempt to stave off a similar fate. "Shutting off these millions of acres will have substantial negative effects on many private citizens who make a living through cattle grazing and oil and gas appropriation," said Schiff.

Many members of the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association, said Schiff, "hold grazing permits and leases authorizing livestock grazing on national forest lands included within the owl's critical habitat. This habitat designation will hurt them because it could mean an end, or severe curtailment, to their grazing permits on public lands." According to Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, a federal agency may not issue a grazing permit if the permitted activity will adversely modify terrain that has been designated as a species' critical habitat.

"It is important to note that this lawsuit is not about removing protections for the Mexican spotted owl," Schiff noted. "Rather, the case is about making sure that federal agencies abide by their statutory obligations so that the rights and economic interests of private citizens are not violated."

In 2004, as WND reported the federal government had seriously underestimated the cost of the Endangered Species Act to American taxpayers and businesses.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service report does not come close to accounting for the costs to taxpayers and to the private sector of complying with the ESA," said Randy T. Simmons of the Property and Environment Research Center. "A more accurate figure for the annual ESA costs would place those costs in billions, not millions, of dollars."

Harris takes back $100,000 from campaign to renovate home

Katherine Harris gave her campaign more than $3 million to run for Senate, but then took back $100,000 to finish renovating her "historic home in Washington, D.C." her campaign revealed Friday.

The campaign said that the Republican congresswoman would sell the house, if necessary, to fund her embattled Senate race to unseat Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson. The decision was immediately questioned.

"I have never heard of a candidate taking money out of a campaign coffer like it's an ATM. It absolutely boggles my mind," said former Harris campaign manager Jim Dornan. "This is a woman who has completely lost touch with reality. You don't take your campaign contributors' money, whether it's yours or not, and spend it to renovate you house. This is absolutely insane."

The campaign announced Harris repaid some of the money she already gave the campaign in a press release detailing fundraising for the three months ending June 30.

Nelson's campaign manager Chad Clanton was almost speechless when he heard about the report.

"I don't know what to say. It's just another bizarre chapter in the Katherine Harris campaign," he said.

The campaign said Harris has raised $1.1 million in donations during the quarter and said she has $2.6 million remaining in her campaign account. By comparison, Nelson raised $2.5 million in the same quarter and has $12.1 million remaining in his account.

The announcement comes the same week Harris lost much of her core campaign staff for the second time since getting in the race last summer. Her campaign manager, Glenn Hodas, resigned after three months on the job, saying Harris was uncontrollable. He is the third person to hold the position.

Harris announced on national television that she would spend $10 million of her own money on the race, but Friday's press release referred to the money as a loan.

Harris trails Nelson by more than 30 points in most polls and has been plagued by problems. Fundraising has been slow, GOP leaders tried to find another candidate, and she has received more attention for her association with a corrupt defense contractor who gave her $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions than she has on issues.

Harris also faces surgery on Monday to remove an ovarian mass.

Judge: No Prison Release for Ex-KKK Head

A judge Friday refused to release Edgar Ray Killen from prison while the former Ku Klux Klan leader appeals his conviction in the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers.

Killen, 81, was convicted of manslaughter in June 2005 in the slayings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. He was sentenced to 60 years.

Neshoba County Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon said in his ruling Friday that there was "no evidence presented" that would compel him to release Killen on bond while the appeal is pending.

Gordon had already freed Killen on appeal bond once, last August, because of his health. Killen, who was injured early last year when a tree fell on him, swore he couldn't use his right arm and said he was permanently confined to a wheelchair.

But within weeks, deputies said they saw him filling his truck with gas and driving around. On Sept. 9, Gordon revoked Killen's bond and sent him to prison, saying a "fraud had been committed on this court."

On Friday, Killen's wife, Betty Jo, testified that his health had improved during the time he was free last year, but since has gotten worse.

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. George Russell, who treated Killen after he was injured and later when he developed an infection in his leg, described his condition as fair. Though he appeared for the defense, he testified Killen's chances of healing would not be any better if he were let out of prison.

Defense attorneys filed their appeal of Killen's conviction before the state Supreme Court last month, and the state recently asked for more time to respond. After the last brief is filed, the court has 270 days to rule.

Killen did not attend the hearing. His attorneys said he would have required an ambulance to bring him to the courthouse. The state Department of Corrections had said it would not provide one.

Killen was the only person to face state charges in the deaths, which were dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

He had been tried along with several other men in 1967 on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights, but the jury deadlocked. Seven others were convicted, but none served more than six years in prison.

Redistricting Battle To Start Again

Remember those bloody political fights over how to carve up the state's congressional districts just three years ago?

The gloves are off again, and big changes could be on the way before the November election.

This new redraw is in response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that 2003 Congressional redistricting hurt minority voters in south Texas making one district unconstitutional.

Now several groups are submitting solutions to fix the problem to a panel of three federal judges for approval, and it's igniting a fierce new battle over who you may get to vote for.

Diehard Democrat Jeff Lewis is fuming over the state's plan to fix problems with Texas Congressional districts.

"I'm trying not to jump up and down and scream and holler," Lewis said.

The new, official state proposal pushes Democrat Lloyd Doggett's District 25 southeast, completely out of Austin and Travis County.

"How can a predominantly Democratic city have no Democrat representation whatsoever?" Lewis said.

The plan was drawn by Republican state leaders and would give Austin/Travis County three Republicans in Congress. With Doggett out, the reconfigured map moves San Antonio Republican Henry Bonilla's district into the Capital City.

"With a Republican president and Republican control of Congress, we think Republican representation of Travis County is in the best interest of all people," Reb Wayne with the Travis County Republican Party said.

Wayne says the Republican plan is the best answer to the court's concern over minority voting strength.

"The state defendant plan is excellent. It would elect seven Hispanics to Congress. The Jackson-Democrat plan would elect six. It's best for Texas, and it's what's best for Hispanics being represented in Washington," Wayne said.

Lewis argues it's not best for democracy or Democrats in Central Texas.

"I don't see any greater good coming out of it. There's got to be another way to fix it," Lewis said.

There are several ways folks want to fix it.

Late Friday, Doggett sent out a statement blasting the state plan, saying in part, "This map is designed to impose Republican rule on every Austin family and put an end to my service in Congress."

It may be that leaving "District 25 alone is the best choice available for those that I serve."

Senate denies funds for new border fence

Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it.

“We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. “The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there.”

Mr. Sessions offered his amendment to authorize $1.8 billion to pay for the fencing that the Senate voted 83-16 to build along high-traffic areas of the border with Mexico. In the same vote on May 17, the Senate also directed 500 miles of vehicle barriers to be built along the border.

But the May vote simply authorized the fencing and vehicle barriers, which on Capitol Hill is a different matter from approving the federal expenditures needed to build it.

“If we never appropriate the money needed to construct these miles of fencing and vehicle barriers, those miles of fencing and vehicle barriers will never actually be constructed,” Mr. Sessions told his colleagues yesterday before the vote.

Virtually all Democrats were joined by the chamber’s lone independent and 28 Republicans in opposing Mr. Session’s amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Only two Democrats — Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Thomas R. Carper of Delaware — supported funding the fence.

All told, 34 senators — including most of the Republican leadership — voted in May to build the fence but yesterday opposed funding it.

The overall bill, which appropriates more than $32 billion to the Homeland Security Department, including $2.2 billion for border security and control, passed on a 100-0 vote last night.

Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who historically has fought to increase border security and enforcement of federal immigration laws, was among those who opposed Mr. Session’s amendment.

“We should build these walls; there’s no question about it,” he said. “But the real issue here is the offset that’s being used, and the offset creates a Hobson’s choice for almost everyone here.”

Mr. Session’s amendment would have required across-the-board cuts to the rest of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, Mr. Gregg said, which would mean cutting 750 new border-patrol agents and 1,200 new detention beds for illegal aliens that he included in the bill.

James at A Shining City Atop A Hill is quite upset. He points out one paragraph of the article in particular.

Kris Kobach, who was a counsel to the attorney general under John Ashcroft, told a House subcommittee last week that one of the most unusual aspects of the Senate bill is a provision — slipped into the more-than-800-page bill moments before the final vote — that would require the United States to consult with the Mexican government before constructing the fencing.

James rightly points out how distrubing this is.

Ah, so now we are asking a foreign power for its approval before we take steps to defend this country??

Enough is enough. The Republicans are treating their conservative base like fools. I encourage true conservatives, ones who actual value protecting this country from invaders, to stay home this coming Congressional election.

I agree this is something to be upset about, however I don’t think staying at home is going to solve anything. I agree with California Conservative on this one.

Only two Democrats voted to fund the border fencing. Anyone who thinks that staying home this November will send people a message is kidding themselves. You think we’d get serious border enforcement with Democrats running the Senate? Get serious. Do you think they wouldn’t pass a toothless, no prevention bill sometime in the next two years? If you think they wouldn’t get something wimpy passed, then you’re delusional.

By the way, it’s time to start thinking of primary challenger so we can get rid of idiots like Chuck Hagel, Arlen Specter and George Voinovich. It’s time they got ‘retired’. Additionally, find GOP candidates capable of defeating Jay Rockefeller and some of these ultralibs in 2008.

UN may be close to deal on N.Korea resolution

Japan and the United States insisted on a U.N. Security Council vote on Saturday on a resolution condemning North Korea's barrage of missile launches amid signs of a compromise with China.

The reclusive Stalinist state has rebuffed worldwide criticism of its July 5 missile tests and has resisted pressure to return to talks on winding up its nuclear arms programme, but its neighbours pressed on with diplomacy to resolve the crisis.

Kyodo news agency -- quoting a Japanese minister in Beijing -- said that a Chinese government delegation had returned from Pyongyang carrying a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, whose closest ally is China. It gave no details.

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung arrived in Beijing on Saturday for talks with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who was part of the mission to North Korea.

Seoul's diplomatic effort came after Pyongyang stormed out of cabinet-level talks with the South on Thursday.

Meanwhile, South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said Kim had called the country's 30 top foreign envoys back to Pyongyang for a meeting next week, the first of its kind in five years.

Amid a flurry of negotiations at the United Nations on Friday, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters his instructions were to get a vote by Saturday and Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima said Japan stood on the same ground.

Japan produced a new draft resolution that sought to bridge its differences with China. Beijing's ambassador said he would still veto it without further changes, which many diplomats expect when council members resume negotiations on Saturday.

The key obstacle is whether the resolution should invoke Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which can lay the groundwork for military force. But China and Russia, who on Wednesday introduced a rival draft, reject any mention of Chapter 7.

Bolton indicated he was open to other wording that would make the resolution mandatory as Chapter 7 does, but Japan's Oshima was silent and his last draft still included Chapter 7.

"TOO MANY FIRES"

When Britain and France suggested alternative wording, Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya was in agreement, and said he would check with his government, diplomats told Reuters.

The Security Council has wrangled for days over the response to North Korea's seven missile tests, which raised international tensions, mainly because of its development of nuclear weapons.

Japan wanted to have the resolution adopted before a summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, which opened on Saturday and is expected to issue a statement on North Korea.

But Wang said "the important thing is not the deadline. It is the unity of the council."

"There are too many fires there. We don't need to put oil on all those fires," he said, in an apparent reference to the Middle East crisis and debates over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The latest text circulated by Japan and its supporters condemns the missile launches and demands that North Korea suspend "all activities" on its ballistic missiles.

It includes sanctions by requiring that all U.N. member states prevent any imports to or exports from North Korea of missiles and missile-related items and materials that could be used in weapons of mass destruction.

The new language from Britain and France highlights the council's "special responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security," said one diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret negotiations.

Japan has come under harsh criticism from China and South Korea for its stern stance on the missiles, which splashed into the sea off its west coast.

Tokyo's ties with both countries are bedevilled by bitter memories of Japanese wartime aggression, while Sino-Japanese relations are also strained by rivalry for regional dominance. (Additional reporting by Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo, Jack Kim in Seoul and Brian Rhoads in Beijing)

United States set to veto UN action to halt Israeli strikes on Lebanon

ISRAEL came under fire from world leaders yesterday for using "disproportionate" force in its aerial bombardment and blockade of Lebanon, but the United States appeared set to veto any action to halt the blitz at an emergency meeting of the United Nations' Security Council.

France was among Israel's toughest critics, with the president, Jacques Chirac, yesterday terming Israel's actions "completely disproportionate".

"One can ask oneself whether there isn't a sort of desire to destroy Lebanon," he said.

Mr Chirac also condemned Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for abducting Israeli soldiers and provoking the Israeli response.

The UN Security Council convened in emergency session yesterday, with Lebanon urging it to call for a ceasefire and an end to Israeli attacks.

But a spokesman for George Bush said while the US president wanted Israel to minimise the risk of casualties in its campaign, he would not pressurise Israel to halt its military operation.

The White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said Mr Bush "believes the Israelis have the right to protect themselves and that in doing that they should limit as much as possible so-called collateral damage, not only to facilities but also to human lives".

Asked whether he agreed to Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora's request to tell the Israelis to limit their military operations, Mr Snow said: "No. The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel."

The European Union voiced concern that the fighting in Lebanon could spread, drawing in Syria. "The consequences could be totally uncontrollable," said foreign minister Erkki Thomioja of Finland, which holds the EU presidency.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano said Pope Benedict "deplores the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation".

And in Geneva, the UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, criticised Israel for sealing off the borders and blockading harbours.

"It is wrong. It is in violation of international law and it is also in violation of common sense," he said.

"You are supposed to do something to the armed group. You are not supposed to hurt the children of people who have nothing to do with this."

Mr Egeland said innocent civilians and children "cannot receive goods, cannot travel, cannot get to health facilities, cannot get their daily needs met".

South Korean foreign minister nominated to lead UN

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has been formally nominated to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. secretary-general, his government said in a letter circulated at the United Nations on Friday.

Ban, whose nomination was widely expected, became the fourth official candidate for the post opening up in January 2007, when Annan's second five-year term runs out.

The three others are Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, Sri Lankan disarmament specialist and government adviser Jayantha Dhanapala, and Indian novelist Shashi Tharoor, the U.N. undersecretary-general for public information.

But more names are expected to surface in coming weeks, diplomats say.

"Over a career spanning more than 37 years, Minister Ban has provided distinguished service both to the government of the Republic of Korea and on the international stage," South Korean U.N. Ambassador Choi Young-jin said in a letter to the Security Council dated Thursday.

His reform initiatives at the Foreign Ministry over the past three years would help him lead management reform efforts at the United Nations, Choi said.

Ban, 62, has been South Korea's foreign minister since January 2004 and has also served as ambassador to the United Nations. Analysts call him a consensus builder who shuns the limelight for quiet diplomacy, rather than an impassioned public speaker.

A career diplomat, he came from a poor rural background but is fluent in English and also speaks French, a job skill that France, with veto power in the selection process, insists upon for any potential U.N. leader.

The United States, like France another key player in the competition as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, acknowledged for the first time this week that the next secretary-general was likely to be an Asian. Russia, China and Britain are also permanent council members.

"As I understand it, traditionally ... regions rotate, and we're really looking in the Far East right now to be the secretary-general," President George W. Bush said on Monday.

U.S. officials previously had said the best possible candidate should fill the job, regardless of region.

The Security Council plays the central role in picking a secretary-general, nominating a candidate who is then submitted to the 192-nation U.N. General Assembly for final approval.

Council members are expected to start conducting informal polls this month to get an idea of how much support the individual candidates have.

Plame faults Bush aides for 'shameful conduct'

Valerie Plame yesterday accused the Bush administration of "shameful conduct" in the leak of information to reporters about her job at the CIA, saying the "outing" forced a premature end to her career at the agency.
"I and my former CIA colleagues trusted our government to protect us as we did our jobs," Mrs. Plame said during a press conference formally announcing her filing of a lawsuit seeking damages in the leak against Vice President Dick Cheney, White House aide Karl Rove and Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
"That a few reckless individuals within the current administration betrayed that trust has been a grave disappointment to every patriotic American," she said. "Joe and I have filed this action with heavy hearts but with a renewed sense of purpose."
Mrs. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia that Mr. Cheney and the White House aides violated their rights by leaking her name and CIA role to reporters and did so to "discredit, punish and seek revenge against" Mr. Wilson for disputing President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address justifying the war in Iraq.
Mr. Wilson said he undertook "two discrete missions" to the Republic of Niger to look into uranium-related matters, investigating accusations that Iraq had purchased or was in the process of buying uranium yellowcake. He said he found no evidence to support the accusations but contends Mr. Bush ignored the finding when he decided to go to war against Iraq.
Questions have since been raised on Mr. Wilson's accuracy of statements that Mr. Cheney's office had requested he be sent to Niger, whether Mr. Cheney and other senior White House aides were briefed on his report, whether the report was conclusive and significant, and who suggested he travel to Niger.
The couple's attorney, Christopher Wolf, said the lawsuit "seeks to vindicate the wrongs that were done against the Wilsons," adding that it asks for an unspecified amount of money "to be determined" during trial. He declined to comment on accusations that the Wilsons feared for their safety and that of their children, or whether any specific threats had been made.
Mr. Wolf told reporters that prior to the disclosure in the press, Mrs. Plame "worked secretly and privately and with protection of privacy in her job at the CIA," which would be the case today had the leak not occurred.
"She was literally dragged into the public square by the leak to the media of her classified employment status," he said. "That is a bell that can't be unrung. ... Having been outed by the administration, she can't now be criticized for speaking out ... for pursuing this lawsuit to vindicate that invasion of her privacy."
Mrs. Plame's CIA role was revealed in a July 14, 2003, article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak eight days after Mr. Wilson wrote an article for the New York Times saying the Bush administration ignored intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

Stem Cell Veto Is Possible

Before Sept. 11 changed everything, President Bush wrestled publicly with the issue of embryonic stem cell research, then opened the door to federal financing for the science in the first major decision of his nascent administration.

Now, five years later, the stem cell debate is about to thrust Mr. Bush into a decision that could lead to another first for him: a legislative veto.

On Monday, the Senate will take up a measure approved by the House that would loosen the carefully calibrated research restrictions that Mr. Bush outlined on Aug. 9, 2001, in his first prime-time television address to the nation. If the bill passes, as expected, Mr. Bush says he will veto it, making good on a promise he made five days after that televised speech from his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

“I spent a lot of time on the subject,” Mr. Bush said at the time. “I laid out the policy I think is right for America. And I’m not going to change my mind.”

The president’s mind has not changed; his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, reiterated the veto threat this week. That keeps Mr. Bush in good stead with the religious conservatives who make up an important part of his base, but at odds with other leading Republicans, including Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, who is a heart-lung surgeon and has pushed to bring the measure to a vote.

“I think he has gotten some advice from the beginning from his advisers, and he knows that not to stick with that advice just means a lot of extra criticism,” Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, a leading Republican supporter of embryonic stem cell research, said of the president. “I have high hopes that down the road, we’ll be able to convince him that he’s on the wrong side of this issue.”

The bill would expand Mr. Bush’s policy by allowing the government to pay for studies on stem cell colonies, or lines, derived from embryos that are in cold storage at fertility clinics and scheduled for destruction. The current policy allows financing only on lines created before Aug. 9, 2001, Mr. Bush has said, so as not to encourage further destruction of embryos.

The coming week’s reprisal of a debate that Mr. Bush thought he had put to rest is exposing deep fissures among Republicans as the November elections draw near. Polls show that a majority of Americans support the research, and stem cells already figure prominently in several key races, among them a hard-fought re-election battle by Senator Jim Talent, Republican of Missouri, who opposes a state ballot initiative to protect the research and plans to vote against the Senate bill.

Nancy Reagan became an advocate for the research while caring for her husband, former President Ronald Reagan, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and died in 2004. Mrs. Reagan spent this week calling undecided senators to urge them to vote for the bill. While supporters say they have the 60 votes needed for approval, they are trying to secure 67, the number necessary to override a veto.

Whether they will succeed is unclear. With 55 Republicans, including staunch abortion opponents like Senators John Thune of South Dakota and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the Senate has become more conservative since the 2004 elections. Even so, Republicans across the spectrum, from Senator John W. Warner of Virginia to Senator Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, have signed on to the bill.

With a vote scheduled for Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Congress could soon be in the uncomfortable position of sending Mr. Bush a measure he will not sign.

Some, like Mr. Frist, seem resigned to it. “I have not tried to lobby him,” Mr. Frist said.

Others have, with little success. Mr. Hatch said he had tried indirectly, asking mutual friends to raise the issue with Mr. Bush. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and the lead Senate sponsor of the bill, said he had brought up the issue “when I’ve been alone with him, on the plane or in the car.”

The Republican sponsor of the bill in the House, Representative Michael N. Castle of Delaware, and his Democratic co-sponsor, Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado, asked in June to meet with Mr. Bush. They got a note back this week saying the president did not have time.

“I feel like the Titanic — somebody better throw me a lifeline real fast,” said Mr. Castle, who has pressed the issue for years. “This has become an intractable situation. I’ve been through a lot of political battles, but I don’t know quite how to turn this one around.”

The embryonic stem cell debate has yielded a complex collision of politics, religion and science since 1998, when James A. Thomson, a developmental biologist at the University of Wisconsin, became the first person to isolate the cells from human embryos.

Because the cells have the potential to grow into any tissue or organ in the body, scientists believe that they hold great promise for treatments and cures. But because human embryos are destroyed in extracting the stem cells, the studies draw intense objections from abortion opponents, including leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.

“It’s a very clear issue to the pro-life community,” said Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican and a leading opponent of the research. “Is the youngest human a person or a piece of property?”

Mr. Brownback and other opponents argue that adult stem cell research, in which cells are drawn from blood and bone marrow rather than from embryos, is more ethical and has yielded encouraging results. But scientists say embryonic stem cell research, still in its early stages, holds far greater potential.

In 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks turned him into a wartime president, Mr. Bush grappled deeply with these issues, inviting scientists and ethicists into the Oval Office to discuss them.

“He was gathering information,” said Douglas A. Melton, director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who met with Mr. Bush then. “I saw my job as to explain to the president the scientific potential and to make clear that this was an important issue. I’m not sure I succeeded.”

Those meetings stood in stark contrast to one held in March this year. Dr. Russell A. Foulk, a fertility specialist in Reno, Nev., said Mr. Frist invited him to lunch along with experts on other issues, including agriculture and weapons defense, and then arranged for the group to see the president in the Oval Office.

Much of the meeting was spent talking about the war, Dr. Foulk said. “My audience in regards to stem cell issues was very minor,” he said.

In the five years since the president’s decision, states, companies and private philanthropies have poured money into embryonic stem cell research. Scientists, including many outside the United States, have grown new lines that are more robust and easier to analyze.

Dr. Melton said he had developed 30 such lines, all from embryos collected for in vitro fertilization that would have been destroyed. All such embryos will be available to government-financed researchers if the pending Senate bill becomes law.

“Everything we’ve learned suggests that the goal of using stem cells to learn about disease and treat disease is very real and promising,” Dr. Melton said. “We haven’t learned anything that makes us think this won’t work, but it’s going to take time and resources.”

In the coming Senate debate, the bill to expand the president’s 2001 policy will be paired with two others. One would encourage the National Institutes of Health to finance alternatives to develop embryonic stem cell colonies without destroying embryos. The other, a so-called fetal farming bill sponsored by Mr. Brownback, is intended to prevent scientists from trying to grow fetuses outside human wombs for the purpose of harvesting body parts.

Mr. Brownback said he expected all three to pass.

Republicans who do not plan to vote for the bill to expand the 2001 policy say they believe that by voting for the other two, they can make a reasonable argument to voters that they support stem cell science. Among them is Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, who said, “I think it is very defensible, and I don’t think it will hurt anybody.”

Democrats say they intend to exploit the stem cell issue at every turn. “The Republican senators are torn between their evangelical constituency and their moderate constituency,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Whichever way they vote, they’re in trouble.”

Some supporters of the research, like Mr. Specter, are holding out the slim hope that if the bill passes, Mr. Bush will find a way to sign it into law. Opponents say that notion is too far-fetched to contemplate.

As Mr. Brownback put it, “I can’t imagine that scenario.”

House members not sure they'll back Senate drilling deal

WASHINGTON — For the past few days, members of the Florida delegation have been sifting through the details of a Senate compromise on oil drilling, dissecting each word, debating the pros and cons, deciding if it is a deal they can wholeheartedly support.

On the surface, they say, the agreement Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., helped craft this week is a worthwhile attempt at protecting Florida’s beaches and its economy.

The deal aims to open a large portion of the controversial Lease-Sale 181 area in the Gulf of Mexico and would keep oil rigs 125 miles off the coast of Florida. Because of language in the measure protecting a military mission zone, oil and gas exploration could occur no closer than 325 miles off the coast of Naples.

But some House lawmakers said this week that the Senate measure has many flaws and is unlikely to gain the support of their colleagues. Many say they still favor the bipartisan legislation the House passed last month, which they say offers more protection to the state’s shorelines.

That measure would give state legislatures the authority to ban drilling within 100 miles from its shores. It also protects a good portion of the eastern Gulf Coast because of the sacred military area where various Air Force and Navy missions are conducted.

“The Senate bill is certainly a step in the right direction,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, the Miami Republican who represents part of Collier County. “But there are parts of it that are highly problematic.”

For starters, the Senate bill offers no protection for the Atlantic coast and the Florida straits, something Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, said is “one of the most troubling aspects” of the agreement.

“It’s worse than the House bill that the Congresswoman voted against,” said Jonathan Beeton, a spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston. “It’s pretty much a non-starter.”

The House measure offers state legislatures the opportunity to keep drilling pushed as far away as 100 miles offshore. The Senate bill extends a drilling ban through 2022, while the House measure offers permanent protection — at least for 50 miles off the coast.

The House bill in general is more inclusive and is not just Florida-specific, lawmakers added, and doesn’t give pro-drilling states like South Carolina and Virginia the opportunity to do so.

“The Senate’s is a more limited bill,” said John Hambel, chief of staff for Rep. Adam Putnam, the Bartow Republican who helped craft the House measure with House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif. “There are definitely a couple of concerns that we have.”

Lawmakers agree there are some advantages to the Senate bill. The most obvious: it provides 125 miles of protection compared to 100 miles of protection the House secured.

“I love the fact that it’s 125 miles versus 100 miles,” Diaz-Balart said. “Obviously, we’ll take the extra 25 miles.”

The Senate bill also eliminates the House provision that would give state legislatures the power to decide how close to shore drilling could occur, a move that pleased lawmakers like Foley and Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers.

But even Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said while he finds the Senate deal promising, he still has his reservations and stopped short of supporting it this week.

If the bill does pass the Senate later this month as Senate leaders expect it to, House members say they hope to combine the best of both bills in a conference committee, where lawmakers in both chambers attempt to iron out their differences.

“We’re really not that far off,” Hambel said. “When you get to the real meat of it, we’re talking about 25 miles. We’re not that far apart.”

If the House and Senate fail to reach a compromise, however, that will put Florida lawmakers in an increasingly difficult position in the face of rising gas prices and the increasing pressure to open up domestic resources.

“Now that’s scary,” Diaz-Balart said.

Hispanics to play pivotal election role

WASHINGTON - Before California's Republican governor tried to get tough on illegal immigrants in the 1990s, the state had supported GOP candidates in all but two presidential elections since World War II.

California has been a solid blue state ever since the attempted crackdown, in part because of a backlash by the growing number of Hispanic voters.

Democrats hope to replicate that success nationally by using the current immigration debate to brand Republicans as anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic. But Latinos are showing signs they are dissatisfied with both political parties, making these voters pivotal players in the November election as Republicans fight to retain control of Congress.

"If the political parties use immigration as a wedge issue, there might be a very big backlash," said Marcelo Gaete, senior director of programs for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO.

"We might become the soccer moms of this election, but we will not become the Willie Hortons," Gaete said.

Former President Bush used images of Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a woman while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison, in a 1988 campaign ad designed to scare voters into thinking the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, was soft on crime.

Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the country, accounting for more than 14 percent of the population and about half the annual growth. But several factors diminish their political clout:

_About four in 10 adult Hispanics are not citizens, which means they are ineligible to vote.

_Hispanics are young, with a median age of 27, compared with 40 for white non-Hispanics. Turnout, in general, has increased among young voters, but they still vote at rates lower than for any other age group.

_Hispanics, as a group, earn less and have fewer years of education that than non-Hispanic whites, two more indicators of low voter turnout.

Hispanics "have bad demographics for voting," said Rodolfo de la Garza, a political science professor at Columbia University.

Still, a NALEO analysis concludes that Hispanic voters can prove critical in competitive Senate races in New Jersey and Washington, and House contests in Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas and Washington.

In each state, the number of Hispanics has grown much faster than the non-Hispanic population since the start of the decade.

"There is a sense that they are getting more political power within some states," de la Garza said. "In Texas right now, the Latino vote is important in local elections, but not as much in state elections. In California, they can influence state elections."

Most Hispanics — with the notable exception of Cuban-Americans — traditionally have supported Democrats. But President Bush captured about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, the most ever for a GOP presidential candidate.

It's unclear which political party will benefit from Hispanic voters in November.

A poll by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 16 percent of Hispanics support Republicans on immigration, down from 25 percent two years ago. Support for Democrats on the issue fell from 39 percent to 35 percent.

One out of four Hispanics said neither party has the best position on immigration, compared with 7 percent two years ago.

"Whatever risk there is for Republicans in these numbers is mitigated by the fact that Democrats are not making any gains," said Roberto Suro, director of the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

The poll of 2,000 Hispanic adults was taken June 5 to July 3 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In California in 1994, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson won re-election by championing an initiative that would have denied many public services to illegal immigrants. Democrats opposed the measure, which was approved by voters but struck down by the courts.

This year, Republicans across the country are divided on immigration and Democrats have failed to stake out a strong position, said Sergio Bendixon, a Hispanic pollster in Florida.

"The differences are not so clear this time," Bendixon said. "The Democrats have been very careful about their view."

The House passed a bill late last year that would make it a felony for illegal immigrants to be in the U.S. That sparked rallies by Latinos and others protesting for immigrants' rights.

The Senate, backed by the president, passed a bipartisan bill that would increase border security while also providing a path to citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda accused Republicans of "trying to scapegoat immigrants so they can win elections." But Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said the GOP simply wants "to uphold the rule of law, to protect our border, to oppose an amnesty and at the same time be a nation of legal immigrants."

For many Hispanics, this debate is about their future, Bendixon said, "about whether they are welcome in this country."

The Pew poll found that most Hispanics believe discrimination against them has increased because of the immigration debate.

"The way that immigrants are treated is sort of the proxy for how the Latino community is viewed," said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, state policy director for the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights group. "When you hear the vitriolic debate on immigration in this country, what do you think of? When you belong to that ethnic group, you feel it."

Politics paved way for Big Dig -- and now underscores project

WASHINGTON --It took a dose of political hardball in Congress nearly two decades ago to launch the Big Dig.

The Massachusetts congressional delegation intensely lobbied colleagues to overturn a presidential veto by a single vote in the Senate, prying open the federal money spigot for the project in 1987.

Ever since, political maneuvering by lawmakers, state officials and private contractors has kept the problem-plagued project awash in public money -- despite critics who brand the Big Dig a $14.6 billion boondoggle.

"Politics created the Big Dig," said Jeffrey Berry, a Tufts University political science professor. "It was a highly political project from the very beginning."

Every major politician in Massachusetts seems to have a connection to the colossal project, creating a tangle of odd alliances across party lines.

Now, the question remains: If so many political leaders have ties to the contractors and project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, how difficult will it be to hold someone accountable for the deadly collapse this past week of 12 tons of ceiling panels from one of the Big Dig tunnels?

"The issue of the Big Dig has become a huge political football and it seems to get bigger and bigger all the time," said Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass.

The Republican ties of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. -- the lead name in the joint venture formed to manage the project -- were well-known when it was tapped in 1985 for the Big Dig, formally known as the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project. Former President Reagan turned to Bechtel for two Cabinet picks, George P. Shultz and Caspar Weinberger.

Over the years, the company and its Big Dig partners have forged strong ties to top state officials and lawmakers in both parties. Former Gov. William Weld's top fundraiser, Peter Berlandi, was also a lobbyist for Bechtel, sparking complaints from Democrats about his dual roles. Weld's campaign account swelled with contributions from Bechtel officials.

Bechtel later hired people like attorney Cheryl Cronin, who had ties to then-acting Gov. Jane Swift, a Republican, and then-House Speaker Thomas Finneran, a Democrat. It hired O'Neill and Associates, one of the state's leading lobbying firms, that was headed by Thomas P. O'Neill III, the son of legendary former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill. Bechtel also turned to veteran Democratic operative Andrew Paven, who could maneuver on Beacon Hill as well as Capitol Hill.

"They're well-connected in Washington and on Beacon Hill," Berry said of Bechtel. "They've been blamed for lots of failures, but the repercussions have been fairly minimal."

The Big Dig highway project, which buried the old Central Artery that used to slice through the city, created a series of tunnels to bring traffic underground. Although it's been considered an engineering marvel, the most expensive highway project in U.S. history also has also been plagued by leaks, falling debris, delays and other problems linked to faulty construction.

The initial price tag for the project was $2.6 billion and it was supposed to be completed in seven years. Instead, it took nearly 15 years and repeated cost overruns until it had ballooned to $14.6 billion.

Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, which has defended its work on the project, declined to comment for this article.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., thinks Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has enjoyed a huge advantage over the state's overseers largely because of the Big Dig's sheer size and the firm's broad expertise.

"There was no one of comparable skill and ability on the other side to hold their feet to the fire and to make sure the state wasn't taken advantage of," Lynch said. "That's the fundamental problem."

The state's congressional delegation, all Democrats, has fought hard over the years to keep federal dollars flowing to the project, despite rising costs and scandals -- including a federal audit that found evidence officials had concealed $1.4 billion in cost overruns. Big Dig bucks kept their labor supporters in the construction trades, among others, happy.

Meanwhile, a succession of Republican governors, more closely aligned with business interests, has worked to keep the project moving forward as a boon to the state's economy.

Big Dig contractors, meanwhile, have been a virtual ATM for Massachusetts politicians.

A review in the early 1990s by The Boston Globe found that 77 executives of firms with Big Dig contracts showered more than $100,000 to Weld and Paul Cellucci, his lieutenant governor, during their days in power.

Sen. John Kerry's political action committee pocketed $25,000 checks from the founder and CEO of Modern Continental Construction, the late Lelio "Les" Marino, and another Big Dig contractor, Jay Cashman, as he was laying the groundwork in 2002 for his presidential run.

But controversy has often followed the cash.

Gov. Mitt Romney pulled the plug on one fundraising event involving Big Dig contractors as controversy over tunnel leaks flared. Capuano gave back $2,000 from two political action committees for Big Dig contractors during the leak controversy.

State Attorney General Tom Reilly, too, has taken heat for $35,000 in Big Dig-related contributions while pursuing project cost-recovery efforts.

Now, both Romney and Reilly -- two politicians with ambitions -- have taken central roles in the investigation into the collapse this past week of 12 tons of ceiling panels in one of the tunnels that killed 38-year-old Milena Del Valle of Boston as she and her husband, Angel, were driving through it late at night.

Inspectors looking for design or construction flaws have focused on bolts that hold the tunnel's ceiling panels in place.

The connector tunnel, a main route to Boston's Logan International Airport, remains closed. Romney, a Republican considering a run for president in 2008, has seized control over a massive inspection of the highway system and vows not to reopen it until he's assured it's safe to travel through it. Reilly, a Democrat running for governor this year, has launched a criminal investigation with an eye toward filing involuntary manslaughter charges.

Andrew Natsios, a Beacon Hill veteran who has trekked across the globe to oversee U.S. relief efforts for some of the world's most horrifying disasters, was called in several years ago to clean up a Big Dig accounting scandal. He was taken aback by the mess, the rampant profiteering, the endless politicking, the seeming lack of accountability.

"It was not a fun thing to do, believe me," he recalled in an interview earlier this year. "I had to fire a lot of contractors and I had to call the FBI once. I hired forensic auditors to come in. My heavens. Every week, something else we found."

Federal Reserve: U.S.
headed for bankruptcy
Report: Coming $65.9 trillion fiscal gap
5 times GDP, twice size of national wealth

A newly published paper by a researcher for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warns that a ballooning budget deficit and pension and welfare timebomb is growing into a $65.9 trillion fiscal gap that will force the United States into bankruptcy.

In the view of Prof. Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University, the U.S. is already bankrupt – at least the government is.

"The U.S. government is, indeed, bankrupt," he writes, "insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds."

While the U.S. budget deficit, currently forecast to be 2.3 percent of the gross domestic product this year, is smaller than that of most European states, Kotlikoff argues the much debated number is not a particularly useful measure of U.S. economic health.

"The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy."

The number that has Kotlikoff's attention is the U.S.'s long-term "fiscal gap" – the difference between all future government spending and all future receipts. Not only is the number immense, it will grow wider as the Baby Boom generation leaves the work world – and the burden of paying taxes on earned income – and stakes its claim on government health care and pensions. According to one study, the total fiscal gap could be $65.9 trillion.

"There are 77 million baby boomers now ranging from age 41 to age 59," Kotlikoff writes. "All are hoping to collect tens of thousands of dollars in pension and healthcare benefits from the next generation. These claimants aren't going away. In three years, the oldest boomers will be eligible for early Social Security benefits. In six years, the boomer vanguard will start collecting Medicare. Our nation has done nothing to prepare for this onslaught of obligation. Instead, it has continued to focus on a completely meaningless fiscal metric – 'the' federal deficit – censored and studiously ignored long-term fiscal analyses that are scientifically coherent, and dramatically expanded the benefit levels being explicitly or implicitly promised to the baby boomers."

How much is $65.9 trillion dollars?

"This figure is more than five times U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth," writes Kotlikoff.

"One way to wrap one's head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143 percent.

"Leaving our $65.9 trillion bill for today's and tomorrow's children to pay will roughly double their average lifetime net tax rates."

Given "the fiscal irresponsibility of both political parties," the professor sees the most likely scenario for maintaining solvency as the government simply printing money to pay its bills.

Kotlikoff explains: "This could arise in the context of the Federal Reserve 'being forced' to buy Treasury bills and bonds to reduce interest rates. Specifically, once the financial markets begin to understand the depth and extent of the country's financial insolvency, they will start worrying about inflation and about being paid back in watered-down dollars. This concern will lead them to start dumping their holdings of U.S. Treasuries. In so doing, they'll drive up interest rates, which will lead the Fed to print money to buy up those bonds. The consequence will be more money creation – exactly what the bond traders will have come to fear. This could lead to spiraling expectations of higher inflation, with the process eventuating in hyperinflation."

China's empire-builders
sweep up African riches
'If the British were our masters yesterday,
Chinese have come and taken their place'

China’s empire-builders sweep up African riches
RW Johnson, Cape Town
IN the past seven months, Chinese dealers have bought 30 tons of ivory from Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Management Authority — representing the tusks of some 2,250 elephants.

“It’s an incredibly profitable trade,” said one game ranger. “They’ve not only run the parks’ stockpile right down, but elephants are now being poached across the border from Botswana and other neighbouring countries to fulfil the demand, which seems to be bottomless.”

The purchases are typical of China’s rapacious scramble for Africa, in which oil, minerals and all manner of raw materials are being eagerly snapped up. Opportunities for deal-making are swiftly exploited, sometimes with detrimental effects on the continent.

Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which controls the world’s ivory trade, President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has a special concession that allows it to sell lots worth £270 or less. This loophole has allowed the burgeoning trade to develop. Chinese money is now fuelling widespread poaching. Two months ago Zimbabwe police caught Chinese dealers with seven tons of ivory, of which four tons came from illegal sources.

“They deliberately mix legal and illegal stuff together as a disguise,” the ranger said. “Of course, the case hasn’t come to court and probably it never will, given President Mugabe’s ‘look east’ policy and his passionate enthusiasm for all things Chinese.”

In recent months Mugabe has been exhorting Zimbabweans to learn Mandarin and take up Chinese cuisine. Beijing’s voracious appetite for raw materials to sustain a fast-growing economy has seen Chinese trade and investment pouring into Africa in the past few years. In 2003 the total China-Africa trade was £6.6 billion. By 2005 it had reached £22 billion.

Human rights activists are appalled at the way Beijing has ignored scruples that have made many western investors wary of dealing with regimes like those of Zimbabwe and Sudan. “Wherever there are resources the Chinese are going to go there,” says Peter Takirambudde, head of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. “They see no evil. They hear no evil. That’s very bad for Africans.”

Indeed, the Chinese go out of their way to ingratiate themselves with dictators such as Mugabe, donating the blue tiles that adorn his new £7m palace in Harare. They have also decided to foot the bill for a large Namibian presidential palace in Windhoek.

The rhetoric of the China-Africa relationship is different, with China claiming to be the champion of all Third World countries, offering them a new relationship that will free them from their dependence on the northern powers of the G8.

They are adept at high-profile gestures such as a donation of four endangered white Siberian tigers to Zimbabwe for a captive breeding programme.

They have also succeeded in getting African states to accept large numbers of Chinese experts and workers as part of their investment packages: 28 “Baoding villages” have been established, each housing up to 2,000 Chinese workers, in various parts of Africa.

In Nigeria, a Chinese-language newspaper now serves 50,000 immigrants. At no stage in Britain’s colonisation of Nigeria did the British numbers reach such a figure. As one opposition figure in Zimbabwe observed: “If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have come and taken their place.”

At grassroots this is highly unpopular. Chinese goods sent to Africa are notorious for their poor quality. None of a shipment of 50 buses to Zimbabwe is still working and an order for 250 more has been suspended.

Of three MA60 passenger jets the Chinese sent to Mugabe, one has never managed to fly, one had to make an emergency landing at Victoria Falls, injuring many passengers, and the third caught fire on take-off in Harare last week. All are now grounded.

Moreover, as Eldred Masunungure, professor of political science at Harare University, puts it: “The resentment of the Chinese is not only widespread, it’s deeply rooted.”

The Chinese are generally viewed as loud, uncouth, prone to spitting and openly derogatory towards Africans. Worse, the copper mines they have opened up in Zambia and Zimbabwe are renowned for low wages, ferocious labour discipline and a sky-high accident rate. “That’s how they run things at home, after all — and on top of that, they despise blacks,” said one Zimbabwean engineer.

As with the ivory traders, many Chinese technical experts develop other ways of making money. In Harare, some are already a force in the drugs trade. In Botswana, Chinese workers brought in by construction companies now own hundreds of shops in the capital, Gaborone. Most worrying of all, however, is the way Chinese imports have largely wiped out budding African industries.

Professor Laurence Schlemmer of Witwatersrand University’s business school in Johannesburg, said: “In effect, China is forcing Africa back into the role of raw material suppliers — undermining its textile industry and importing raw cotton instead.”

Such concerns were raised with President Hu Jintao, who recently toured Africa. But for the moment the tidal wave of Chinese money is carrying all before it. “The Chinese are getting away with claiming that they aren’t like the other colonialists, but Africans aren’t fools,” a South African economist commented. “The Chinese are far more ruthless than the Brits ever were.”

Hawaii National Guard to help Arizona Border Patrol

HONOLULU -- Hundreds of Hawaii National Guard volunteers will head to Arizona over the next few months to help mainland Guard troops fortify security along the Mexico border.

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the state adjutant general, said they will be assigned to remote desert areas far from Arizona cities but won't be near the border.

Lee said their job will be to notify border security of illegal immigrants making their way from Mexico and to provide humanitarian assistance until the immigrants can be taken into custody and sent back over the border.

"We'll be in some rough areas, places where very desperate people trying to get across often get stuck in a no man's land without any water or other help," he said.

The Hawaii Guard members will join some 6,000 soldiers helping with border duties over the next two years at the direction of President Bush. Guard units are being used until the U.S. Border Patrol can be built up enough to handle the job on its own.

One of the reasons Hawaii asked to send the volunteers to Arizona was because one of the three combat battalions in Hawaii's 29th Brigades is from the Southwestern state.

The unit, 1st Battalion, 158th Infantry Regiment from the Arizona Army National Guard _ is already on the border, Lee said.

The Hawaii Guard plans to combine the mission with the 15 days of annual training all Guard members are required to have. Guard troops will fly to Arizona for two-week rotations, train in the desert, and then return to Hawaii.

"We have to do our annual training anyway, and we felt we may as well do it along the Arizona border as in Pohakuloa," Lee said, referring to a large training area on the Big Island.

"We'll be getting all our needed training under unique conditions and doing humanitarian work at the same time," he added.

About 2,200 Hawaii-based Guard members and reservists returned a few months ago after a year in Iraq.

"The heat and dust will remind a lot of them of Iraq, but at least nobody will be shooting at them," Lee said.

Democrats hope minimum wage push pays off

House Democrats' election-year persistence in trying to force a vote on raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in almost a decade looks as if it could bear fruit.

The Democrats have seized on the issue, which polls show is overwhelmingly popular with voters, as a building block in their effort to retake both houses of Congress in November. Their effort in Washington is moving forward as organizers in several states push ballot initiatives for the fall election to adopt or increase state minimum wages, measures that the Democrats hope could boost turnout of voters likely to lean their way.

In California, one of 21 states with minimum wages above the federal level, the Legislature is considering bills that would raise the state minimum from $6.75 to $7.75.

Republican leaders in both houses of Congress oppose an increase, saying that mandating a higher minimum wage would hurt low-wage workers by destroying their jobs. They also say the Democrats are engaged in a cynical election-year ploy.

"Listen, I've been here 16 years. And you never hear one word out of Democrats in an odd-numbered year. I wonder why that is," said House Republican Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, a leading opponent of a wage increase.

Democrats counter that they have long been committed to an increase, but can only pressure the Republicans who control Congress to act in an election year.

In the House, the minority party doesn't have the power to call up legislation, but it can slow the procedures and repeat a message enough to try to embarrass the majority's leaders into acting.

Just last week the Democrats turned debates on such legislation as a crackdown on Internet gambling and regulation of credit rating agencies into attacks on the Republican leadership's refusal to permit a vote on boosting the hourly minimum from $5.15 an hour, a rate set in 1997, to $7.25 an hour over two years. An estimated 7 million Americans work for the federal minimum.

"What is wrong with your leadership?" Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, taunted the Republicans during a debate last week on a vocational education bill. "Name the time. Name the place. We will be there with our votes," added Miller, a top adviser to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

And Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, a former minimum wage worker who was forced onto welfare to support her family, mocked the Bush administration's economic priorities. "A rising tide should lift all boats, not just the yachts," she said.

Democrats were permitted a vote on what's called a motion to instruct, which is a move to order House members who eventually will confer with senators on reconciling the two bodies' versions of the vocational education bill. The motion said House conferees should push that any jobs created under the legislation pay at least $7.25 an hour.

The motion passed the House, 260-159, in a vote that many members said was a proxy on increasing the minimum wage.

The vote heartened Democrats, especially after four attempts in June to force House consideration of the minimum wage were defeated in mainly party line votes.

"I'm very proud to say that Democrats have made the issue of the minimum wage too hot to handle for the Republicans," Pelosi said. "The more we call it to the attention of the public, the more pressure there is on the Republicans."

Pelosi has joined with Senate Democratic leaders in threatening to block this year's scheduled congressional pay raise unless the minimum wage increase is passed.

The vote also came after 28 House Republicans sent Boehner a letter calling for the House to vote on a minimum wage increase this month, before Congress leaves for its long August recess. They noted that a person working for the minimum wage 40 hours a week would earn about $10,700 a year, an amount that falls below the federal poverty level for a family of three.

The signers, all Republicans from the Northeast or Midwest, included some of the Democrats' main targets for November such as Reps. Chris Shays and Rob Simmons of Connecticut and Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

At this point, the most likely vehicle for a minimum wage vote is the appropriations bill covering the Labor and Health and Human Services departments. It is the only one of the 11 annual appropriations bills not yet considered by the House. Democrats won a committee vote attaching the minimum wage increase to the spending bill.

Eventually, the House will have to take up the bill, but the GOP leadership may prefer to do that in a lame-duck session after Nov. 7.

Boehner has spoken frequently about his opposition to an increase, and he says he does so from a blue-collar background. One of 12 children, Boehner worked in his father's bar growing up. He went to college and entered the plastics business before politics.

"The marketplace will set better wages and more flexible wages for the American people than government ever could. And by taking away the first rungs of the economic ladder, you eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, especially for people who can't get on the ladder because we've taken the rung away," Boehner said.

There are better ways to help low-wage workers, a recent Heritage Foundation paper argued.

"Congress should resist the urge to try to fix the economy by increasing the minimum wage. ... It should focus on reducing counterproductive labor-market regulation, especially the many rules that make it expensive for employers to create jobs and hire employees," said researchers Rea Hederman Jr. and James Sherk at the conservative think tank.

While the issue boils in the House, the Senate has pushed forward, voting 52-46 in favor of Sen. Edward Kennedy's proposal for the $7.25 minimum wage. But the proposal by the Massachusetts Democrat required 60 votes to cut off debate.

Kennedy continues to hammer away. This week he released figures he said showed that since the minimum wage was last raised, members of Congress have boosted their pay 24 percent, in eight separate increases. The president's pay has doubled in the same time period.

Kennedy said he plans to offer the minimum wage increase as an amendment to the pending transportation appropriations bill, which includes the latest congressional pay raise of $3,300.

"The lives of minimum wage workers are becoming more difficult each and every day," Kennedy said. "In the nine years since Congress last raised the minimum wage, these workers have steadily fallen farther and farther behind the rest of the country."

Muslim Group Wants Christian Leader Barred from Canada
By Alison Espach
CNSNews.com Correspondent
July 17, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - An Islamic advocacy group wants Rev. Franklin Graham barred from entering Canada because of allegedly hateful statements made towards Islam. Graham's spokesman says the Evangelical minister's comments have been "misconstrued" by some Muslims.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations of Canada (CAIR-CAN) claims allowing Graham into Canada would be evidence of a "double standard." British Muslim Riyad ul-Haq was denied entry into Canada in June after being accused of inciting hatred towards Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims - a violation of Canada's so-called "hate propaganda laws."

"We do not welcome hate-mongers," said Leslie Harmer, spokesperson for Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, the official who ordered that Canadian authorities block ul-Haq from entering the country.

CAIR-CAN noted that shortly after the 9/11 attacks Graham called Islam "a very evil and a very wicked religion." The group argues that, like ul-Haq, Graham should be forbidden to come to Canada for a scheduled visit later this year.

"The comments they have made are very widely available, and there isn't a great deal of difference between the two individuals," CAIR-CAN Communications Director Halima Mautbur told Cybercast News Service.

The group is further dismayed with the government's decision, because ul-Haq promised he would not speak about anything controversial while he was in Canada.

CAIR-CAN Executive Director Karl Nickner said in a news release Thursday that "some Canadian Muslims are wondering whether a double standard is being applied."

"As Muslims and as Canadians," Nickner added, "we stand firmly against any hateful religious speech by representatives of all faiths."

But Graham, who is president of his father's Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), previously explained that he does not hate Muslim people and only wants to speak out about crimes committed in the name of Islam.

Jeremy Blume, a spokesman for the association, said Graham would not comment further on the matter because he already responded in an opinion-editorial piece for the Wall Street Journal, clarifying statements he said the Muslim community misconstrued.

"It is not what he is about. He is about relief work, about spreading hope of Jesus Christ," Blume said. "People misconstrue when he talks about it. They think he is against Islam and people of Islam. That is why he wrote this, so people could refer to it and just be done with it so he can get back to relief work.""

In his essay, Graham said that he does not believe Muslims are evil people because of their faith, adding that he has many Muslim friends.

"While as Christians we disagree with Islamic teachings, if we obey the teachings of Jesus, we will love all Muslims," Graham wrote.

"But I decry the evil that has been done in the name of Islam, or any other faith - including Christianity," Graham continued. "I believe it is my responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."

Despite Graham's explanation, CAIR-CAN is demanding that the Canadian government clarify its position on freedom of speech.

"We have sort of entered into an area which is creating a lot of confusion for our community given the differential treatment of these two clerics," said Mautbur. "It is incumbent on the government to provide some information to Canadians about how exactly this sort of policy of censorship is going to be used, and when it is going to be used."

Canadian officials have not responded to CAIR-CAN's complaints. Graham is still scheduled to visit Winnipeg in October.

Muslim Group Wants Christian Leader Barred from Canada (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200607/CUL20060717a.html)

Stem cell bill nears Senate approval
By Carl Hulse The New York Times

WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate has moved toward approval of expanded federal spending on medical research using embryonic stem cells, but the immediate results of the legislation were likely to be more political than scientific.

President George W. Bush on Monday reiterated his intention to use the first veto of his presidency to kill the measure. Though the legislation has broad bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and the Senate, lawmakers said the House would be unable to override the veto, meaning the bill would not become law this year.

But Democrats, citing public opinion surveys showing that almost three out of four Americans back such research, say the issue is particularly potent with independent and more moderate Republican voters who could decide some of the most contested congressional races this year.

But Republicans say the issue also helps motivate their conservative base.

Bush and other Republican opponents of the proposal say the potential medical advances being promised by its backers will offer false hope to some suffering Americans while encouraging the destruction of embryos that will provide the stem cells.

"The fact is, there is not one cure in this country today from embryonic stem cells," said Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and a physician.

But Coburn and other conservatives were clearly in the minority as Republicans and Democrats said the expansion of research using stem cells could create new treatments for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries.

Supporters said they were confident that they had the necessary 60 votes for approval but were uncertain that they could reach the 67 required to overturn a veto because of an intense lobbying campaign by conservative activists.

Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and a chief supporter of the legislation, compared resistance to stem cell research to the skepticism that confronted Columbus and Galileo.

Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and the majority leader who brought the measure to the floor, said he believed the current administration policy was too restrictive.

"We have to work together to allow science to advance," said Frist, who is also a physician.

The White House issued a formal statement promising a veto on the ground that the "bill would compel all American taxpayers to pay for research that relies on the intentional destruction of human embryos for the derivation of stem cells, overturning the president's policy that funds research without promoting such ongoing destruction."

Under the proposal, the federal government would be allowed to support research on stem cells obtained from embryos donated for in vitro fertilization. Backers of the legislation say only those embryos that would otherwise be destroyed would be used and that the donors would have to provide written consent for the use of the embryos, now numbering about 400,000, that are stored at fertility clinics.

"So the choice is this," said Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, "throw them away or use them to ease suffering and, hopefully, cure diseases."

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on two related measures, one that would encourage the creation of lines of stem cells without the destruction of human embryos and another to prohibit the use of tissue from fetuses gestated for research, which the legislation described as "fetus farming."

U.S. Senate to consider $11.7 bln waterways bill

The U.S. Senate is set to vote this week on an $11.7 billion waterways bill that would fund construction of new mammoth locks on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers to speed barge traffic for grain, petroleum, cement and other bulk materials.

Aides to key sponsors of the legislation said an agreement had been reached to limit amendments to keep debate on the bill from eating up too much time as the Senate races to finish business before an August recess.

The Senate is scheduled to take up the Water Resources Development Act on Tuesday after it finishes debate on stem-cell research.

The omnibus bill would authorize hundreds of Army Corps of Engineers projects, including restoration work on the Florida Everglades and the hurricane-devastated Louisiana coastline.

Among the more controversial provisions are $1.8 billion for seven new, 1,200-foot-long locks on the upper Mississippi and lower Illinois rivers, along with $1.6 billion in environmental restoration associated with these projects. It would be the largest U.S. inland waterway project ever.

Backers say the existing 600-foot-locks are outmoded and cause river traffic jams, while the new and larger locks will encourage more exports and reduce the cost of shipping grain, petroleum, chemicals, cement and other bulk goods.

The National Corn Growers Association says more than 1 billion bushels of grain, or 60 percent of U.S. grain exports, are floated on the Mississippi River to export terminals each year.

Environmentalists and fiscal hawks say there is not enough barge traffic to justify the new locks and question their impact on the river ecosystem.

Some 80 U.S. senators have signed a letter supporting the bill. Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a similar waterways bill by a vote of 406-14.

An aide to Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had scheduled 13 hours of floor debate time for the bill and nine amendments, with a vote likely on Wednesday or Thursday.

The most controversial of these is a proposal by Arizona Sen. John McCain and Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold to reform oversight of the Army Corps of Engineers in the wake of levee breaks that flooded New Orleans last year.

The amendment would require an independent review for projects costing more than $40 million and would require a cabinet-level committee to determine the highest priorities among the corps' $58 billion backlog of construction projects.

Competing House and Senate Bills to Reform Process of Foreign Acquisitions of US Defense Firms Leave Much to Be Desired -- Yet Multinational Lobbyists Seek to Weaken Them

A June 14 letter from the Business Roundtable, The Financial Services Forum, the Organization for International Investment and the Chamber of Commerce commended the House Financial Services Committee for voting favorably on the “National Security Foreign Investment Reform and Strengthened Transparency Act of 2006”( H.R. 5337). This bill reforms the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. CFIUS has come under fire in both houses of Congress for failing to exercise its mandate to investigate – and if need be, block – foreign acquisitions or mergers with American firms that have adverse national security implications.

One might wonder why four groups that are dominated by transnational corporate and financial interests, and that have no credible record of concern for national security, would endorse legislation that gives national security priority over business transactions. The answer is that the House bill, sponsored by Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), is weaker than the “Foreign Investment and National Security Act” marked up by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on March 30. In a time of war and international rivalry, most business leaders realize that they cannot oppose security measures openly or directly, but they can work behind the scenes to undermine security efforts they deem to interfere with their private commercial agendas. That is why they spend millions on lobbyists.

It should be remembered that on September 27, 2005, the Business Roundtable – along with the Chamber of Commerce, the Organization for International Investment, the American Petroleum Institute, Coalition for Employment Through Exports, Coalition of Services Industries, Emergency Committee for American Trade, National Association of Manufacturers, National Foreign Trade Council, Securities Industry Association, and the Council for International Business – sent a letter to the Senate Banking Committee claiming that no changes at all were needed in current CFIUS procedures! A broken and ineffective system was fine with them. When it became clear that this line of argument wasn’t going to fly, the lobbyists shifted their tone, but not their objective.

In testimony before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology in May, Business Roundtable lobbyist John Veroneau objected to the new role given to the National Intelligence Director in the CFIUS process, claiming that the 30 days given the DNI to review transactions “could unnecessarily prolong CFIUS cases.” Veroneau wanted “flexibility” to speed up deals, even when foreign governments were involved. Such an attitude clearly indicates the low priority some corporate executives give to security matters: They’re just not worth the time to consider! As Veroneau put it, “No president should ever hesitate to block an acquisition that truly threatens national security. But, it is important that the process by which such risks are considered does not hamper legitimate foreign investment.” The key definition is what constitutes “legitimate” foreign investment, from the perspective of the government as opposed to that of business.

The House bill does have some good provisions that would improve CFIUS performance. As mentioned, it does add a role for the DNI, but without making him a formal member of CFIUS as the Senate bill does. In the House version, the DNI would have to insert himself into the process if something caught his attention. This is not because Rep. Blunt is trying to trim the size of CFIUS to something more manageable. H.R. 5337 lists 12 members plus “any other designee of the President from the Executive Office of the President.” The House list is the present composition: the Secretaries of the Treasury, Homeland Security, Commerce, Defense, and State; the Attorney General; the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, the National Economic Council, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, the U.S. Trade Representative; and the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs.

The Senate calls for a smaller standing committee, dropping the last five posts from the House list above and adding the DNI. However, the President is still free to add members from his executive office “on a case-by-case” basis. When CFIUS was created in 1975, it had only four members: Defense, State, Commerce and Treasury. With so many diverse constituencies now represented, CFIUS has lost its focus.

Both the House and Senate bills leave the Secretary of the Treasury as the chair of CFIUS. This is a major problem because Treasury’s main concern is to maintain stability in financial markets, not worry about national security. It thus favors any deal that recycles the U.S. trade deficit back into the American economy. A 2005 GAO report requested by the Senate Banking Committee found that the effectiveness of the current process “in protecting U.S. national security may be limited because Treasury – as Chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States – has narrowly defined what constitutes a threat to national security.” The business community has, naturally, favored keeping Treasury in control.

Both bills try to weaken Treasury’s dominance by naming a Vice Chairman, who must sign off on decisions. The House picked Homeland Security while the Senate picked the Defense Department. Again, the Senate choice is stronger and more logical. While the public outrage over the Dubia Ports deal centered on the risk of terrorist infiltration of a foreign terminal operator, the scope of CFIUS is much larger than the physical protection of American assets from violent assault. CFIUS was established under the Defense Production Act of 1950. The purpose of the DPA is to maintain a robust domestic industrial base under American control, one that can provide the nation with all the means to wage modern war. This mission falls under the authority of the Pentagon.

The Senate bill embodies this original intent of CFIUS by listing the following as factors to be considered when taking action:
– Potential effects on United States critical infrastructure, including major energy assets;
– Potential effects on United States critical technologies;
– Domestic production needed for projected national defense requirements;
– The capability and capacity of domestic industries to meet national defense requirements, including the availability of human resources, products, technology, materials, and other supplies and services;
– The control of domestic industries and commercial activity by foreign citizens as it affects the capability and capacity of the United States to meet the requirements of national security; and
– The potential effects of the proposed or pending transaction on sales of military goods, equipment, or technology to any country.

There is no equivalent listing in the House bill, though “covered transactions” do include those involving critical infrastructure or foreign government-controlled entities. Both bills call for improved monitoring of any agreements or conditions placed on transactions to mitigate their effect on national security, to insure that threats do not reappear.

cont'd

Another key provision that the Senate bill has, and that the House bill lacks, concerns discriminating between foreign countries as to how safe or dangerous it may be to deal with their governments or enterprises. Key to such ranking is whether a foreign country is trying to acquire weapons or military technology in violation of non-proliferation agreements; how well that country has cooperated with the United States against terrorism; and whether there is a potential for the transshipment or diversion of technology to third parties. The DNI, with the secretaries of State, Commerce and Energy, and with the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is to join the Treasury and Pentagon in drawing up these rankings.

In a March 29, 2006 letter to the Senate Banking Committee, the Business Roundtable,
Financial Service Roundtable, Organization for International Investment, Securities Industry Association and Chamber of Commerce supported an amendment that would drop the ranking procedure. It has long been the position of these groups that as long as the checks clear, anybody’s money is good, regardless of their international behavior or the nature of their regime. Another clear sign that national security is an alien concept in their business calculations – which is why their pronouncements on policy cannot be trusted.

What is needed is more Congressional oversight of the process, and both bills provide it. In this case, the House bill is the stronger measure. H.R. 5337 requires a report to both Houses of Congress twice a year, before January 31 and July 31, on what CFIUS has been doing. The most important element of this report is a required “evaluation of whether there is credible evidence of a coordinated strategy by one or more countries or companies to acquire United States companies involved in research, development, or production of critical technologies for which the United States is a leading producer” and “an evaluation of whether there are industrial espionage activities directed or directly assisted by foreign governments against private United States companies aimed at obtaining commercial secrets related to critical technologies.” This is an important step beyond the current CFIUS “case-by-case” approach, which has rendered it blind to the larger strategies foreign governments and corporate groups are pursuing.

The Senate bill (which still had not been formally submitted and assigned a number) calls for an annual report from CFIUS, which is to have “a table showing on a cumulative basis, by sector, product, and country of foreign ownership, the number of acquisitions reviewed, investigated, or both, by CFIUS to provide a census of production potentially relevant to the Nation’s defense industrial base owned or controlled by foreign persons or foreign governments.”

The transnational business groups oppose Congressional oversight. In a letter sent to the Senate Banking Committee the day of the markup, it was charged by the Business Roundtable and its allies that “among the significant issues yet to be resolved are: the unprecedented notification and reporting requirements, which increase the risk of transactions becoming political.” By political, they mean the intrusion of government policy concerns into business decisions. These business groups consider themselves “non-political” in that they care only about themselves and dismiss any larger consequences of their actions to the nation as unimportant. Chairman Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) easily rebutted the lobbyists, saying on the day of the markup, “As critical as foreign investment is, however, our national security is paramount. Once bargained away, it may never be recovered. Thus, we can not take the chance and allow it to be sold in the first place.”

Neither bill has yet made it to the floor of its respective chamber. When each does, the lobbyists will use their pet legislators to offer weakening amendments. And when the bills are adopted in their separate houses, they will have to go into a Senate-House conference to have their differences reconciled into a final law – and again the lobbyists will be at work to convince the conferrees to adopt the weaker language. Though this long process, those who place national security and robust domestic industrial capabilities at the apex of policy must work just as hard to insure that the strongest measures are adopted to protect America’s future.

Northwest may end pensions if Congress doesn't act

Bankrupt Northwest Airlines Corp.(NWACQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) would consider terminating pension plans if Congress did not act on pension reform legislation within weeks, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

"Congress has to act now," Douglas Steenland told reporters after a meeting with employees on Capitol Hill.

Northwest and Delta Air Lines Inc. (DALRQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research), also bankrupt, are mounting a lobbying blitz this week to press lawmakers on pending legislation that would overhaul corporate pension funding rules and give airlines substantially more time to fund their deficit-ridden plans.

A special committee of lawmakers from the House of Representatives and Senate have struggled over the past four months to negotiate a final bill. There is no schedule for completing talks, but key lawmakers have expressed some optimism in recent days that a deal could be close.

"We've done everything we can possibly do to fix the company," Steenland said.

"If there's not a resolution of this by the August (congressional) recess, we'll have to give serious consideration to commencement of the termination process," Steenland said.

Lawmakers are scheduled to leave town for a month in early August.

Steenland said that terminating the company's three pension plans covering 73,000 workers and retirees would probably lengthen Northwest's stay in Chapter 11. The airline filed for bankruptcy last September.

Steenland said Northwest hopes to emerge from bankruptcy during the first half of 2007, but terminating pensions would slow things down.

It would take several months for a New York bankruptcy judge to weigh any plan by the airline to end its plans, Steenland said.

Rivals United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp. (UAUA.O: Quote, Profile, Research), and US Airways Group Inc. (LCC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) terminated their plans in bankruptcy to save money and restructure.

Delta plans to terminate its pensions covering pilots but says it might be able to save pension coverage for other employees if Congress approved pension legislation by the recess.

House Backs $1.5 Billion For Metro -- With a Hitch
D.C., Md. and Va. Must Match Amount

The House of Representatives passed legislation yesterday that would commit $1.5 billion over 10 years to improve the Metro transit system as long as the District, Maryland and Virginia guarantee to match that money. The vote was 242 to 120, just exceeding the needed two-thirds majority.

The measure, part of a plan to keep trains, tracks, stations and buses in good repair and increase federal oversight, now goes to the Senate, where Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), sponsor of the House bill, said he hopes passage will be "less of a problem."

"Metro is central to all of the federal activities," Davis said. "In many ways, Metro is the lifeblood of the federal government. Federal workers make up more than half of rush-hour subway riders, and more than 50 federal agencies are located adjacent to subway stations."

The funds would come from federal revenue from offshore drilling operations.

But the federal money, which no other transit system in the country would receive and which Metro says it deserves because of its unique role in carrying federal workers and visitors in the nation's capital, is contingent on a $1.5 billion match from the District, Maryland and Virginia. The regional jurisdictions have to create a major, dedicated source of money for Metro -- such as a portion of a sales tax earmarked for transit -- to cover their share of capital and operational expenses.

The District has approved a measure to dedicate 0.5 percent of city sales tax revenue to Metro, but efforts to establish a stable funding source for the transit authority failed in the Maryland and Virginia legislatures. The Maryland General Assembly is not scheduled to meet again this year, but Virginia's is likely to reconvene this fall to renew its contentious debate on transportation financing.

Davis said he hoped that yesterday's actions will increase the pressure on Maryland and Virginia legislators. "We have a lot of people who don't like spending money on mass transit," he said.

Supporters of the effort say the funding is needed to ensure the future of the nation's second-busiest rail system and fifth-busiest bus system, which are vital to the region's economy. But the task represented significant political challenges for legislators this spring.

Gladys Mack, who chairs Metro's board of directors, welcomed the House vote.

"We are pleased that Mr. Davis and the Congress recognize the importance of a healthy Metro to the workings of the federal government, both on an everyday basis and in an emergency," she said in a statement.

Fiscal conservatives objected to the measure.

"At a time when our nation is engaged in a war against terrorism abroad and faces a growing fiscal crisis at home, the federal government should not be handing a $1.5 billion bailout to the DC Metro System," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) said in a statement on his Web site. He chairs the Republican Study Committee's budget and spending task force.

In yesterday's vote, 158 Democrats and 83 Republicans supported the bill; 111 Republicans and 9 Democrats voted against, including Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-Md.), Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.) and Jo Ann S. Davis (R-Va.).

Because the bill did not pass under an expedited procedure earlier in the day, it required a two-thirds majority on the House floor.

By itself, the bill that passed yesterday would not commit any money to the Metro system. The money for Metro was secured through a provision Davis added last month to another House bill that would devote a portion of revenue from offshore drilling to Metro's revitalization.

Both bills still must be voted on by the Senate.

The bill passed yesterday would also require the appointment of an inspector general and add four federal members -- two voting and two alternate -- to Metro's 12-member board of directors. Metro has already established and funded a position for an inspector general, and members said they hope to have one in place by October.

Since the creation of the transit authority in the 1960s, it has relied on money from the federal government, from 10 governments in the Washington area and from its fareboxes.

Metro increased fares in 2003 and 2004 and regularly goes to the local governments for money to meet its budget. For years, Metro's leaders have appealed to local governments to provide a steady, consistent flow of money so the transit system will not have to compete with other public needs, such as education.

Bush Holds Veto Pen Over Stem Cell Bill
Bush Holds Veto Pen Over Bill Expanding Federally Funded Stem Cell Research

WASHINGTON - Pleadings from celebrities, a former first lady and fellow Republicans did not move President Bush from his determination to reject, with the first veto of his presidency, a bill expanding federally funded embryonic stem cell research.

Nor was Bush swayed by two days of emotional debate in Congress, punctuated by stories of personal and family suffering, that plunked lawmakers into the intersection of politics, morality and science.

"The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research, it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He's one of them," spokesman Tony Snow said.

Strong majorities in the House and Senate joined sentiments with most Americans and passed a bill that lifts restriction currently limiting federally funded research to stem cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001.

But neither the House nor the Senate mustered the two-thirds vote necessary to beat a determined president, although lawmakers planned to try almost as soon as the president vetoes the bill.

That veto was expected as early as Wednesday.

"I expect that the House will sustain the president's veto," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Disappointed lawmakers said they intended to keep pushing to lift the restrictions.

"The unfortunate part is, if the president does veto the bill, then it sets us back a year or so until we can finally pass a bill that will have the requisite supermajority to be able to become law," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "And that sets back embryonic stem cell research another year or so."

The Senate voted 63-37 on Tuesday, four votes short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto. The House last year fell 50 votes short of a veto-proof margin when it passed the same bill, 238-194.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a surgeon who pushed for expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, said Bush in private conversation vowed not to let any more embryos be destroyed for research with federal money on his watch.

Bush has made 141 veto threats during his time in office, and the Republicans controlling Congress typically respond by changing bills to his liking.

Bush's stand against stem cells is popular among conservative Republicans that the party will rely on in the congressional elections this fall. Those opponents are the same voters who have felt alienated by Bush's actions to increase legal immigration, and the veto could bring them back into the fold.

One conservative group, Focus on the Family Action, in Colorado Springs, Colo., praised Bush's "uncommon character and courage in his defense of preborn," while blasting senators who voted against Bush. "Some members of the Senate who should know better voted to destroy human lives and that goes beyond cowardice."

Although many in the religious right are passionately opposed to stem cell research, most Americans support it, and Bush risks alienating that majority in the critical midterm year.

Democrats said two other bills under debate Tuesday were designed to appease voters angry that the GOP-led government had not opened more doors to research.

"Their opposition to stem cell research is outside the American mainstream, so they want to give themselves political cover by voting for two meaningless bills," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "It's a playbook straight from the Republican Orwellian world of politics."

One bill, which passed the Senate but failed in the House, would encourage stem cell research using cells from sources other than embryos in an effort to cure diseases and treat injuries. The other, passed unanimously in the House and Senate, would preemptively ban "fetal farming," the growing and aborting of fetuses for research.

Most disagreement revolved around expanding the embryonic stem cell lines available for federally funded research, which many scientists say hold the promise of treating chronic and degenerative disease.

Bush on Aug. 9, 2001, signed an executive order restricting government funding to research using only the embryonic stem cell "lines" then in existence, groups of stem cells kept alive and propagating in lab dishes.

Proponents said that the bill lifting that restriction also puts strong ethical guidelines in place, requiring donors to give their informed consent for using embryos that would otherwise be discarded.

"Those lives will not begin, but many other lives will end if we do not use all the scientific resources available," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Its opponents, including the president, said no conditions would make it ethically appropriate for embryos to be used in scientific research.

On the Net:

Information on the bills, H.R. 810, S. 3504 and S. 2754, may be found at http://thomas.loc.gov

Senate vote near on filmed-sex bill

The Senate could vote as early as Thursday on legislation that would increase Hollywood's record-keeping requirements for movies and TV shows carrying steamy love scenes.

While the central focus of the legislation is the establishment of a national sex offender registry, it includes a provision that would require Hollywood studios to ensure that they keep records of the ages of the actors who pretend to have sex in motion pictures and TV programs.

According to Senate leadership aides, approval of what is now being called the Adam Walsh Act is expected to come as early as Thursday. The House is expected to accept the Senate's version of the bill with an eye toward getting President Bush to sign it into law July 27, the aides said.

Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old son of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh, was abducted from a department store in Hollywood, Fla., on July 27, 1981. The next month, his severed head was found in a Vero Beach, Fla., canal. His other remains have not been recovered, and no one has been convicted of his slaying.

The crimes prompted John Walsh to become a victims' rights advocate and helped spur the formation of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Walsh's outspokenness brought him to host "America's Most Wanted."

Over the past few days, Walsh and his fellow child-welfare advocates have mounted an extensive lobbying effort to win approval of the bill.

While Hollywood isn't thrilled by the bill, the studios didn't want to give the appearance that they are standing in the way of legislation meant to help the government crack down on child abusers.

"To be clear, we support legislation that stops child pornography," said the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the lobbying arm of the major Hollywood studios. "But the original proposal would have subjected studios to criminal penalties, federal searches and near-impossible labeling requirements, none of which would have advanced the stated goal of protecting children. While this latest draft is not a perfect outcome, it is much better than it was."

The bill potentially reaching the Senate has been significantly altered to address the concerns of the motion picture industry, contrary to the language first pushed by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., equating sexy Hollywood fare with hard-core pornography.

Under Pence's original amendment, "any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape or other matter" that contained a simulated sex scene would come under the same government-filing requirements that adult films must meet.

Currently, any actual filmed sexual activity requires an affidavit that lists the names and ages of the actors who engage in the act. The film is required to have a video label that claims compliance with the law and lists where the custodian of the records can be found. The record-keeping requirement is known as Section 2257, for its citation in federal law. Violators could spend five years in jail.

Pence's provision expanded the definition of sexual activity to include simulated sex acts like those that appear in many movies and TV shows.

According to a draft of the current legislation obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the makers of movies and TV programs still would have to keep records that verify the actors involved in simulated sex scenes are over 18, but they wouldn't have to keep separate records or a different record for every scene. As long as the studios tell the Justice Department that they keep records of performers' ages under the course of their normal business practices, they will comply with the new language.

Also removed is language that would have subjected makers of movies and TV shows to specific criminal penalties for failing to maintain records of performers' ages.

The new language also does away with requirements that the films carry labels similar to X-rated movies certifying compliance, removes a prohibition against state and local production incentives for movies with simulated sex and would affect only products made after the law goes into effect. It does not give the Justice Department the right to inspect the records whenever it chooses.

US Senate passes $11.7 billion waterways bill

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved an $11.7 billion waterways bill authorizing restoration of wetlands, coastlines and construction of mammoth new locks on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers to speed barges hauling grain, petroleum and other commodities.

The Water Resources Development Act, passed by a voice vote, also stiffens oversight of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after deficiencies in corps-built levees contributed to the flooding of New Orleans last year.

The omnibus bill authorizes hundreds of Army Corps of Engineers projects, including restoration work on the Florida Everglades and the hurricane-devastated Louisiana coastline.

A similar House of Representatives bill was passed last year and differences with the House version must be worked out before the measure can be sent to President George W. Bush.

It clears the way for the largest-ever U.S. inland waterway project, the $1.8 billion construction of seven new, 1,200-foot-long locks on the upper Mississippi and lower Illinois rivers, along with $1.6 billion in environmental restoration work associated with these facilities.

Backers say the existing 600-foot-locks are outmoded and cause river traffic jams, while the new and larger locks will ease congestion and encourage more exports by reducing the cost of shipping grain, chemicals, cement and other bulk goods.

The National Corn Growers Association says more than 1 billion bushels of grain, or 60 percent of U.S. grain exports, are floated on the Mississippi River to export terminals each year.

One medium-sized barge tow can carry as much grain as 870 trucks, said the bill's sponsor, Missouri Republican Sen. Christopher Bond.

"Our navigable waterways are in environmental and economic decline. Jobs and markets and the availability of habitat for fish and wildlife are at stake," Bond said in debate.

Although the bill authorizes the projects to be built, it does not appropriate funds for them. The Corps of Engineers has a backlog of some $58 billion in authorized projects awaiting funds appropriated in its annual budget of around $2 billion.

The measure, the first waterways authorization bill since 2000, expands that backlog to nearly $70 billion.

But the Senate rejected amendments to alter the way the Corps of Engineers prioritizes its projects, including a cabinet-level committee to determine which are funded first.

The Senate approved an amendment by Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold, a Democrat, and Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican, to subject Corps of Engineers projects of over $40 million to independent reviews and to requires additional safety checks for flood control projects.

Besides the Mississippi locks, the Everglades and Gulf Coast restoration, the bill authorizes flood control projects in dozens of states from California to South Carolina.

It also restores oyster habitat in the Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound and authorizes a permanent electrical barrier to prevent Asian carp from migrating from the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes via Chicago area shipping canals. The Environmental Protection Agency says the fish, which can exceed four feet and 100 pounds, consume vast amounts of food and would crowd out native Great Lakes fish.

Lawmakers said to have deal on pension bill

U.S. House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative agreement on legislation to overhaul the employer-provided pension system the chairman of the negotiating group said on Wednesday.

Sen. Mike Enzi, speaking after a negotiating session, said the provisions would be put in writing and the group would meet again on Thursday to finalize the deal.

The Wyoming Republican said issues such as special aid for struggling airlines had been resolved, but declined to give details. He said he expected the completed bill to be voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives next week and then in the U.S. Senate shortly thereafter.

But other lawmakers were less definitive.

"There are some moving parts still," House Majority Leader John Boehner said. The Ohio Republican left the meeting a few minutes before Enzi.

The U.S. system of employer-provided pensions, which pay a fixed amount to retirees, is underfunded by $450 billion and the federal agency that insures them is $22.8 billion in deficit.

Lawmakers are rewriting the rules to try to make companies fully fund these traditional "defined benefit" pensions, which have a payout at retirement based on earnings and years of service. Some airlines, as well as some defense contractors, are seeking special exemptions.

Bankrupt Northwest Airlines Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc. want 20 years to stretch out pension payments. American Airlines and Continental Airlines, while not in bankruptcy, have also sought relief.

Business lobbyists close to the talks said that while lawmakers were comfortable with providing some airline aid, they had been discussing a range of between 14 and 20 years and might not plug in the number until the last minute.

Defense companies with many employees and fixed government contracts would also like relief from rules that raise pension costs. A plan by Rep. Howard McKeon, a California Republican, would delay the effective date for companies with more than half their business in defense contracts.

Most of the bill deals with defined benefit pensions, which are mainly in older industries; 44 million Americans have them. In addition to making all companies fully fund their plans over several years, the lawmakers are expected to impose tougher funding rules on pension plans deemed "at risk" of default.

Boehner indicated there may still be differences affecting 401(k) plans, which differ from traditional pensions and are basically retirement savings plans.

The issue is whether providers of 401(k)s should be allowed to give investment advice to participants.

'Senate will clear N-deal with substantial margin'

A senior US law maker expressed confidence that the Senate will clear the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal with a "substantial margin" but has warned against pushing Senators "too hard" to pass the legislation as it will give a feeling that it is being forced on them without time for adequate deliberations.

Senator John Cornyn, who is the founder and co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, also agreed with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar that the relevant legislation may not be taken up by the full Senate prior to it going on recess on August 4.

"I think this legislation looks very good. Things move slowly in the Senate -- it is the nature of the beast. It is also a function of the narrow windows of time available to bring things to the floor. But I think it is moving very well. It is getting good bi-partisan support and that to me is an indication that it will be successful," Senator Cornyn said.

He was responding to a query after addressing war veteran groups pushing for the clearance of the nuclear deal.

Asked about the possibility of the Senate taking up the legislation prior to the start of its August recess the Texas Senator replied, "I think that will be hard to get it done by then. We have so many other issues that have been pressing for a long time."

He cautioned, "...What we have to be careful about is that we have to push as hard as we can, but we don't want to push it too hard and have Senators feel like we are trying to force this on them without adequate time to understand and adequate deliberations."

"I haven't counted the votes yet but I am confident that before it is all said and done, it will pass by a substantial margin," Cornyn said.

In his formal remarks to the veterans groups, he expressed hope that the legislation will "quickly be ratified " by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"I believe it is in our national security interests and I also happen to believe that India has an outstanding record when it comes to non proliferation and in efforts to be a nation that shares the values of the United States.

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointed out one day recently how the quest for energy has distorted our geo-political relationships and it is important that we recognise the contribution that nuclear power can make.

"It is a great opportunity for not only American companies doing business in India, it is an important symbolic step towards this whole strategic partnership between the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy. This is clearly in my view in the United States' national interests," he added.

Eight veterans groups ranging from the 2.4 million strong Veterans of Foreign Wars to the Gold Star Wives announced their strong support to the nuclear accord.

The eight groups signed on to an advertisement in a major Capitol Hill publication, Roll Call, the cost of which was paid for by the Indian American Security Leadership Council.

Offshore bill opposition grows in Senate

WASHINGTON - Louisiana lawmakers are hailing a compromise on offshore drilling that would bring the state millions in new revenues, but opposition from other lawmakers could scuttle the proposal.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., wants to set a vote on the compromise bill before Congress breaks for its summer recess in August. But opposition to the bill has mounted since the agreement was announced last week.

The bill needs backing from at least 60 senators to overcome that opposition and move to the floor.
"It's not easy. I'm just going to try to get the 60 votes we need," said U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie.

Vitter said he is lobbying Republican senators and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans, has targeted Democrats.

The bill would open an 8 million-acre area in the western Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas production. It would give Florida a drilling-free "buffer zone" ranging from 125 miles to 230 miles from the state's shoreline until the year 2022.

It also would give the oil-producing states of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi a share of royalties generated from the new production.

Louisiana's senators were heartened by the compromise and by the support that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressed for the revenue sharing provisions in the Senate bill during his visit to the state this week.

But several senators from coastal states have threatened to block a Senate vote on the legislation.

"We have concerns that any attempts to move such legislation will not provide adequate protections for the state of New Jersey, its shoreline and its beaches," U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J. wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Lautenberg and Menendez said they would put a hold on the bill unless their state receives the same protections offered to Florida. Maine's Republican senators - Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins - also said they oppose any proposal that would threaten the current ban on drilling along most of the nation's coastline.

The House bill, approved last month, would allow coastal states to decide whether to allow oil and gas exploration off their shores and would give them a share of royalties from new drilling.

Senate bill would exempt livestock farms from Superfund

A group of 23 members of the U.S. Senate Tuesday, July 18, introduced a bill to pave the way to livestock operations gaining exemption from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).

If passed, the bill would free livestock operations from additional pollution standards provided in CERCLA, otherwise known as the Superfund law. Livestock emissions are currently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. According to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the bill isn't an altogether revamping of livestock regulation, but a clarification of current law to protect an already heavily regulated industry from further regulation.

"The clarification outlined in this bill is badly needed to protect America's agriculture industry from onerous and frivolous lawsuits. Without it, livestock operations could be fined up to $27,000 per day per violation, which could bankrupt many of them," Domenici said July 18. "This industry is already one of the most regulated with regard to environmental quality. Additional penalties and liability assessments under CERCLA, which is designed to clean up toxic industrial pollutants, are unwarranted and unfair."

The Senate bill, identical to a version making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives, specifically clarifies that animal manure is not a toxic waste substance, therefore not requiring emergency response treatment like other toxic substances. State and local permit processes for livestock producers would remain unaffected by the bill.

In addition to bipartisan support in the Senate, Domenici's bill conjured praise from livestock industry stakeholders. American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman said current EPA regulation of livestock emissions is sufficient, and the CERCLA exclusion will be important to the industry's future.

"Public safety and health, as well as water and air quality, are protected by the federal Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, along with extensive environmental laws and regulations that apply to agriculture," Stallman said July 18. "We work very hard to comply with those laws. Congress did not intend Superfund to apply to agriculture and it is not necessary for environmental protection."

Key U.S. House committee approves NorCal wilderness bill

WASHINGTON - A key House committee voted Wednesday to set aside nearly 277,000 acres in far northern California as federally protected wilderness. It was a long-fought advance for a bill that has passed the Senate twice but stalled, until now, in the House.

The legislation passed the House Resources Committee on voice vote after its author, St. Helena Democrat Mike Thompson, made a deal with committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, to drop about 27,000 acres of wilderness and add 79,000 acres of "recreation management area" for off-highway vehicles and mountain bikes.

Although the resulting compromise was not as sweeping as the version of the legislation that passed the Senate, its approval was cheered as a major victory by environmentalists and Democrats. The bill is expected to pass the full House as soon as next Tuesday, then return to the Senate for final passage and go to President Bush for his signature.

"I'm very excited about it. This is going to protect some of the most beautiful federally owned property in my congressional district. ... It's a great bill," said Thompson.

"The balance provided in this broadly-supported bill is very important to me. Just as we are protecting wilderness areas in statute, we're also protecting recreational areas in statute," Pombo said in a statement, calling the outcome "a fair compromise."

The Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Act would protect some of the most breathtaking and remote areas in California, including portions of Mendocino National Forest and Six Rivers National Forest and stretches of undeveloped beach and coastal bluffs in Humboldt and Mendocino counties. The Black Butte River in Mendocino County would be designated a wild and scenic river.

If it becomes law it will be the first designation of federal wilderness area in California since passage of the Big Sur Wilderness and Conservation Act of 2002, which protected 54,000 acres in the Big Sur area, according to Sen. Barbara Boxer's office.

"We are inching closer and closer to protecting more than 275,000 acres of precious California land as wilderness," said Boxer, who introduced the Senate version with fellow California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. "I am more optimistic than ever that we will soon see this bill signed into law."

Thompson long had urged Pombo, who has been skeptical of wilderness designations, to move on the bill. The final compromise leaves out about 12,000 acres in Del Norte County and 15,000 acres in Humboldt County that were in the Senate version. There were objections from Del Norte officials to the designation in their county, and the Humboldt acres included some recreation areas, according to Pombo aides.

The recreation management area in the bill would codify the off-road and other activities that already happen at the Cow Mountain Recreation Area in Mendocino County.

State House approves bill to protect families at military funerals

RALEIGH — The state House has unanimously approved a bill aimed at protecting families from protests at military funerals.

The bill will now go to Gov. Mike Easley.

“This bill is patterned after the federal law,” Rep. Ronnie Sutton, D-Robeson, told fellow House members.

Sutton said that the proposal would prohibit protests within 300 feet of a funeral, graveyard or funeral procession.

The protest ban would begin one hour before the funeral and end one hour after the conclusion of the funeral.

“Thirty-one states this year have filed bills similar to this,” Sutton said. “Fourteen states have already passed their bills.”

Sutton said that the North Carolina bill is patterned after a Georgia law.

The federal law, enacted earlier this year, applies only to national cemeteries. State laws would have a broader effect.

The bill was sponsored by Sen. Jim Jacumin, R-Burke.

Violators of the proposed law would be subject to being charged with disorderly conduct. The first and second offenses would be misdemeanors. Subsequent offenses would be felonies.

While the bill is aimed at preventing protests at military funerals, it would apply to all funerals.

The federal government and states have been passing such laws in response to protests at military funerals by Westboro Baptists Church in Topeka, Kan. The church members claim that military deaths are a sign that God is angry at the United States for tolerating homosexuals.

Specifically, protesters could be charged with the offense if they have signs showing “fighting words” or threats. Disruptive chants, songs, abusive language, whistling and yelling would also be illegal.

In a committee meeting on Tuesday, one lawmaker and a lobbyist raised concerns about the bill’s constitutionality.

During debate on the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Mickey Michaux, D-Durham, asked Sutton if the bill had any constitutional problems.

Sutton responded that the General Assembly’s legal staff had researched the bill “exhaustively” and concluded that there was no constitutional problem.

The final vote in the House was 108-0.

Tensions Rise Between US Congress, President Over Balance of Powers

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the Bush administration's plans to use military tribunals to try suspected terrorists is the latest example of how one branch of the U.S. government can check another. In the second part of his series on the challenges facing Congress, VOA National Correspondent Jim Malone has more on the tensions between the legislative and executive branches of government from Washington.

In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush took strong measures to protect the country from further attack.

But in recent years, Bush critics have charged that the administration has too often bypassed Congress and the courts in the name of national security.

Jonathan Turley is a constitutional law expert at George Washington University in Washington.

"This is a president who seems very uncomfortable with sharing power in our type of system," he said. "But that is the job he took. That is the oath he took. We have a system that denies each of the branches enough power to govern alone, but this is a president who does not seem to accept that."

In recent months, even a few Republicans have complained that the Bush White House has often been dismissive of the role of Congress in shaping security policy.

Mr. Bush responds that the nation is at war and will be for a long time and that he will do what is necessary to both protect the American people and their civil liberties.

"My job is to protect you," said Mr. Bush. "My job is to defend the civil liberties of the American people. My job is to act within the confines of the Constitution and the law and that is precisely what I am doing when it comes to making sure we understand the intent of the enemy."

Two formerly bitter political rivals came together recently to urge Congress to vigorously exercise its constitutional duty of checking the power of the executive branch.

Democrat Tom Foley and Republican Newt Gingrich both served as speaker of the House during the 1990s. They discussed the current state of Congress and the presidency at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Former Speaker Gingrich is among several Republicans considering a run for president in 2008. But for now, Gingrich is urging the Republican-led Congress to do a better job of acting as a check on the presidency no matter which party is in power.

"I am a passionate creature of the House," he said. "I believe the House is the center of freedom on the planet. I think the 435 people who shove against each other and argue with each other and learn to respect each other are at the core of freedom. And I think it is important to remember that a presidency is, in a sense, an elected kingship. It is a very dangerous institution to grant too much power to."

Gingrich, from the southern U.S. state of Georgia, was elected to Congress in 1978, the same year as another Republican, from Wyoming, by the name of Dick Cheney.

But Cheney, who now serves as vice president, has a different view of the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch.

"I clearly do believe and have spoken directly about the importance of a strong presidency and that I think there have been times in the past, oftentimes in response to events such as Watergate or the war in Vietnam, where Congress has begun to encroach upon the powers and responsibilities of the president, and that it was important to go back and try to restore that balance," said Mr. Cheney.

Republican Gingrich has found an ally in former rival and Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley.

Foley argues that Congress should assert its constitutional authority as a check on the presidency, especially during wartime.

"I do also think that it is terrifically important that Americans realize that the founding fathers created a separation of powers and that it is not just a lot of congressional interference with a wartime president, but an essential part of the functioning of our government that each branch, each branch has its relative strengths and role, and that for one branch to over dominate, to over control the other two is not healthy for the society," said Mr. Foley.

There are some encouraging signs of greater cooperation between Congress and the White House.

Some lawmakers are working with the administration to set up a system of military tribunals for suspected terrorists that would meet the standard set by the recent Supreme Court ruling.

And the administration is also working with key senators on legislation that would allow legal challenges to a terrorist tracking program that allows the monitoring of international phone calls without a court warrant.

Congress Debates Minimum Wage Hike

U.S. law has guaranteed most workers a minimum wage since the 1930s. The last increase in the wage was in 1997. Now Democrats in the U.S. Congress say it's time for another raise.

Minimum wage workers in America: food service, hotel workers, security guards, and sales clerks all earn at least the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, a figure set in 1997. But Democrats in Congress are arguing that figure has not kept up with the times.

Jared Bernstein is a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. "The role that it plays is that it provides a modicum of wage support for our lowest wage workers, many of whom are the most disadvantaged workers in our society. And if you look at who earns the minimum wage, you are going to find that it is disproportionately minorities."

Economic Policy Institute statistics predict a minimum wage increase would affect about 15 million people in a workforce of 150 million. Only a few million workers actually depend on minimum wage jobs as their sole source of income.

William Niskanen is chairman of the CATO institute, a policy center in Washington D.C. He is opposed to raising the minimum wage. He says it's bad economic policy. "It increases the price of hiring low skilled labor. That leads employers to do two things. One is to hire less low skilled labor. A second is that it leads them to economize on non-wage compensation and working conditions."

Twenty states in the U.S. have set their minimum wage higher than the $5.15 per hour mark. Jared Bernstein argues that figure is not a livable wage in today's economy. "The economy looks great from 40,000 feet, but on the ground, you have got some problems. We have quite strong growth in gross domestic product, which is a measure of economic growth. Productivity growth has been really quite stellar. But the wages and incomes of folks on the bottom half of the scale have been plodding along and in many years and quarters have been falling behind inflation."

Bernstein does not believe raising the minimum wage will result in job losses. He argues that jobs were added after the last increase in 1997. "We have just never found these job loss effects. It is just an argument that completely lacks evidence."

William Niskanen says improving the educational opportunities for low income families is a better way to fight poverty than raising the minimum wage.

"The United States spends way more for public schooling than any nation in the world. And we place 15th, 20th in international tests in reading and mathematics. We have compared to the rest of the world a very poorly performing public school system."

Democrats are using the issue to rally their base for the upcoming midterm congressional elections. Recently they threatened to block a congressional pay hike if Republicans would not relent on the issue. They say congressional salaries have raisen almost $32,000 a year since the last increase in the minimum wage

Congress makes Saturday 'National Day of the American Cowboy'

This is the week for the big Cowboy Day ... or as Congress would say of this coming Saturday: "National Day of the American Cowboy."

There will be much hoo-rahing and cheering, and that's good. I'll be at Devils Tower that day to help observe the landmark's 100th birthday, but the next day I'll head for Kaycee, Wyo. That's plenty enough cowboy for me. And the Deke Latham Memorial Pro Rodeo, where I'll get to do the steer roping and try to stay out of the announcer's way.

* Speaking of cowboys, there's a sort of hush-hush effort in Hollywood to do a reality show about "real cowboys." They're asking quietly, not publicly, for real cowboys to apply to be in the running for a TV series and $50,000 to the winner. I will let you know as I know more.

* You've probably already heard, but an old friend has the new job as manager of the NILE in Billings, Mont. Justin Mills, a native of Crook County, Wyo., and most recently with Northern Broadcasting Systems, has accepted the head of that livestock show and rodeo. Justin is a good choice.

* I've also heard from Ken Fitting about NFR bull fighter Jerry Norton. Jerry is working with troubled kids for the state of South Dakota. He gets some personal time off so he is still working Dodge City and some of the big rodeos, plus some smaller local ones. The transition from full time rodeo into civilian life can be tough, but knowing Jerry Norton, he'll do well.

* More about Wayne Herman, the Golden Valley, N.D., native and his bid to be nominated for the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.

If I were an elector, I'd look for dominance in a career. Someone who was always in the fight for the title. Consider Herman: He qualified for his first NFR in 1985 when the Finals moved to Las Vegas, and his last time was in 1997. In that 13-year span, he finished in the Top 5 seven times, including the world title in 1992, and finishing second in 1991 by a margin of $1,000. Herman was hurt in two of those years and so qualified 11 times for the NFR, winning almost a million dollars during that span. He also took enough time to win three circuit titles in his Badlands Circuit. Hall of Fame credentials? Absolutely!

* A follow up from Lois Hills' report on Lisa Scheffer's injury. If you want to write to her it is St. Pat's Hospital, Room 401, 500 W. Main, Missoula, Mont., 59802. or write 4676 Store Lane, Stevensville, Mont., 59870. I don't know when she will be home, but Steve will bring the cards to the hospital if she is still there.

Lisa was sure down tonight when she told me about the skin graft. She got pretty emotional today, she said. I can't blame her - it is kind of like "enough God, enough." So know the cards will be appreciated. Her phone number at the hospital is 1-406-543-7271, Room 401.

* For years, Mike Freidel, football coach from Vermillion, has been spending his summers working on ranches in Kaycee. I first met Mike at the Deke Latham rodeo many years ago. Truly a nice man, with a wife and five kids. Sometime in the middle of June, he was airing up a tire when it exploded. Joyce Reclusa told me before July 4th that he was still in a coma in Casper, Wyo. Gosh, what a tragedy.

* Here's some more information on Dale Small's death. An honorable tribute to a man who shaped Montana rodeo - rodeo cowboys, fans, friends, and family, young and old, from near and far, from youth competitors to PRCA World Champions, gathered to pay their respects to "Grand-dad," who made us laugh, made us appreciate a "better" rodeo production, and made many of us try harder and achieve more.

Stan Rasmussen and Lois Hill are both past presidents of the Northern Rodeo Association. Stan a 30-plus-years' rodeo announcer, and Lois, a former rodeo secretary, barrel racer, and force of regional rodeo, shared fun stories about Dale and the year's of following Small Rodeo Company down the rodeo trail.

* A sad note on the death of a long time friend. From the Pierre Capital Journal: LaFola Korkow, 94, of Pierre and formerly of Blunt, died Monday, July 3, 2006, in Pierre, SD. She was a ranch wife, a town wife, a trucker's wife and a rodeo wife. Many people have worked with Erv and LaFola through the years. LaFola, always a gracious lady, was friends with everyone - a good wit, very articulate and believed that everyone should have breakfast before they left for the day!

As her husband's memorial was to the Casey Tibbs Rodeo Center 4-H Room in Fort Pierre, LaFola would like her memorials to be placed there as well to continue to honor the youth who participate in rodeo.

LaFola Korkow was a grand lady, one I respected a lot. Korkow Rodeos will continue of course, because son Jim learned a lot from his mom and continues the tradition. Our condolences.

Campaign seizes on 'super-state' highway
Opponents of Texas governor point to plan's foreign control

Challengers to incumbent Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry are seizing on the planned Trans-Texas Corridor as a major campaign issue.

The 600-mile mega-highway from the Oklahoma border to Mexico is one section of a larger transportation network seen by some critics as part of a movement to integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The exact route of the highway has not been set, but it is expected to cut a quarter-mile wide swath through the state, employing as many as six lanes for cars and four for trucks, the Associated Press reports. It also will include railroad tracks, oil and gas pipelines, water and other utility lines, and broadband cables.

The stretch through Texas, running parallel to Interstate 35, would be the first link in a 4,000-mile, $184 billion network. Supporters say the corridors are needed to handle the expected NAFTA-driven boom in the flow of goods to and from Mexico.

But as WND has reported, opposition is mounting to a little-publicized effort by the Bush administration to push North America into a European Union-style merger.

The contractors building the Trans-Texas Corridor have made large contributions to the campaigns of Texas politicians, including Perry.

The transportation plan, proposed by Perry in 2002, has been a major focus of the campaign as rivals – including Democrat Chris Bell and independents Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman – call it a "$184 billion boondoggle" and a "land grab" of historic proportions, the AP said.

Strayhorn calls the plan the "Trans-Texas Catastrophe" and has dubbed Perry's appointees on the transportation commission "highway henchmen."

"Texans want the Texas Department of Transportation, not the European Department of Transportation," she says to enthusiastic response on the campaign trail, according to the AP.

Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, says his opponents are spreading bad information.

"The governor recognizes the concerns that rural Texans have. Remember, he's from rural Texas," Black said.

Some opponents, including many Texas farmers are concerned about property rights, but many point to the project's foreign control. It's being built and operated by a U.S.-Spanish consortium, Cintra-Zachry. Opponents also point out part of the contract with the firm is secret.

A state attorney general has ruled the Cintra-Zachry contract be made public, but Perry's administration has gone to court to prevent the disclosure of what is says is proprietary information.

Specter falsely accuses church to knock Bush
In stem-cell debate said medieval pope held back science 300 years

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., made a false accusation against the Catholic Church during debate on the Senate floor over federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, according to Catholic News Service.

Arguing President Bush's opposition to the federal funding on moral grounds could seriously set back scientific discovery, Specter said: "Pope Boniface VII (sic) banned the practice of cadaver dissection in the 1200s. This stopped the practice for over 300 years and greatly slowed the accumulation of education regarding human anatomy."

Specter not only misidentified the pope, the Catholic news site asserts, but most historical sources indicate no pontiff in history was responsible for the type of ban cited by Specter.

Boniface VII, CNS explained, was an antipope who held the papacy during three separate periods in the late 900s. Boniface VIII served from 1294 to 1303.

The news service said some sources cite the possible cause for confusion in "De Sepulturis," a papal bull issued in 1300.

"Persons cutting up the bodies of the dead, barbarously cooking them in order that the bones being separated from the flesh may be carried for burial into their own countries, are by the very fact excommunicated," says one translation of the document.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the "only possible explanation of the misunderstanding that the bull forbade dissection is that someone read only the first part of the title and considered that ... one of the methods of preparing bodies for study in anatomy was by boiling them in order to be able to remove the flesh from them easily, (and) that this decree forbade such practices thereafter."

According to German author Heinrich Haesar, in his 1845 textbook "The History of Medicine," dissection of cadavers continued without hindrance during the Middle Ages in European universities, run under the direction of church leaders.

Guy de Chauliac, considered the father of modern surgery, was the personal surgeon to three popes in the 14th century and a promoter of dissection in anatomical studies.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says "this fact alone would seem to decide definitely that there was no papal regulation, real or supposed, forbidding the practice of human dissection at this time."

In his Senate speech, Specter said one of the victims of the papal ban was Spaniard Michael Servetus, who "used cadaver dissection to study blood circulation" in the 1500s and was "tried and imprisoned by the Catholic Church."

Servetus, however, encountered trouble with Catholic officials not for his medicine but for his theological questioning of the Trinity, infant baptism and original sin, according to the Servetus International Society, founded to promote his legacy.

Pledge of Allegiance bill pending in Congress questions origins

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives again passed legislation that would prevent federal courts from hearing cases on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance -- such as whether the words "under God" violate the separation of church and state.

The bill has its origins in that very question. Federal courts ruled in 2002 and 2005 that those two words amount to a government endorsement of religion, although the Supreme Court didn't rule on that question when it took up the challenge -- justices instead said the person bringing the case didn't have legal standing to sue.

The proposed legislation is one of several "jurisdiction stripping" bills pending in Congress. It brings up a number of thorny questions, such as whether it was proper for "under God" to be added to the Pledge in 1954, or whether it violates the constitutional separation of powers for Congress to tell federal courts which cases they can accept.

No one expects the legislation to move forward in the Senate. Perhaps that's why other thorny questions have gone mostly unasked: If the bill passes and interpretation is left to state courts, would the result be a different Pledge of Allegiance for each state? And since the Pledge is meant to promote national unity, wouldn't that be silly?

It could happen, agreed Marilyn Ireland, who teaches First Amendment law at the California Western School of Law in San Diego. But as a practical matter, the difference would probably come down to the "under God" debate.

"If it did pass the Senate, the likelihood that there would be more than two versions of the Pledge would be small," Ireland said. "You could have one with 'under God,' and one without 'under God.'

"That's the conundrum that has always been in this country -- 50 states of disunity. Maybe it would even be appropriate to have it that way."

All three of Utah's congressmen voted for what's being called the "Pledge Protection Act," which is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo. It passed the House 260 to 167.

"This bill reserves the state courts' authority to decide whether the pledge is valid within each state's boundaries," said a statement from Alyson Heyrend, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. "If different states come to different decisions regarding the constitutionality of the Pledge, the effects of such decisions will be felt only within those states.

"A few federal judges sitting hundreds of miles away will not be able to rewrite a state's Pledge policy."

A news release from the office of U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said the same thing using almost identical language.

"If different states come to different decisions regarding the constitutionality of the Pledge, then their decisions hold sway only within those states, and not on the whims of activist federal judges," Cannon was quoted as saying.

Cannon spokesman Charles Isom said he hadn't considered the possibility of multiple versions of the Pledge of Allegiance.

"I guess I had not thought of it in that sense. That would probably be a bridge that would have to be crossed at some point if this goes through the whole process," he said.

"This is a state's rights issue, and as we've said, we stand behind this kind of action on this kind of case."

U.S Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, did not respond to a request for comment.

"Jurisdiction stripping" bills are nothing new. Pending legislation in Congress includes proposals to keep federal courts from hearing cases about prayer in schools, Ten Commandment displays and gay marriage. Cannon recently introduced a bill that would remove a federal court's ability to review state anti-pornography laws.

The constitutionality of such proposals is fiercely debated, however.

Language in the Constitution appears to give Congress some authority over the reach of courts. However, there's a widely held view, as well as scholarship to back it up, that limiting a court's jurisdiction because of an unpopular decision amounts to a subversion of the Constitution.

"That question is mired in weird constitutional cases going back to the Civil War," Ireland said.

She said Congress probably could succeed at stripping jurisdiction from lower federal courts, but "whether they can take it away from the Supreme Court is another matter."

The question is important because if state courts arrive at different versions of the Pledge, the Supreme Court would be expected to issue some kind of final interpretation.

Akin's legislation would remove that option.

Whether that removal would stand scrutiny is an open question.

"You find 10 different constitutional law professors," Ireland said, "and you'll get 10 different answers."

Senate drilling plan could give states billions

WASHINGTON: Republicans in the US Senate who want to expand offshore oil and gas production will seek a vote next week on a measure that may shift billions of dollars in drilling fees to the states from federal coffers.

Taking steps to boost domestic energy supplies may help Americans feel better about the economy, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Friday in discussing the measure on the floor.
The Senate legislation follows a House bill approved last month that would divert as much as $400bn in drilling fees to states including Louisiana and Texas in coming decades.

“These royalty and bonus payments are a big item in the budget,’’ said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. “If the federal treasury doesn’t have that revenue, if that revenue goes to the states, it’s got to be made up somewhere.’’

Republican lawmakers, having struggled to form a response to rising energy prices that they can show to voters, are trying to expand drilling before congressional elections in November.
The revenue-sharing plan won them support from Gulf Coast Senators, including Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, while risking the alienation of some fiscal conservatives.

Expanded access to offshore deposits was dropped from President George W Bush’s energy bill prior to passage last August. Florida lawmakers blocked the drilling provisions, citing possible harm to the state’s tourism.

Senator Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican who objected to prior Gulf of Mexico drilling proposals, is now a cosponsor of the Senate bill, which was introduced on Thursday.
“I don’t mind a revenue-sharing component personally, as long as Florida has the protection that Florida needs,’’ Martinez said on July 11.

The Senate and House measures would open a section of the eastern Gulf of Mexico that includes one of the biggest untapped US natural gas prospects, while prohibiting drilling within 125 miles of Florida’s coast for 16 years.

If approved, the Senate bill must be reconciled with the House plan, sponsored by California Republican Richard Pombo, which would allow individual states to decide whether drilling would be allowed off their shores. That provision is controversial because it might open waters off the coast of Virginia or elsewhere.

Activists put the squeeze on firms
Groups on the left and right pressure companies over social issues, especially gay rights

Focus on the Family is known for its advocacy on social issues in the political arena, such as opposition to same-sex marriage, embryonic stem-cell research and pornography.

But the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian group, which claims millions of daily listeners to its radio programs, also has flexed its muscle with corporate America, targeting companies such as Wells Fargo and Procter & Gamble for supporting gay causes.

Its latest foray is against Liberty Media chairman John Malone, who was recently described in a Focus publication as "one of the biggest pornographers in America" because of Liberty's ownership of On Command Corp., which supplies hotels with pay-per-view programming, including X-rated material.

Focus is asking supporters to call or write Major League Baseball and lobby the league to block a potential bid by Malone for the Atlanta Braves, currently owned by Time Warner Inc.

Focus - and other groups on the right and left - have stepped up pressure on American businesses, sometimes successfully. They use grassroots lobbying techniques proven effective in political campaigns and ballot initiatives.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a boycott last month of 12,000 gas stations owned by BP in the U.S. He claims a lack of blacks in the company's upper ranks, which BP disputes.

Ford Motor Co. has been caught in the crossfire over gay issues. After meeting with leaders of national gay and lesbian organizations in December, it resumed advertising its vehicles in gay-oriented magazines after having stopped such advertising.

Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss., has been pressuring Ford to end such advertising. It set up a website, www.boycottford.com, which states: "Ford could have easily avoided this boycott had they desired to do so by simply remaining neutral in the cultural battles."

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, said: "By and large, these boycotts are not only reprehensible, they're unsuccessful. They have not produced anything besides increased donations, I assume, for the American Family Association."

Focus on the Family is often allied with the AFA and other conservative Christian groups but says it did not advocate for the Ford boycott.

"Our purpose in many cases isn't so much to boycott. That's not our philosophy," said Gary Schneeberger, director of media and constituent communications for Focus Action, the lobbying arm of Focus on the Family.

"Our philosophy is for ... constituents to write to the company management, the company board of directors, and tell them you don't appreciate their values," he said. "It's more letting the grassroots get involved."

In September 2004, Focus founder and radio show host James Dobson did call on supporters to boycott Crest toothpaste and Tide detergent, sold by Procter & Gamble, based in Cincinnati.

That boycott, in partnership with the AFA, was based on the company's contribution of $10,000 to a gay-rights cause in Cincinnati, as well as its sponsorship of gay-pride parades and TV shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

Focus and the AFA called off the boycott in April 2005, claiming that Procter & Gamble had dropped those affiliations and that more than 400,000 supporters had signed a boycott pledge provided by AFA.

Procter & Gamble did not return a call for comment.

While companies targeted by activist groups may not suffer financially, they are often forced into a defensive position.

"Groups are trying to persuade these companies to go either way on these issues, so the companies are between a rock and a hard place," said Brett Clifton, a Brown University political scientist who has studied Focus on the Family and Dobson.

Focus took direct action in 2005, when it pulled an estimated $146 million in bank deposits from Wells Fargo because the San Francisco-based bank contributed to a gay-rights group.

The action apparently did little economic harm to Wells Fargo, which reported record quarterly revenues of $8.79 billion, according to a recent earnings report.

"We feel very strongly in diversity and supporting diverse organizations, said Cristie Drumm, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo in Colorado. "It's just part of what we do and who we are as a company."

In the case of Malone and Liberty Media, it's unclear what will come of the Focus on the Family campaign targeting the company as a pornographer unworthy of owning a major-league baseball team.

Sports business analyst David Carter said such a call to action by Focus seems misplaced because virtually all cable and satellite companies, including Time Warner, current owner of the Braves, sell X-rated entertainment.

Schneeberger at Focus referred questions to other groups involved in the issue, including the Concerned Women for America, Georgia chapter.

"We want to make people aware that a potential buyer for the Braves is someone who deals with pornography," said Tanya Ditty, Concerned Women's state director in Georgia. "It's a moral issue."

Liberty Media spokesman John Orr said the company had no comment about the Focus campaign.

In March, Liberty said it would put On Command Corp. up for sale, with one analyst estimating it could fetch $480 million. Liberty acquired On Command in 2000 as part of a deal that left Liberty with a 6.5 percent stake in the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

And while Malone has expressed interest in buying the Braves, no deal has been announced.

Liberty owns a 4 percent stake in Time Warner. A transaction to buy the Braves would be structured in large part to avoid taxes. Liberty would return a big portion of its Time Warner stock, receiving more than $1 billion in cash and the Braves, valued by Forbes at more than $400 million.

Focus' scrutiny of Malone is unlikely to make a difference to baseball owners who would have to approve a deal to sell the Braves, said John Higgins, business editor at Broadcasting and Cable magazine.

"I'd rather bet on the Yankees winning the division than this type of pressure on John Malone being an issue," Higgins said. "John Malone's religion is tax minimization."

cont'd

Pressure points

Advocacy groups that challenge corporations on social issues have had a hit-and-miss record:

Ford Motor Co., December. Ford renews advertising its vehicles in gay-oriented publications following protests by gay-rights groups after Ford stopped running those ads. The American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss., resumed its call for a boycott of Ford, which it had suspended in 2005 after Ford met with the AFA.

Target, December.

The AFA calls for a boycott of Target stores for using the generic term "holiday" rather than "Christmas." AFA dropped the boycott later the same month, saying Target started using "Christmas" in its advertising promotions.

Wells Fargo, December. Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, pulls an estimated $146million on deposit at Wells Fargo due to the San Francisco- based bank's donation to a gay- rights group.

American Girl, November. Pro- Life Action League of Chicago calls for a boycott of the Middleton, Wis.-based company, including a picketing campaign at stores, for the abortion-rights policies of the nonprofit group Girls Inc., to which American Girl donated.

Microsoft Corp., April 2005. One of the first corporations in the country to provide same-sex domestic partnership benefits, in 1993, Microsoft faced criticism from a prominent minister in 2005 for supporting a proposed Washington state law that would have banned discrimination against gays and lesbian in housing, employment and insurance. Microsoft pulled its support for the proposal but later backed a similar one that passed in January.

Procter & Gamble, September 2004. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and the AFA call on supporters to boycott Crest toothpaste and Tide detergent to protest Procter & Gamble's support of gay rights in Cincinnati, where the company is headquartered. The boycott was called off in 2005 after the AFA claimed success.

Walt Disney Co., 1997. Christian advocacy groups, including the AFA and Focus on the Family, call for boycotting Disney for its negative portrayal of Christians in TV and movies and for its gay-friendly employment policies. The AFA ended the boycott in May 2005.

Senator ditches bill tied to 'superstate'
Makes decision after WND points out link to 'North American Union'

Responding to information from WorldNetDaily, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has taken steps to ensure the Senate will not act on a bill that would further a plan to create a European Union-style alliance in North America.

Cornyn made the decision after WND pointed out Friday the legislation – the North American Investment Fund Act – would constitute an attempt to pass a key piece of American University Professor Robert Pastor's plan to create a "North American Union."

Yesterday, Cornyn's office notified WND the senator had been assured by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that no action will be taken on Senate bill 3622 in the 109th Congress. If the Senate Foreign Relations Committee does not act, the bill will expire at the end of the term in January.

"Senator Cornyn has no intention of filing the bill again until after we have conducted an internal review and inquiry," a spokesman for Cornyn told WND.

The spokesman clarified Cornyn "is adamantly opposed to any 'North American Union' being formed like the EU has been formed in Europe."

Cornyn's office had no explanation, however, for why the legislation was introduced, except to note the senator "continues to believe that if Mexico would adopt free market principles, it would be in the best interest of the United States."

The spokesman further added that Cornyn will continue "to look for ways to encourage the forces of reform within Mexico."

WND showed Cornyn's office Friday that a content analysis of the bill demonstrated its similarity to some of Pastor's writings. The correlation was so strong, WND told the senator's staff, a conclusion could be reliably drawn that the person drafting and proposing the legislation drew from Pastor's writings and intended to advance his political agenda to create a "North American Union."

Pastor's extensive writings repeatedly have called for the creation of a North American Investment Fund, to develop Mexico, as a key step on a road map to a new regional government.

In his 2001 book "Toward a North American Community," Pastor argued a North American Development Fund would advance the "North American integration" needed to produce the union as a regional super-government along the model of the European Union.

Pastor was vice chairman of a May 2005 task force report by the Council on Foreign Relations entitled "Building a North American Community." Creating a North American Investment Fund was a key recommendation of the CFR task force report.

On March 14, 2005, Pastor published a 57 page paper entitled "The Paramount Challenge for North America: Closing the Development Gap."

The paper is Pastor's most comprehensive statement explaining why a North American Investment Fund is central to his plan to integrate North America as a first step in the creation of a continental union.

Pastor presented his recommendation that a North American Development Bank should be created in an address to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade of the House of Commons in Ottawa, Canada, Feb. 7, 2002.

The three leaders [of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.] should establish a North American Development fund, whose priority would be to connect the U.S.-Mexican border region to central and southern Mexico. If roads were built, investors would come, immigration would decline, and income disparities would narrow. If Mexico's growth rate leaped to twice that of its neighbors, the psychology of the relationship would be changed.

The language is similar to Senate bill 3622, which in Section 4, "Projects Funded," states as the first purpose of the fund "to construct roads in Mexico to facilitate trade between Mexico and Canada, and Mexico and the United States."

Section 4, part (b)(2) of the bill further specifies: "PRIORITY – in selecting grantees to carry out projects in subsection (a)(1), priority should be given to projects in the interior and southern regions of Mexico that connect to more developed markets in the United States and Canada."

When Pastor's proposal surfaced in the May 2005 CFR task force report, the name had evolved to the "North American Investment Fund," identical to the title of Senate bill 3622. On page 14, the CFR report says:

The United States and Canada should establish a North American Investment Fund to encourage private capital flow into Mexico. The fund would focus on increasing and improving physical infrastructure linking the less developed parts of Mexico to markets in the north, improving primary and secondary education, and technical training in states and municipalities committed to transparency and institutional development.

The Senate bill in Section 4(a)(2) says a secondary purpose of the fund proposed by Cornyn would be "to encourage the development and improve the quality of primary, secondary, and post-secondary education throughout Mexico," a purpose consistent with the intent and language of the CFR task force report.

Cornyn's decision, however, effectively kills the bill or any effort this year by his office to introduce or sponsor legislation to form a North American Investment Fund to develop Mexico.

Specter Prepping Bill to Sue Bush

A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.

"We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action.

Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds.

"That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement," said ABA president Michael Greco. The practice, he added "is harming the separation of powers."

Bush has challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers compiled by Specter's committee. The ABA estimated Bush has issued signing statements on more than 800 statutes, more than all other presidents combined.

Signing statements have been used by presidents, typically for such purposes as instructing agencies how to execute new laws.

But many of Bush's signing statements serve notice that he believes parts of bills he is signing are unconstitutional or might violate national security.

Still, the White House said signing statements are not intended to allow the administration to ignore the law.

"A great many of those signing statements may have little statements about questions about constitutionality," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "It never says, 'We're not going to enact the law.'"

Specter's announcement intensifies his challenge of the administration's use of executive power on a number of policy matters. Of particular interest to him are two signing statements challenging the provisions of the USA Patriot Act renewal, which he wrote, and legislation banning the use of torture on detainees.

Bush is not without congressional allies on the matter. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a former judge, has said that signing statements are nothing more than expressions of presidential opinion that carry no legal weight because federal courts are unlikely to consider them when deciding cases that challenge the same laws.

________________________

Just another means of causing division by a disgruntled Senator.

Hillary: It's the American dream, stupid

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible White House contender in 2008, said on Monday the Bush administration had hurt working Americans and Democrats must offer new ideas to strengthen the middle class.

"Americans are earning less while the costs of a middle-class life have soared," Clinton told the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, a group that aided her husband Bill Clinton's rise to the presidency in 1992 but has clashed in recent years with the party's more liberal wing.

"A lot of Americans can't work any harder, borrow any more or save any less," she said in unveiling the group's "American Dream Initiative," a package of proposals to make college and home ownership more affordable, help small businesses, improve retirement savings and expand health insurance coverage.

Clinton said President George W. Bush and Republicans had "made a mess out of the country's finances." Rewriting her husband's famous 1992 campaign slogan, "It's the economy, stupid," she declared: "It's the American dream, stupid."

The yearlong initiative headed by Clinton was designed to give the party new ideas for midterm elections in November and for the White House race in 2008.

Clinton said she hoped the agenda would "unite Democrats and help elect Democrats" in November, when the party must pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate to regain control of Congress.

"This plan will make the basics of life in the middle class -- health care, education and retirement -- affordable for those who take responsibility," Clinton said.

"These ideas will make sure every American will get a fair wage, access to college and home ownership and a path out of poverty and into the middle class," she said.

Two other possible 2008 presidential contenders, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record), also addressed the conference of 375 elected Democratic officials from 42 states.

"Everybody in the country understands what this administration has done wrong," Vilsack said. "It is important now for this country to understand what we need to do that's right."

Bayh said Democrats needed to reach out to the middle class if they wanted to reclaim control of Congress.

Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz rejected the Democratic claims about the economy.

"Only liberal Democrats like Hillary Clinton could attack an economy that has produced 5.4 million jobs in the last three years, grew 5.6 percent in the first quarter, increased payroll employment in 47 states and is the envy of the industrialized world," he said.

While much of the agenda covers familiar Democratic territory, it adds some new flourishes. An "American Dream Grant" would award money to states based on attendance and graduation from state colleges, while American Dream Accounts would enhance retirement savings and federally funded $500 "baby bonds" would be issued to each child born in America.

It also includes a commission to evaluate corporate subsidies and new rules to rein in federal spending.

The agenda is one of several packages of Democratic ideas floated by party groups and leaders who have yet to rally around a single party-wide agenda similar to the successful Republican "Contract with America" in 1994.

Washington Supreme Court to announce same-sex marriage decision
Long-awaiting ruling coming tomorrow

The state Supreme Court is set to announce tomorrow whether Washington will become the second state to let same-sex couples marry -- a controversial issue that's left people on both sides waiting more than a year for an answer.

In a case that some have called the court's most significant in years, justices could decide Washington's law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman is unconstitutional, opening the door for same-sex couples to tie the knot.

A notice of the pending decision was posted today on the court's Web site.

Justices could also uphold the law, preventing same-sex couples from marrying, or strike it down while leaving it up to state lawmakers to decide what to do.

Either way, attorneys have been anxiously speculating on what the delay might mean. Some have wondered if justices were waiting until after the election, when three justices are running to keep their seats on the high bench, though that apparently isn't the case.

Some think the case prompted more than a couple justices to put their opinions to paper and circulate them through the justices' chambers, a process that takes back-and-forth debate, revisions and time.

It could also lead to a number of concurring and dissenting opinions.

"There could well be three or four or five," attorney Phil Talmadge, a former Supreme Court justice, guessed recently.

Hugh Spitzer, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Washington and filed a written argument supporting the same-sex couples, said he thinks justices had probably been passing around several opinions for quite a while.

The state's highest court heard the case on March 8, 2005. Attorneys gave technical, constitutional arguments inside the Temple of Justice as thousands of people rallied under clear skies outside.

Many covered the lawn of the capitol with signs that read, Marriage: one man, one woman. Others rallied for diversity and gay rights.

In court and in writing, attorneys for the state and King County -- as well as a group of state lawmakers and religious leaders opposing same-sex marriage -- argued that the question of who should be allowed to marry should be left to state lawmakers.

They said lawmakers had a rational reason for limiting marriage to people of the opposite sex: Only those couples are biologically capable of having children, and keeping them together is generally best for those children.

But attorneys for the same-sex couples -- whose case was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, Northwest Women's Law Center and Lambda Legal -- say the law discriminates against loving couples.

They argued that keeping same-sex couples from marrying makes it more difficult for them to raise their children, though at the same time it accomplishes nothing for the kids who are being raised by a mother and a father.

The case was an appeal from two lawsuits, one in King County and one in Thurston County, filed by 19 same-sex couples raising the momentous social question of who can marry.

Justices must decide the fate of state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act. The law, passed by an overwhelming majority of lawmakers over Gov. Gary Locke's veto, defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Superior Court judges in both counties struck down the law banning same-sex marriage as unconstitutional in 2004.

King County Judge William Downing ruled that there's no logical way that banning same-sex marriage encourages procreation -- a similar position taken by courts in Massachusetts, the only state that now allows same-sex couples to marry.

Downing said the couples had a fundamental right to wed, and Thurston County Judge Richard Hicks reached the same conclusion.

More than 40 states have a law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and roughly 20 have written that definition into their constitution.

But challenges are pending in a number of states.

Earlier this month, New York's highest court ruled that its law preventing gay couples from marrying did not violate the state constitution - a blow to same-sex couples, who had high hopes that the case would go their way.

The decision is expected to be posted at 8 a.m. Wednesday on the court's Web site.

Internet gambling bill seen delayed in Senate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill to outlaw most forms of Internet gambling appears unlikely to win U.S. Senate passage before senators begin a month-long recess on August 4, two Republican leadership aides said on Tuesday.

They said backers of the legislation were trying to build support for it and resolve differences as the Senate focuses on other legislative matters and gets ready for a summer break.

The bill was not among the priorities outlined by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, during a session with reporters on Tuesday in which he laid out measures he hopes to wrap up before the August vacation.

"I don't expect it (Senate passage of the Internet gambling bill) to happen in the next two weeks," one Republican aide said.

"It's always a possibility, but right now it is not on the schedule," another aide said.

Backers of the legislation had hoped to swiftly push it through the Senate this month after the U.S. arrest of David Carruthers, the former chief executive of U.K.-listed BETonSPORTS, on charges of racketeering and conspiracy.

The Senate bill is virtually identical to legislation overwhelmingly approved earlier in July by the U.S. House of Representatives. It would prohibit most forms of Internet gambling and make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

The horse racing industry has some concerns with the legislation, one gaming source said.

Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, tried to fast-track passage of the bill in the Senate by getting unanimous consent to approve it but some lawmakers objected, according to sources following the matter.

Kyl told reporters on Tuesday that supporters of the bill are making progress toward resolving the objections. He declined to elaborate.

Congress has relatively few work days left this year because of the congressional elections scheduled for early November. Lawmakers are scheduled to return from vacation in September for several weeks, then adjourn again before the elections, and then return in December.

The Republican-backed bill has been criticized by some as an election-year appeal to the party's conservative base.

Supporters of a crackdown on Internet gambling say legislation is needed to clarify that a 1961 federal law banning interstate telephone betting also covers an array of online gambling.

Among the priorities listed by Frist were passage of an energy and defense appropriations bills and possibly a military construction appropriations bill and an extension of the estate tax repeal.

US House raises FHA loan limits, eases rules

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to raise the Federal Housing Administration's lending limits and ease downpayment rules to make FHA assistance for first-time and low-income home buyers relevant in high-cost housing markets.

The bill to modernize the FHA, sponsored by Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney, was approved 415-7, easily surpassing a two-thirds majority required for passage under House suspension rules.

The bill amends the National Housing Act to change the factors for determining the maximum single-family mortgage amounts insurable by the FHA.

It allows the FHA to insure mortgages for up to the full median house price in high cost areas and conform with lending limits imposed on government-sponsored housing enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and allow loan terms up to 40 years.

It would eliminate the 3 percent minimum downpayment on loans and scrap a flat mortgage insurance premium structure in favor of tiered premiums based on the borrower's credit history and debt-to-income ratio, the property's loan-to-value ratio and on the FHA's historical experience with similar borrowers.

The FHA, a part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, provides mortgage insurance on loans made by approved lenders, which helps to shield lenders from potential defaults.

For low-income buyers or those with little downpayment cash, FHA mortgages are typically cheaper than insured private mortgages.

But statutory FHA lending limits have been left behind by the massive run-up in house prices in recent years, particularly in urban areas, pushing low-income buyers to higher-cost private mortgages aimed at the sub-prime market.

For example, the maximum FHA insurable mortgage for the District of Columbia, is currently $362,790.

In June, Washington's median home sales price was far higher than the FHA's limit, at $430,000, compared to $415,000 a year earlier, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc, which runs the area's real estate listing service.

In addition to making FHA programs more competitive, the legislation also is viewed as aiding Ginnie Mae, the government-owned housing finance company that securitizes more than 95 percent of FHA mortgages. Ginnie Mae will be able to lend more effectively in high-cost markets.

"Modernizing FHA will improve competition in the prime home loan mortgage industry and effectively assist the industry in combating abusive and discriminatory lending practices," Ney said in a statement. "This bill helps further increase the country's homeownership rate, especially among low- and moderate-income and minority families."

The bill also eliminates the cap on federally insured reverse mortgages, which allow the elderly to convert part of their home equity into cash income without selling their houses.

US House delays vote on state corporate tax bill

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday postponed consideration of a bill to forbid states from imposing corporate taxes on companies lacking a physical presence within their borders.

House leadership and the bill's sponsors decided to delay a vote on the measure until questions over its effect on state revenues could be cleared up, said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner.

"There were some misperceptions about its effect on states, and it has been postponed in an effort to clear up those misperceptions," Madden said, adding that he could not predict when the bill may be taken up again.

The Business Activity Tax Simplification Act, sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, imposes a physical presence standard for determining when a state can tax a company earning income within its borders.

The bill would enable many Internet-based firms and other sales and service companies with limited locations to avoid paying corporate income taxes, gross receipts or other taxes in states where they have no physical presence.

Under the bill, the business must lease or own real or tangible property in the state or have more than one employee in the state for more than 21 days in order for it to be subject to state corporate taxes.

The National Governors Association, which opposes the bill, says it would reduce collective state tax revenues by some $6.6 billion annually.

That could grow in future years as companies undertake long-term tax planning to avoid paying state corporate taxes by concentrating operations in certain states or or setting up shell companies in offshore locations, said David Quam, the association's director of federal relations.

"This legislation essentially would shift the tax burden to small businesses and locally owned stores, while favoring out-of-state corporations and larger in-state companies with the means to exploit loopholes," Quam said.

"This bill is neither clear nor fair, and its real legacy would be to encourage tax sheltering and discriminate against the local shop owner."

Proponents of the bill cite Congressional Budget Office figures showing that the reduction in state tax revenues will be only $1 billion in the first year. The resulting effect on overall corporate profits and reduced deductions against federal corporate tax liabilities will boost federal corporate tax collections by $107 million in the first year, according to the CBO.

The bill should be viewed as a fair and prudent tax cut for businesses, said the Tax Foundation, which supports the bill. It said a typical company with $5 million in Ohio-based sales but no physical presence in Ohio would save the $13,000 that it currently pays to Ohio. But the firm's federal tax payments would rise by $4,550 if the bill were enacted.

U.S. House's Boehner wants pension deal Tuesday

U.S. House Majority Leader John Boehner said on Tuesday he hoped House and Senate negotiators could reach agreement on a bill to overhaul the private pension system later in the day.

"Things are moving towards a conclusion and I'm hopeful we'll have one today," Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters.

But provisions to give special relief to struggling airlines had still not been finalized, Boehner said.

Other outstanding issues included Boehner's own proposal to make it easier for mutual fund companies to advise workers on investment choices for tax-deferred 401(k) retirement savings plans sponsored by employers.

"We're still working on it," he said of the investment advice provision.

But Boehner rejected a suggestion the way was cleared for the pension agreement after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist decided not to try and add contentious legislation to cut estate taxes to the pension bill.

"I don't think it had anything to do with it," he said.

Senate and House lawmakers working on the pension bill had never discussed the possibility of adding the estate tax cut during their negotiations, he said.

Boehner said the aim of the pension legislation was to protect workers' pensions and prevent a taxpayer bailout of the agency that insures the pensions. There has been massive underfunding of employer-sponsored pensions and the agency that insures them is running a $22.8 billion deficit.

Under the proposed legislation, most companies will have seven years to make up pension underfunding. A point of contention has been how much extra relief to give struggling airlines.

Bankrupt carriers Delta Air Lines Inc. (DALRQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) and Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWACQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) want 20 additional years to pay off the underfunding in their pension plans. The airlines warned that, if they do not get such a provision by August, they may have to default on the pensions of thousands of their workers.

House OKs Emergency Communication Bill

WASHINGTON -- The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill aimed at improving communication among police, firefighters and emergency crews.

If enacted, supporters say, the measure could go a long way toward fixing an all-too common problem: emergency workers unable to communicate with each other because they use different radio systems.

The bill, approved 414-2, would require that states and local governments develop guidelines among first responders to be eligible for federal homeland security grants. The measure stresses the importance of the issue by establishing a new Office of Emergency Communications, headed by an assistant secretary of homeland security.

The bill's lead sponsor, Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., called it a response both to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. Both events demonstrated _ with tragic effect _ the reality that first responders from different agencies and jurisdictions still have trouble communicating with each other, he said.

"It is intolerable that our nation's law enforcement, fire service, and emergency medical services personnel still confront many of the same emergency communication problems I did as a rookie cop in 1972," Reichert said.

Some Democrats criticized the bill's timing, saying it was inexcusable that five years after the 2001 attacks _ and a year after Katrina _ the Republican-led Congress was finally getting around to addressing the issue.

"Time and again, the lack of interoperable communication has significantly hindered the ability of our nation's first responders to successfully do their jobs," said Rep Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.

He and other lawmakers noted that some New York City firefighters never received a police warning to evacuate the World Trade Center's north tower because their radio system was incompatible with police communications.

"Four years later, as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast, the same story emerged: Firefighters and police in the region didn't have the means to communicate," Thompson said.

Thompson and other Democrats complained that the bill does not authorize any federal money, and said states and local communities could be left to foot the bill.

Reichert challenged that, saying the Homeland Security Department has more than $1.6 billion in grant money available for local communities. The House bill would prohibit federal money from being spent on equipment that doesn't meet federal standards and statewide communications plans, Reichert said.

The measure now goes to the Senate.

House Votes to Block Some Gun-Seizing

The House voted Tuesday to prevent law enforcement officers from confiscating legally owned guns during a national disaster or emergency.

Republican Rep. Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana lawmaker who sponsored the bill, said firearms seizures after Hurricane Katrina left residents unable to defend themselves.

"Many of them were sitting in their homes without power, without water, without communication," he said. "It was literally impossible to pick up a phone and call 911."

The House voted 322-99 in support of the bill. Senators voted 84-16 earlier this month to include a similar prohibition in a homeland security funding bill.

The limitation would apply to federal law enforcement or military officers, along with local police that receive federal funds.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., repeatedly called the bill "insane."

He and some Democrats said the bill might satisfy the gun lobby, but it would put people into more danger during already perilous disasters.

"The streets of an American city immediately after a disaster are no place to abandon common sense," said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y.

The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed the measure. In a letter to Jindal, National President Chuck Canterbury said law enforcement officials concentrate on search and rescue during major disasters, and breakdowns in communications and transportation can lengthen police response times to calls.

"A law-abiding citizen who possesses a firearm lawfully represents no danger to law enforcement officers or any other first responder," Canterbury wrote.

The National Rifle Association also supported the bill and has been asking police chiefs and mayors to pledge they will not forcibly disarm law-abiding citizens.

Jindal said the bill does not inhibit police from enforcing gun laws, nor does it overwrite state and local laws prohibiting people from bringing guns into shelters.

Nadler said the bill would prevent police from pickup up guns that could be seized by looters. Police and other law enforcement officials could face a personal lawsuit for picking up guns they later found to be legally owned, he said.

The bill allows the Coast Guard to require that people surrender their weapons before boarding a rescue vehicle.

Valle Vidal Protection Has House Approval

U.S. House lawmakers have approved a bill to protect northern New Mexico's mineral-rich Valle Vidal from gas drilling, putting the issue of whether to keep the region off-limits to energy companies in the Senate's hands.

In 2002, the El Paso Exploration and Production Co. asked the Forest Service to open 40 percent of the 101,794-acre valley in the Carson National Forest for coal-bed methane drilling.

But thousands of people have said the Valle Vidal is too pristine to allow drilling, including all of New Mexico's federal delegation except Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who has yet to take a position.

If the Senate approves it, the House bill passed Monday would scuttle the drilling proposal and prevent energy companies from leasing in the Valle Vidal in the future.

"This bill is what all of us in the coalition wanted, which was to permanently protect the Valle Vidal from oil and gas and mineral exploration," Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., the bill's sponsor, said in an interview. "I'm going to give both Sen. Domenici and Sen. Bingaman a call and let them know what transpired here and that I hope for their support."

The fate of the bill now rests in part with Domenici, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who has the power to decide whether any bill dealing with the Valle Vidal will go to the full Senate.

Bingaman, D-N.M., has introduced another Valle Vidal bill in the Senate that would make the area a national preserve, protecting it while allowing public access.

On Monday, Domenici commended Udall for his work on the bill. But he said he wants to wait for a report from the Forest Service about whether drilling is an appropriate use for the valley.

"My hunch is that they're going to determine that you ... probably shouldn't (drill)," he said in a conversation with reporters. "But I think we ought to let that happen rather than precipitously stop it when there is such a terrific problem in the country with natural gas."

Environmentalists have said the Valle Vidal's natural beauty and pristine land would be ruined by drilling.

The coalition to protect the Valle Vidal -- or "Valley of Life" -- includes sportsmen and environmentalists, who say it is a key watershed for the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, the state fish, and home to New Mexico's largest elk herd.

Protecting the region even has become an issue in the Albuquerque-area 1st Congressional District race, many miles from the Carson National Forest. In June, the Democratic challenger, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, signed a pledge to always oppose oil and gas drilling in the Valle Vidal, pointing out that her Republican opponent, Rep. Heather Wilson, did not back Udall's bill.

Wilson co-sponsored the bill three days later.

On Monday, Wilson said she had evaluated the legislation and decided the Valle Vidal should be protected.

"The Valle Vidal is a great recreational, scenic and wildlife area, and the summer destination for up to 3,000 Boy Scouts on a wilderness experience each year," she said in a statement. "These are its best uses."

House OKs Money for Americans in Lebanon

WASHINGTON — The House voted Tuesday to add money to a federal repatriation program and ensure that 8,000 to 15,000 Americans fleeing Lebanon have lodging, medical care and transportation.

The Health and Human Services Department expects to reach the program's $1 million cap this week.

"We need your assistance in lifting this cap as soon as possible,"Secretary Michael Leavitt wrote to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill."Arriving U.S. citizens who are exhausted and without financial means will be left to fend for themselves upon arrival in their home country."

The government provides temporary assistance to citizens and their families when they arrive in the United States after fleeing foreign countries due to destitution, illness, threat of war, invasion or other crises.

Repatriation centers have opened at Baltimore's and Philadelphia's airports to assist Americans returning from Lebanon. They are staffed by medical and mental health professionals, and they have phone banks and computers to help people contact friends and relatives.

The House bill, passed by voice vote, temporarily lifts the program's $1 million cap to keep assistance flowing to the 8,000 to 15,000 Americans expected to leave Lebanon.

"Many don't need much help, but some do,"said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash, and the program"enables us to help Americans who escaped a conflict with their lives but little else."

The program provides aid for up to 90 days.

It is designed to help get people to their homes or other destinations as smoothly as possible. In the majority of cases, evacuees don't need much assistance, and they pay their own way for their lodging or for the airplane tickets.

In some cases, people fled without money or credit cards to pay for immediate needs. The government can provide money, medical care, lodging or transportation in those cases, and evacuees getting assistance promise to repay the money.

In a small number of cases, when a citizen is truly destitute, the government will pay the expenses for getting them to their final destination. The program also repays states for any assistance they provide to repatriating Americans.

House passes bill to help preserve Revolutionary sites

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The U.S. House of Representatives this week approved legislation to identify and help preserve Revolutionary War sites in South Carolina.

The measure, the Southern Campaign of the Revolution Heritage Act introduced by U.S. Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., was included in the National Heritage Areas Act approved by the Senate last year.

The House approved the measure Monday. A technical change is expected to be quickly approved by the Senate before the measure goes to President Bush for his signature, Spratt's office said.

Under the measure, the Interior Department will study, along with state and local historic societies, whether Revolutionary War sites in the state should be designated the "Southern Campaign of the Revolution Heritage Area."

The study will determine sites which should be conserved and identify the best ways to do so. It will also determine if local groups or state and local governments already have plans for such sites and whether financial plans for conservation have been developed.

The study would include sites in North Carolina as necessary.

Spratt told the House the bill focuses on "the most important part of the campaign for the Revolution, the Revolution in the South, where the Revolution was largely won after the fall of Charleston in the back country. "

He said there are a number of Revolutionary War sites including state and national parks as well as other public and private sites.

Some need federal dollars to reach their potential while others are in danger of being lost, Spratt said.

"This study encompasses battles like Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and Camden, and heroes like Thomas Sumter, Francis Marion, Daniel Morgan, and Nathaniel Greene," Spratt said.

"After the fall of Charleston in May 1780, when the South seemed lost, they turned the tide of battle in the back country and sent a battered Cornwallis to Virginia, where he was beaten at Yorktown. This is a story that needs to be told well, and a heritage corridor will help us do that," he added.

White House press corps is moving out

For more than a hundred years, reporters have staked out the West Wing of the White House.

They've badgered press secretaries and accosted official visitors as they leave important meetings. Day in, day out, from the age of the fountain pen to today's wireless laptop, they've been there, telling the world what's going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

That changes next week.

The press corps is moving out of the White House so the briefing room can be remodeled. The reporters, photographers and camera and sound crews are moving across the street to temporary quarters in trailers. They could be there as long as nine months.

"We're doing this reluctantly," said Steve Scully, the political editor at C-SPAN and the president of the White House Correspondents Association. "People come and go. You can see heads of state come and go. We won't see that from across the street. ... This is a very closed White House and they're very restrictive about who you can talk to. That makes it all the more important to be close."

The press has been close for a long, long time.

Aging photos in the basement show an early White House press corps wearing top hats and bowlers. One shows reporters posing with President Woodrow Wilson; he doesn't look too happy. A display of black and white photos shows the press corps celebrating a triumphant trip covering President Harry S. Truman in Rio de Janeiro in 1947. Says one caption: "Veteran newsmen from Washington consume appetizing dainties on boat ride from airport to city to meet President Truman." Another trumpets their self-importance, describing their Rio trip as "rivaling the first settlers in America who landed at Plymouth Rock."

Reporters used to hang out in the West Wing's lobby after President Theodore Roosevelt built it and President William Howard Taft expanded it.

They got their own digs much later, in 1970, when President Richard Nixon installed a floor over a small swimming pool that had been built for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had polio, in 1933. The pool was in a narrow section that connects the White House residence to its West Wing.

The pool's still there, visible through a trapdoor in the briefing-room floor, right in front of where the press secretary stands at the podium with the presidential seal behind. To honor history, the renovation will keep the pool largely intact - though still unseen below the floor.

The briefing room seats 47 reporters. Behind it is a smaller room with workstations for print reporters and closetlike booths for TV and radio people. A basement holds more desks and booths.

The briefing-room complex was last remodeled in 1981, when it was named in honor of White House Press Secretary James Brady, who was seriously wounded in that year's assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

But that was only a remodeling. This year's more extensive work is long overdue.

The basement wall next to one reporter's cramped desk is crumbling. The space near the AP Radio and C-SPAN booths flooded recently. The heat and air conditioning need an overhaul. All the new technology needs new wiring.

And the new briefing room will boast a video wall behind the press secretary for officials to use to illustrate their points.

For all the new equipment, however, what happens there will remain the same: The press will push the White House to share information about current events with the public, and officials will try their best to spin what they say to make the president look good.

House passes heritage designation for area east of Atlanta

Georgia lawmakers are optimistic that the Arabia Mountain area east of Atlanta will become a national heritage site this year after the House overwhelmingly approved a bill establishing the designation.

The Senate could adopt the measure within days, aides said, although passage is not guaranteed.

The Arabia Mountain provision has been bounced back and forth between the House and Senate in various forms for several years. But this year's version _ included in a large package of similar federal designations for sites across the country _ could have momentum.

"We feel like this time it's going to happen, maybe even before August," said Annie Laurie Walters, a spokeswoman for bill co-sponsor Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

The House passed the legislation Monday night, 323-39.

The National Park Service defines heritage areas as the nation's "defining landscapes" representing the "national experience" through a blend of natural, historic and cultural resources.

The designation does not carry new restrictions on development of private property. Instead it provides for federal funding and technical assistance for partnerships with local and state groups to maintain a designated area's character. Heritage areas often include existing conservation districts or public parks.

The Arabia Mountain heritage area would include parts of DeKalb, Rockdale and Henry counties, including the existing Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve in DeKalb County and the Panola Mountain State Conservation Park. The public greenspace portions of the heritage area would total some 5,000 acres, according to the Arabia Mountain Heritage Area Alliance.

The legislation authorizes up to $1 million per year for managing the area, pending congressional appropriations in future spending bills and contingent on local matching money.

"I'm just pleased to see what seems to be a broad base of support for more heritage areas in the United States," said Kelly Jordan, chair of the Arabia Mountain alliance. "I'm hopeful that our area will get fully approved and enacted into law before Congress adjourns this year."

hite House Working on Detainee Rules

WASHINGTON -- The White House is expected to unveil as early as next week a proposal on the legal handling of detainees after weeks of negotiations with Congress and meeting with military lawyers.

The recommendations, likely to be described by senior administration officials during a Senate hearing, would lay out a plan for prosecuting terror suspects detained by the military.

Still under discussion this week is whether the White House will agree with GOP senators to base a new effort on the military's court-martial system, which would afford terror suspects certain rights, or to champion legislation that would authorize the Pentagon's more stringent existing tribunal system.

The administration has been wrangling with the issue of detainees' legal rights since a June 29 ruling by the Supreme Court, which determined the military tribunals established by the Pentagon to prosecute the prisoners requires authorization by Congress.

The administration had previously maintained that the president's executive authority allowed him to establish the tribunals without Congress' permission. President Bush also asserted that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to terror suspects because they were not conventional prisoners of war.

Sen. John Warner, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said he had wanted to convene a hearing this week on the matter, but was urged by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to hold off until the administration could interview military lawyers and formulate a solid proposal. Warner met with Gonzales Tuesday in what he referred to as ongoing discussions.

Warner, R-Va., said he was hopeful the administration would lay out next week "the framework of legislative proposals they have in mind."

Warner and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have met frequently with administration officials in recent days to discuss detainee legislation. At issue during the discussions have been the legal rights that military detainees would have.

The senators have said they would support establishing a system based on the military's own court-martial practices and had been told the White House would support such a move. But senior officials from the Pentagon and Justice Department testified earlier this month that the Uniform Code of Military Justice would be too lenient on terror suspects and could expose classified information.

The senators have said they are confident an accord can be reached.

Warner said Tuesday he would convene briefings throughout August when Congress is in recess if necessary so that legislation could be passed this fall.

House OKs bills to help vets get jobs

The House of Representatives passed two bills on Monday aimed at helping veterans get jobs.

“Veterans make outstanding employees, and we should be doing all we can to help them find good jobs that benefit them and their families,” said Rep. Rush D. Holt, D-N.J.

One is an omnibus benefits bill, the Veterans Small Business and Memorial Affairs Act of 2000; it sets up two pilot programs to help veterans find jobs and also requires 3 percent of all Department of Veterans Affairs contracts to be awarded to veteran-owned small businesses.

This bill, HR 3082, would give veteran and disabled veteran-owned small businesses priority in VA contracting, with the preference extended for up to 10 years in the case of a surviving spouse taking over a veteran’s business.

“It would be a reasonable expectation that of all federal government agencies, the Department of Veterans Affairs would be a leader in achieving the president’s goal for annual procurement from at least 3 percent disabled veteran-owned businesses. Sadly, not,” said Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., who said the VA is barely halfway there.

“I want to make it plain that the intent of this bill is to put veteran-owned businesses, especially service-disabled veteran-owned businesses, at the front of the line for set-aside opportunities at the Department of Veterans Affairs,” said Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark., chairman of the veterans affairs’ economic opportunity subcommittee.

One of the test programs would require states to develop a licensing and certification program to help veterans find jobs. Up to 10 military occupational specialties would be covered.

“Many service members, upon leaving the armed forces, seek employment within a field similar to their occupational specialties,” Boozman said. “However, there are several barriers that veterans may face with trying to be certified in these fields in their home states.”

Also in the bill is a five-year program in which the Labor Department would pay nongovernment employment agencies to find work for veterans is included in the bill. The test would be carried out only in areas of high unemployment.

The second measure passed by the House is the Hire a Veteran Week resolution, H.Con.Res. 125, which asks President Bush to issue a proclamation in hopes of gaining attention and jobs for veterans.

“No group in America deserves special employment opportunity more than our nation’s veterans,” Bradley said.

“Today’s veterans bring a sold work ethic, understand the chain of command, are accustomed to working within a system, are highly motivated and are comfortable with technology,” he added. “Hiring a veteran to fill a good-paying job is an important way to say thank you for your service and brings a quality employee to the work force.”

“It is shameful that so many of our veterans who have risked their own lives to defend our freedom cannot find jobs and must endure homelessness and lives of poverty after they return home,” said Rep. Henry E. Brown Jr., R-S.C. “On any given day, as many as 250,000 veterans are living on the streets or in homeless shelters, and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year.”

Both bills had wide bipartisan support and passed by voice vote. Although they seem noncontroversial, the fate of both measures depends on what happens in the Senate, where the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee is working on its own employment and benefits bills. Differences with the House, which are expected, will have to be reconciled before any final measure passes.

Lawmakers voice security concern on military surplus equipment

WASHINGTON --Lawmakers warned Tuesday that sensitive surplus military equipment could fall into the hands of terrorists unless the Defense Department takes stronger steps to tighten security controls.

"The mission of (the Defense Logistics Agency) is to provide our warfighters with what they need to fight our enemies," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. "Unfortunately, the (DLA) may be simultaneously supplying the terrorists what they need to fight us."

Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee's national security panel, held a hearing Tuesday that highlighted lax security controls in the surplus property system run by the DLA.

Defense Department officials said they will continue to tighten procedures to prevent abuses.

"We take this matter extremely seriously," said Alan F. Estevez, assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for supply chain integration.

The session came in the wake of a new report that undercover government investigators were able to obtain sensitive excess military equipment such as launcher mounts for shoulder-fired missiles and guided missile radar test sets from a Defense Department liquidation sales contractor.

"This investigation confirms sensitive military equipment is being sold or given to the public, posing a serious national security risk," Shays said.

Much of the equipment could be useful to terrorists and should not be available to the public, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO said such equipment should be destroyed.

GAO investigators posing as employees of Defense Department contractors obtained equipment valued at $1.1 million. The equipment included several types of body armor inserts used by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, an all-band antenna used to track aircraft and a digital signal converter used in naval surveillance.

"Some of that military equipment jeopardizes our national security, isn't that right?" Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., asked.

Maj. Gen. Bennie Williams, the DLA's director of logistics operations, said officials have taken both short-term and long-term steps to improve how surplus equipment is disposed, but realize the problem is not yet solved.

"More must be done," he said.

At least 2,669 sensitive military items were improperly sold to 79 buyers in 216 transactions from November 2005 to last month, the GAO said. Some of the equipment was displayed in the hearing room.

GAO reports in recent years had also exposed waste and problems with security controls over sensitive excess military equipment, lawmakers noted with evident frustration.

"The problems have not been fixed, they've gotten worse," Waxman said.

Shays noted that the government originally paid $343,695 for a time selector unit used to assure the accuracy of global positioning systems. GAO investigators recently paid just $65 for a unit that did not work but could have been fixed.

"It is still stunning to see what we have failed to deal with," Shays said

Feds finally release info on 'superstate'
Asked to disclose details of plan that could form 'North American Union'

After missing a deadline, the U.S. Department of Commerce finally has granted a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain complete disclosure of a congressionally unauthorized plan to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that critics say could lead to a EU-style alliance in North America.

The plan is being implemented through an office within the Department of Commerce called the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," under the direction of Geri Word, who is listed as working in the agency's North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, office.

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the White House has established executive branch working groups documented on the Commerce website SPP.gov. The Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, was issued as a joint press statement by President Bush, Mexican President Vincente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005.

Granting of the FOIA request comes after the Commerce Department missed a statutory requirement to respond within 20 businesses days.

The request was filed by author Jerome R. Corsi on June 19.

Corsi said the Commerce Department's compliance with the request is a major breakthrough.

"We're now going to get the documentary evidence to determine if the working groups in SPP.gov are creating new memoranda of understanding and trilateral agreements that under our Constitution should more appropriately be submitted to Congress as new treaties or laws," he said.

Corsi added that if this turns out to be the case, "we're going to present that evidence to the American people and let them make up their own minds."

Freedom of Information Act Officer Linda Bell mailed the "first interim response" yesterday and promises more response as batches of documents are processed, according to Brenda Dolan, a departmental officer.

Robert McGuire, attorney for Corsi, e-mailed Commerce July17, notifying the agency of the statutory violation in its failure to respond. He then received an e-mail from Dolan indicating the request was being processed. But McGuire asserted the response was unacceptable, saying the department "skipped a deadline required by law."

'Down with America'
rally threatens Rice
Top officials of Abbas' party participate
as secretary visits Palestinian president

Senior members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party staged an anti-American protest today outside the main government building here while Abbas met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, WND has learned.

Most media coverage of today's Ramallah protests claimed rally participants were affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

"Down with America," "[Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah hit America," "Fire rockets into Tel Aviv," and "We don't need American money," were among the major slogans shouted repeatedly today by hundreds of protesters gathered on the streets as Rice and Abbas held a meeting in the main Ramallah government building a few yards away in which the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon reportedly was discussed.

Palestinian police clashed with some protesters who tried to shove their way into the government building.

A group of protesters, who said they were affiliated with Fatah, told WND they would try to charge Rice when she emerges.

The main protest organizer, outside leading the crowd, was Zyad Abu Ein, a senior Fatah official and general manager of the PA's Ministry of Prisoners. Ein is known to be a close Abbas confidante and is considered one of the most important members in Ramallah of Fatah's Revolutionary Council.

Ein told WND that aside from today's street protests near the Rice meeting, he asked Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails to stage what he called a "day of rage" against the secretary of state's visit by not cooperating with prison wardens.

Rice arrived in Ramallah with a large security detail and was whisked inside the government building. She arrived nearly two hours ahead of the start time of the meeting announced earlier to journalists. She quickly departed after giving a brief statement to reporters in which she expressed support for the formation of a Palestinian state.

"Even as the Lebanon situation is resolved, we must remain focused on what is happening here, in the Palestinian territories," Rice told a news conference in Ramallah without answering any questions from reporters.

"On our desires to get back to ... (the) vision of two states living side by side in peace," Rice said.

The secretary of state said she told Abbas "how very much admiration there is for you in the United States for your courage and your continuing leadership of the Palestinian people."

"I assured the president that we had great concerns about the sufferings of innocent people throughout the region and we must get back onto a course" that will redeem a vision of "two states living side by side in peace."

"All in all, this was a very useful and constructive discussion," Rice said. "We are working with the Palestinian Authority and its duly elected president on multiple fronts."

Today's Fatah rally follows a WND exclusive interview last week in which Abu Nasser, second-in-command of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group, warned it is only a "question of time" before Palestinian terror groups and other Islamic organizations in the Middle East target the U.S. both abroad and on the home front.

The Al Aqsa Brigades, the declared "military wing" of the Fatah party, is responsible for scores of rocket and shooting attacks, and – together with Islamic Jihad – for every suicide bombing since last February's so-called cease-fire.

"The Americans deserve to be targeted because of their support to the enemy. ... It is a question of time before the revolutionary organizations in the Middle East will start targeting the Americans," said Abu Nasser, speaking to WND from Nablus.

"One can say that these threats are just rhetoric, but the near past proved that these threats come more and more into reality," said Abu Nasser. "Believe me, it is a new era and I am suggesting to the American people to adopt a different policy and strategy because very soon they will deal with a unified Muslim world, but without the help of their agents in the Middle East."

Missile defense plan seen ready by fall

The U.S. military hopes to complete work this fall on a plan mapping out how regional commanders will be able to use the fledgling U.S. missile defense system, a top general said on Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. Larry Dodgen, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defend Command, told industry executives and congressional aides he expected the so-called "concept of operations" to be done by October or November.

He said it marked the first time the military had tried to draft such a plan for a specific capability across the military's regional commands.

Dodgen hailed a recent successful test of a missile-shield component built by Lockheed Martin Corp. to shoot down a ballistic missile in the last minute or so of its flight.

The so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense weapon system, or THAAD, "exceeded its objectives" in the long-planned test at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, Lockheed said in a statement earlier this month.

Dodgen agreed, saying the THAAD missiles would "pay for themselves many times over."

He also mentioned plans to deploy missile interceptors in Japan, and said officials were still weighing where to place interceptors in Europe.

The United States last month activated its ground-based interceptor missile-defense system ahead of a test-launch of North Korean missiles on July 5.

North Korea defied international warnings and fired seven missiles into waters east of the Korean peninsula. Dodgen said the missiles were not in the air long enough to learn much about them, but the U.S. military was still studying its data.

The United States has built up a complex of interceptor missiles, advanced radar stations and data relays designed to detect and shoot down an enemy missile, but tests of the system have had mixed results. It is based on the concept of using one missile to shoot down another before it can reach its target.

The United States has installed nine interceptors in silos at Fort Greely in Alaska and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. In addition, U.S. Navy vessels with long-range tracking and surveillance capability ply the Sea of Japan.

Dodgen said further improvements would include placement of additional interceptor missiles, more sensors and further development of the system's capabilities, including better defenses against cruise missiles.

Pentagon declares war on internet combat videos

The Pentagon is asking US soldiers in Iraq to stop posting private combat videos on to the internet amid fears that they could be regarded as anti-Arab.

Many of the digital clips feature explosions, gunfire and even dead bodies, with the images often set to a soundtrack of rock ballads, rap or heavy metal music.

Defence officials believe they could be interpreted as portraying the military as unsympathetic to Arabs and obsessed with barbarism.

Dozens of such clips can be found by searching for "Iraq" and "combat" on video-sharing sites such as YouTube.com and Ogrish.com, creating an unprecedented opportunity for the public to view servicemen's unedited perspective of the war.

One cultural commentator described them as "semi-pro snuff films". Such websites have become massively popular, with 70 million videos on YouTube alone.

The spread of the fad among US soldiers has alarmed the military. Soldiers are being instructed by their commanding officers to remove inappropriate footage even though it is technically not against the rules.

A number of the films have been uploaded from Iraq itself, where nearly all US bases have internet facilities.

Hundreds of hours of video shot by three National Guardsmen based near Baghdad were edited by documentary maker Deborah Scranton into a film called The War Tapes, which was shown at a major US arts film festival.

The footage - filmed by Sgt Steve Pink, Specialist Mike Moriarty and Sgt Zack Bazzi - includes a firefight with insurgents and a roadside bomb. It is billed as enabling viewers to get a unique understanding of the "essence" of fighting in Iraq.

The Pentagon was woken up to the potential negative impact of the phenomenon by film of a marine singing a song he had composed called Haji Girl, in which a US soldier falls in love with an Iraqi woman and is then ambushed by her family when he is taken to meet them.

It was criticised last month in the US by the Council on American-Islamic relations, which was outraged by its mocking of the Arabic language and its description of how the marine grabs his girlfriend's little sister when he is attacked.

"As the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and I began to laugh maniacally," the lyrics said.

In Arabic, the word Haji refers to a Muslim who has made the religious pilgrimage to Mecca but it is often used by US troops as a pejorative term for Iraqis.

The song's composer, Cpl Joshua Belile, 23, was required to apologise.

An official investigation was launched, but the military discovered that his behaviour did not breach the marines' policy on internet posting, which is aimed only at ensuring confidentiality about planned combat operations and troop deployments.

The most severe action it could take was to require Cpl Belile to undergo informal counselling.

A new code of conduct on video postings is now being considered.

Bush: New Plan to Help End Iraq Violence

President Bush said Tuesday a new plan to increase U.S. and Iraqi forces in the besieged capital of Baghdad will help quell rising violence that is threatening Iraq's transformation to a self- sustaining democracy.

"Obviously the violence in Baghdad is still terrible and therefore there needs to be more troops," Bush said in a White House news conference with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki, on his first trip to the United States since becoming prime minister two months ago, said he and Bush agreed that training and better arming Iraqi forces as quickly as possible, particularly in the capital city, was central to efforts to stabilize the country.

"And, God willing, there will be no civil war in Iraq," al-Maliki said, speaking through a translator.

The two leaders disagreed openly on how to end hostilities between the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon and Israel, with al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim leader, reiterating his support for an immediate cease- fire and Bush sticking by the administration opposition to one.

A group of House Democrats called on GOP leaders to cancel al-Maliki's address to Congress on Wednesday. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he doubted he would attend and that there were a "large number of people (in Congress) who were uncomfortable" with al-Maliki's condemnation of Israel's attacks in Lebanon and apparent support for Hezbollah

Bush said that al-Maliki had asked for more military equipment from the United States and had recommended increasing U.S. and Iraqi forces patrolling Baghdad neighborhoods. "And we're going to do that," Bush said.

The president said U.S. forces would be moved in from other parts of Iraq. He did not say how many, but Pentagon officials have suggested several thousands troops would be moved to Baghdad, including some now based in Kuwait.

There are roughly 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The administration is under increasing pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to bring a substantial number home by the end of this year.

Asked if the tense situation in Baghdad would alter the equation for an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces, Bush said troop level decisions will still be based on recommendations from military commanders in the field.

"Conditions change inside a country," Bush said. "Will we be able to deal with the circumstances on the ground? And the answer is, yes, we will."

The president and the prime minister met privately before the news conference to discuss strategy, then continued talks over lunch with a larger group that included Cabinet members and aides.

At the East Room news conference, Bush said al-Maliki was very clear in stating that "he does not want American troops to leave his country until his government can protect the Iraqi people. And I assured him that America will not abandon the Iraqi people."

It was not clear how many U.S. troops will be in Baghdad as a result of the new plan. About two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the number of Iraqi and U.S. troops in Baghdad had recently grown from 40,000 to 55,000.

Bush and al-Maliki met alone with only a translator in the room for about 70 minutes before others joined the talks, Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters.

Under the plan to beef up security in Baghdad, forces would comb different neighborhoods to establish a police presence, "giving some reassurance to the population there that, in a way, the sheriff has arrived," Hadley said.

Bush complimented the beleaguered leader for his courage and perseverance in the face of sectarian violence. Recent attacks have sapped political support for the more than three-year-old war in Iraq, in both the United States and Iraq.

On Lebanon, the administration insists that Hezbollah must first return two captured Israeli soldiers and stop firing missiles into Israel before any cease-fire.

"I told him (al-Maliki) I support a sustainable cease-fire that will bring about an end to violence," Bush said.

Al-Maliki sidestepped a question at the White House news conference about his position on Hezbollah.

"Here, actually, we're talking about the suffering of a people in a country. And we are not in the process of reviewing one issue or another, or any government position," al-Maliki said.

Democrats criticized al-Maliki's comments. "Prime Minister Maliki missed an important opportunity to state his position on Hezbollah, and instead left the impression that he does not oppose this terrorist organization's outrageous attacks on Israel," said Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass.

Kerry called on Maliki to strongly condemn the use of terror anywhere _ including by Hezbollah against Israel _ in his speech to Congress on Thursday.

Responding to the Democratic criticism, Hadley said "there's an opportunity here I hope we don't miss," and he urged lawmakers to take advantage of the fact that a democratically elected Iraqi leader was about to address Congress. "It's been an issue for Republicans and Democrats, how to get Iraq right," the White House adviser said.

After al-Maliki's speech to Congress on Wednesday, Bush was taking him to nearby Fort Belvoir, Va., for a meeting with U.S. troops and their families. Both leaders will "thank them for their courage and their sacrifice," Bush said.

The president said improved military conditions outside Baghdad will make it possible to move U.S. military police and other forces to the capital, where an estimated 100 people a day are being killed. The crimes, blamed largely on sectarian death squads, usually go unsolved.

Al-Maliki said the most important element of a new security program "is to curb the religious violence."

Iraq's government must have a policy that "there is no killing and discrimination against anyone," al-Maliki said.

U.S. officials believe control of Baghdad _ the political, cultural and economic hub of the country _ will determine the future of Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers captured six members of an alleged death squad in Baghdad on Tuesday, while attacks elsewhere in Iraq left more than two dozen dead.

Al-Maliki met Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon for about an hour. "He is very focused clearly on the Baghdad situation and he recognizes that it is not a military problem as such, it is a combination of political and military and economic," Rumsfeld said.

According to Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff, no final decision has been made on exactly how many U.S. forces will be shifted to Baghdad, but that there will be a range of forces that include both U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Senate passes teen abortion measure

The bill makes it a crime to take a girl out of state for an abortion without her parents' knowledge.

WASHINGTON - A bill that would make it a crime to take a pregnant girl across state lines for an abortion without her parents' knowledge passed the Senate on Tuesday, but vast differences with the House version stood between the measure and President Bush's desk.

The 65-34 vote gave the Senate's approval to the bill, which would make taking a pregnant girl to another state for the purposes of evading parental notification laws punishable by fines and up to a year in jail.

The girl and her parents would be exempt from prosecution, and the bill contains an exception for abortions performed in this manner that posed a threat to the mother's life.

Republicans said the bill supports what a majority of the public believes: that a parent's right to know takes precedence over a girl's right to have an abortion. Polls have consistently shown overwhelming support for the bill, with about 75 percent saying a parent has the right to give consent before a child younger than 18 has an abortion.

"No parent wants anyone to take their children across state lines or even across the street without their permission," said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "This is a fundamental right, and the Congress is right to uphold it in law."

Bush applauded the Senate action and urged the House and Senate to resolve their differences and send him a bill he said he would sign. "Transporting minors across state lines to bypass parental consent laws regarding abortion undermines state law and jeopardizes the lives of young women," he said in a statement.

Fourteen Democrats and 51 Republicans voted for the bill. Four Republicans voted against it: Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was absent.

Both Florida senators, Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson, voted in favor of the bill.

Democrats sought an exemption for confidants to whom a girl with abusive parents might turn for help. They also said the measure is designed chiefly to energize the Republican party's base of conservative voters.

"Congress ought to have higher priorities than turning grandparents into criminals," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Significant differences exist between the Senate bill and a measure passed by the House last year.

Unlike the Senate bill, the House measure sets out a national parental notification law. It would require a physician who knowingly performs or induces an abortion on a minor who is a resident of another state to provide notice of at least 24 hours to a parent before ending the pregnancy.

States that do not have parental notification or consent laws are Washington, Oregon, New York, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The District of Columbia also does not have such laws.

Democrats said the bill would be dangerous to pregnant teens who have abusive or neglectful parents by discouraging others from helping them.

"We're going to sacrifice a lot of girls' lives," said Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

However, there is no data that indicates how many girls get abortions in this way, or who helps them do it. And Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said opponents "want to strip the overwhelming majority of good parents their rightful role and responsibility because of the misbehavior of a few."

Phone records lawsuit dismissed

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against AT&T Inc. that accused the phone company of turning over customer records to the government without a court order, siding with Justice Department lawyers who invoked the "state secrets" privilege.

The attorneys had argued this month that if the suit went ahead the government would be forced to confirm or deny the existence of such a relationship with AT&T, and that disclosure would compromise national security and potentially aid terrorists.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly found that the government's invoking of the privilege leaves too little information for the plaintiffs, led by the American Civil Liberties Union and Chicago author Studs Terkel, to establish that they have suffered harm through data disclosures.

The suit claimed the phone giant violated the privacy of its customers by giving records to the National Security Agency.

"First, the Terkel plaintiffs cannot establish whether AT&T has unlawfully disclosed their records in the past," Kennelly wrote in a ruling issued Tuesday.

"Second, the plaintiffs cannot establish whether AT&T is currently disclosing their records, which would tend to show that there is a real and immediate threat of repeated injury."

The government has attempted to use the privilege to block similar claims around the country, a tactic that has drawn some criticism. ACLU of Illinois legal director Harvey Grossman said in a statement: "A private company, AT&T, should not be able to escape accountability for violating a federal statute and the privacy of their customers on the basis that a program widely discussed in public is secret.

"Members of Congress publicly discussed the program of gathering data from telephone companies without lawful authorization in violation of existing federal law," Grossman said.

AT&T said the company is gratified by the decision.

"As we have said all along, at AT&T we prize our customers' privacy and we also recognize our obligation to assist law enforcement agencies," the statement read. "AT&T is fully committed to protecting our customers' privacy and we would not provide customer information to any government agency except as specifically authorized under the law."

Kennelley wrote that his ruling does not close the door on the ACLU or anyone else challenging such data gathering.

"Nothing in this opinion, however, prevents the plaintiffs from using the legislative process, not to mention their right to free speech, to seek further inquiry by the executive and legislative branches into the allegations in their complaint," Kennelly wrote.

House backs crack down on child predators

The U.S. House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday to bipartisan legislation cracking down on sexual predators and child abuse.

The Senate approved the bill last week and sponsors expect President George W. Bush to sign it on Thursday, the 25th anniversary of the murder of six-year old Adam Walsh, for whom the bill is named.

"This important measure will arm our states and local communities with the tools they need to combat the threats posed by sex offenders and violent criminals," Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said.

Adam Walsh's father John became an anti-crime advocate and later the host of the popular television show, "America's Most Wanted," which profiles cases and encourages the public to help catch criminals.

The bill would expand registries of offenders and toughen penalties for people who prey on children through crimes such as sex trafficking, abuse and pornography including crimes committed through the Internet.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that there are more than 560,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. About 100,000 are not registered or do not have up-to-date registrations.

The legislation would create a national sex offender registry to plug gaps in existing state system and community notification requirements. The register would be available to the public. An offender who does not keep his registration up to date in any state in which he lives, works or attends school could face felony charges and up to 10 years in prison.

It would also create a registry for substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect to help law enforcement and child protective services.

Addressing concern about Internet predators and online pornography, the bill establishes education grants, and adds 200 new federal prosecutors and 45 new computer forensic scientists to work on such crimes.

Separately, the House also approved by voice vote a bill authorizing up to $4 billion during five years for child abuse prevention and improvement of monitoring children in foster care. It must be reconciled with companion Senate legislation.

Schwarzenegger on hot seat
VOTERS GRILL GOVERNOR ON IMMIGRATION AT Q&A

LA MESA - A heavily Republican crowd grilled Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during a campaign appearance in San Diego County on Tuesday, badgering the governor to justify his position on immigration.

Typically, such sessions are a breeze for the gregarious governor, in part because they are publicized among local Republicans to ensure a heavy partisan turnout. Less so Tuesday, when Schwarzenegger, who is seeking a second term, saw firsthand how incendiary an issue immigration still is for many Republicans.

Some political analysts believe the governor is pushing the boundaries of how much he can woo Latinos before he risks alienating his party faithful. Immigration ranked as the No. 1 concern among Republican voters in a major poll released Tuesday.

During a question-and-answer session with 150 people at Harry Griffen Park in La Mesa, the governor never lost his composure, but he did lose at least one vote.

Where precisely are the National Guard members now along the border with Mexico, asked 66-year-old Sally Plata, who later identified herself as a volunteer with the Minuteman Project border patrol.

``I voted for you. And right now, I don't see much difference between you and Phil Angelines,'' Plata said, mispronouncing the name of the governor's Democratic challenger. ``I don't see that you're standing up for the citizens of California,'' she said to scattered boos and applause from different factions of the audience.

``Well, thank you for the compliment,'' the governor joked. National Guard members are indeed on duty at the border now. But he understands the ``frustration'' because the federal government has done a ``terrible job'' on immigration.

Then came a question from a woman who likened Schwarzenegger to Ronald Reagan and asked politely for a photograph with him. But she also quoted a local talk radio host, saying she wanted ``my country back'' from illegal immigrants.

The governor was empathetic, but added, `I think it's very important to never get mad at anyone that is trying to come to this country,'' some of whom are fleeing economic ``misery,'' the governor said. Direct the anger at the federal government.

As the governor spoke, Plata interjected from the crowd.

``Please don't interrupt me when I talk. Thank you very much,'' Schwarzenegger bristled. ``I let you talk also.''

A Field Poll released Tuesday showed Schwarzenegger leading Phil Angelides by 8 percentage points. And he enjoys 85 percent support from the GOP.

Insurance agency owner Brad Boswell belongs to the other 15 percent of Republicans. The self-described law-and-order activist drilled in on the governor's parole policies.

Schwarzenegger has been far more receptive than his predecessor to the parole pleas of murderers, kidnappers and others serving life terms in the state prison system. As of this spring, the governor had permitted parole for 116 ``lifers,'' most of them convicted murderers, according to parole board data. That's only a fraction of the people eligible for parole.

``I'm very, very concerned about your record on crime,'' Boswell said.

The governor said he was ``very proud that we have been tough on crime.'' And he urged passage of the anti-sex-offender Jessica's Law ballot initiative in November.

Later, Boswell said he would vote for a minor party candidate. ``I'm not supporting this guy.''

The rest of the governor's day went smoothly. Adoring crowds greeted him at Sweet Lumpy's BBQ in Temecula. He sampled homemade guacamole and bought $30.79 worth of grapes and strawberries at Tom's Farms in Corona. He posed for countless photos at a Starbucks in the upscale Victoria Gardens mall in Rancho Cucamonga.

Speaking to reporters who followed his green campaign bus all day, Schwarzenegger said the vigorous give-and-take seen in La Mesa was ``terrific,'' because it lets him know what Californians care about. Still, he was startled by ``the intensity of prejudice,'' he heard, including the comment about taking back California.

Schwarzenegger, who voted for the anti-illegal-immigrant Proposition 187 in 1994, also explained his recent statement to the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión that he was wrong to do so.

The governor has long said all kids deserve access to education, and more recently, he also has piped up for health care for all kids -- flouting the spirit of Proposition 187. Still, Angelides accused him of an ``election year conversion'' on the matter.

Schwarzenegger said his philosophy had changed because of his experiences ``in the trenches'' of youth sports and after-school programs. ``Maybe that will rub some people the wrong way, so be it.''

White House has draft bill on terror trials

The White House has drafted legislation covering trials of terror detainees that would allow hearsay evidence and let defendants be excluded from trials to protect national security, The New York Times reported in Wednesday's edition.

The Times said a draft of the proposal was being circulated within the administration and among military lawyers at the Pentagon. The present draft preserves the idea of using military commissions to prosecute terror suspects and makes only modest changes in their procedural rules, including some expanded protections for defendants.

President George W. Bush wants to push a bill through Congress this fall to allow trials of suspects held at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Supreme Court said the military commissions Bush set up were not in accord with U.S. or international laws.

The plan could run into trouble in Congress where some lawmakers have said they want to base the new rules on the military code of justice that would significantly expand detainee's rights.

The Times said the draft measure notes that military court-martial procedures are "not practicable in trying enemy combatants" because doing so would "require the government to share classified information" and exclude "hearsay evidence determined to be ... reliable."

Rather than requiring a speedy trial for enemy combatants, the draft says they "may be tried and punished at any time without limitations," the Times said.

The draft legislation would bar "statements obtained by the use of torture" for use as evidence, but evidence obtained in interrogations where coercion was used would be admissible unless found "unreliable" by a military judge. To prevent them hearing classified evidence, the Times said the draft would allow defendants to be barred from trials, but would require them be given a summary of the information.

The report cited deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino as saying the administration was "working to strike a balance of a fair system of justice that deals with terrorists who don't recognize the rules of war."

The copy of the draft legislation provided to the Times was labeled "for discussion purposes only, deliberative draft, close hold," the report said, and the official who shared it did so on condition of anonymity.

The Times cited Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and former military lawyer who has seen the draft measure as calling it "a good start" but adding, "I have some concerns." He declined to be specific, saying he wanted to withhold judgment until hearing the views of military lawyers.

State Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage today

The Washington State Supreme Court's long-anticipated ruling on the right of gays and lesbians to marry in this state will be issued today.

First argued before the high court 16 months ago, Andersen vs. King County involves 19 gay and lesbian couples from across the state who challenged the constitutionality of Washington's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in 1998, the law limits marriage to one man and one woman.

Experts see three likely outcomes: One upholds DOMA, another strikes it down, granting gays and lesbians the right to marry, and a third punts the question to the Legislature. The couples, if they lose, can't appeal. Their suit is based on state constitutional law and the Supreme Court, for them is the end of the line.

If the court strikes down DOMA, Washington would become the second state in the country, after Massachusetts, to offer same-sex marriages and the first to extend the benefit to those who live outside the state.

Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center, one of three organizations that sued on the couples' behalf, said "We've always thought the law was on our side. Washington's constitution is strong and protective of individual rights and we believe the court will find that, too."

Doug Honig, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which also argued on the couple's behalf, said "We have high hopes that it will be a ruling in favor of fairness and equality for all families in the state."

The Rev. Joseph Fuiten, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Network, a conservative evangelical lobbying group that opposes same-sex marriage, said "I have been on both sides of this: it's going to come our way, it will go the other way. I've alternated on a daily basis for 16 months.

"I wish I were a prophet."

The country is deeply divided on the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Andersen vs. King County represents one of the most important social questions to confront the state's high court in a decade and is one of the most controversial.

In 2004, the couples first filed two separate lawsuits challenging DOMA — one against King County the other against the state of Washington. Separately, Superior Court justices in King and Thurston counties ruled in their favor of the couples, striking down the state statute that denied them the right to marry. On appeal, the cases were merged into one and argued before the nine justices of the Supreme Court last year.

"Whichever way goes, it will be an important and influential decision in the ongoing courthouse battles across the country over the redefinition or not or marriage," said Monte Stewart, a Constitutional law expert, and former U.S. Attorney in Nevada.

State Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, said if the court strikes down DOMA, he's pretty certain Republican leaders would immediately call for a special session. But such a session would be up to the Democrats. Unlike when lawmakers overwhelmingly passed DOMA in 1998, Republicans are now in the minority in both the House and Senate.

If the court rules against the couples, Washington would follow New York, where the Court of Appeals — the state's highest court — earlier this month ruled 4-2 against same-sex marriage. The justices argued that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples could be based on the notion that children benefit from being raised by two natural parents.

Julie Shapiro, associate law professor at Seattle University said it's not unreasonable to think that the justices will be paying attention to U.S. and world occurrences that might impact the case. "It's not like it's a jury that's sequestered. They can and do know what's changing in the world."

Just to be sure, Rev. Fuiten, who was one of several evangelical ministers to intervene as defendants in the King County lawsuit, said the justices were provided information on the New York ruling.

"You don't think of New York as a bastion of conservativeism," Fuiten said. "It's not just conservative states that have gone that way. All the court decisions are going in our favor. Every vote has gone our way."

But calling the New York decision "legally fairly weak," Stone said it does not unduly concern gay marriage advocates in Washington. "Our Constitution is different and our DOMA is different from New York's," she said.

Congress passes molester database
Would make locations public

WASHINGTON -- Finding the nearest convicted child molester might be as easy as punching in a ZIP code on a computer keyboard, under a bill that cleared Congress yesterday.

The House passed and sent to President Bush legislation establishing a national Internet database designed to let law enforcement and communities know where convicted sex offenders live and work.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales applauded its passage. ``America's children will be better protected from every parent's worst nightmare -- sexual predators," he said.

The most serious offenders would be registered on a national database for a lifetime. All sex offenders could face a felony charge, punishable by 10 years in prison, for failing to update the information. ``This legislation would make it crystal clear to sex offenders, you better register, you better keep the information current, or you're going to jail," said Representative James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin.

The House passed it by voice vote. The Senate approved it with a voice vote last week.

Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said there are half a million sex offenders in the United States and as many as 100,000 are not registered, their locations unknown to the public and police.

Convicted criminals required to register will have to do so, in person, in each state where they intend to live, work, or go to school.

``It's time for all of our families to have access to this information," said Representative Earl Pomeroy, Democrat of North Dakota.

Child advocates have said the bill offers the most sweeping effort to combat pedophiles in years. It is named for Adam Walsh, the murdered son of ``America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh.

``We used to track library books better than we do sex offenders, but this bill will even that score," said Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida.

One initiative would require sex offenders to wear tracking devices during their supervised releases.

The bill increases criminal penalties for child predators, including a mandatory minimum 25-year prison sentence for kidnapping or maiming a child and a 30-year sentence for sex with a child under 12 or for sexually assaulting anyone between 13 and 17 years old.

A new racketeering-style offense for people who commit two or more crimes against children would carry a mandatory 20-year sentence. Repeat child sex offenders would face harsher penalties.

The bill also authorizes new crime prevention and child fingerprinting campaigns, along with new grant programs to combat the sexual abuse of children.

State Supreme Court upholds gay marriage ban

The Washington Supreme Court today upheld the state's 1998 ban on same-sex marriage — a ruling decried by gay activists but heralded by supporters of traditional marriage.

The decision came as a sobering defeat for gays and their advocates, who'd hoped the court would strike down the so-named Defense of Marriage Act — DOMA — which restricts marriage to one man and one woman.

Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Barbara Madsen said DOMA is constitutional because in establishing DOMA "the legislation was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to the survival of the human race and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by children's biological parents."

As such, DOMA does not violate the state Constitution's privileges and immunities clause of the state Constitution, which requires that any benefit granted to one group must be granted equally to all. "Allowing same sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature's view, further these purposes," she wrote.

Although the ruling was the judiciary's final word on gay marriage, it seemed to suggest that the legislature could act to provide civil unions or marriage to same-sex couples. The justices said given the clear hardship faced by same-sex couples evidenced in the lawsuit, the legislature may want to re-examine the impact of the marriage laws on all citizens of this state.

Madsen was joined by Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justice Charles Johnson. Justices James Johnson and Richard Sanders joined the majority in a separate concurrence. Justices Bobbe Bridge, Mary Fairhurst, Susan Owens and Tom Chambers dissented.

Madsen wrote that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently show that gays are members of a suspect class — a reference to groups entitled to protection against discrimination by virtue of characteristics such as race – or that there is a fundamental right to marriage that includes the right to marry a person of the same sex. Therefore, the Legislature's decision that only opposite-sex couples are entitled to civil marriage is a "rational basis" for the Defense of Marriage Act.

DOMA, the majority found, also does not violate the due process clause of the state Constitution, which states that "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

"The people of Washington have not had in the past, nor at this time are they entitled to an expectation that they may choose to marry a person of the same sex," Madsen wrote.

Additionally, the court wrote, DOMA does not violate the state's Equal Rights Amendment, so-called ERA, because the law treats men and women equally in denying both the right to marry someone of the same sex.

Legislators quickly weighed in on the contentious issue.

Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, said the "Supreme Court's ruling is in line with the public's wishes."

"I think that, historically, marriage has been about providing for the next generation, and that it is only in the modern era that we've decided the issue is love between two people," Swecker said. "Love comes and goes, but a commitment to the next generation has to be sustainable. If we start to redefine marriage, it will diminish our commitment to marriage and stable families for future generations."

Sen. Lisa Brown, leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, said Democrats don't have a unified position gay marriage. In the upcoming session, said Brown, D-Spokane, there will likely be "calls for full marriage equality for same-sex couples (as in Massachusetts), for civil unions (as in Vermont) and for a constitutional amendment banning both (as in Utah)."

In a strongly-worded dissent, Justice Bridge wrote that DOMA's "religious and moral strains" make it an unconstitutional breach of the church-state wall. The majority's deference to the Legislature "too early dismisses the proper role of the judiciary to protect the constitutional rights of those who have been historically disenfranchised from the political process," she wrote.

Had the court struck down the law, Washington would have become only the second state in the nation, after Massachusetts, to allow same-sex couples to marry.

Washington passed DOMA in 1998, two years after the federal government passed such a law, defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Since then, a majority of states have passed similar gay-marriage bans.

Two separate lawsuits challenging the Washington statute were filed in 2004 — one against King County, the other against the state — by 19 gay and lesbian couples seeking the right to marry or to have their marriages from elsewhere recognized in this state.

In each of those cases, a Superior Court judge sided with the plaintiffs, applying different analyses to declare the state's DOMA unconstitutional. The two cases were merged into one for the appeal to the Supreme Court, which was argued March 8, 2005, by attorneys for both sides.

The couples based their claim to marriage on specific principles of constitutional law. Central to their claim was that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the state constitution's "privileges and immunities" clause, which requires that any privilege offered to one group be offered to all.

Those defending the law argued that the statute served a legitimate purpose in that the state has an interest in protecting children, and thus in the relationships that produce them.

But the couples called DOMA a scheme "that favors one class of children, not because of the way they were created but because of the identity of their parents."

The plaintiffs also argued that marriage is a fundamental right, while the state and other defendants said that same-sex marriage has no roots in the nation's history and tradition.

And the sides disagreed over whether gays are considered a so-called suspect class — a reference to groups entitled to protection against discrimination by virtue of such characteristics as race or gender.

Bill to expand oil drilling moves forward in Senate

WASHINGTON - The Senate is poised to pass legislation that would open a vast portion of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas exploration, after a landslide vote Wednesday allowed debate on the measure to advance over environmentalists' objections.

The vote to proceed was 86-12, showing broad support for the legislation, which could give energy companies and Gulf Coast states their best prospects for new oil and gas exploration since a nationwide moratorium on offshore drilling was imposed in 1981.

The Senate bill would open 8.3 million acres of the central Gulf of Mexico to drilling in an area 125 miles south of Florida's Panhandle and 230 to 325 miles west of its western shore. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation next week.

The House of Representatives already passed a far broader bill that would end the moratorium everywhere and permit oil rigs and drilling anywhere at least 50 miles off any coast unless a state legislature moved its dividing line to 100 miles from shore.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., a key supporter of the Senate bill, said there was no chance this year that the Senate would agree to the House's plan, which is feared by environmentalists and many lawmakers in Florida, California and other states along the East and West coasts. Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., said the House wouldn't accept the Senate bill.

Martinez urged the House to pass the Senate version rather than seek leverage for the House bill in a House-Senate conference committee this fall. Otherwise, he said, "we probably won't have a bill. ... It's not, like, open for bidding."

With the House set to leave at the end of this week for a month-long recess, it could be September before prospects for an agreement that can clear Congress come into focus.

Supporters of the Senate legislation on Wednesday championed its prospects for fostering cheaper natural gas and more domestic oil, at a time when high prices are hurting manufacturers and consumers. They also highlighted the bill's relative restraint.

"We can't drill our way out of this situation, but neither can we conserve our way," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana, one of four Gulf Coast states - the others are Texas, Mississippi and Alabama - that stand to reap millions of dollars in federal revenue-sharing under either the House or Senate plan. Of the Senate bill, she said, "It's not an Atlantic bill. It's not a Pacific bill. It's a Gulf Coast bill."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he planned to support the bill, but environmental critics maintain that it would open a Pandora's box and could start the undoing of the nationwide offshore moratorium.

"For the Senate to actually vote to eliminate one part of the nation's moratorium would be a terrible precedent," said Mark Ferrulo, the director of the Florida Public Interest Research Group.

In a conference call earlier this week with officials of the Sierra Club, an environmental group, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who's facing re-election in a Democrat-dominated state whose voters generally oppose offshore drilling, worried that even the Senate bill "could lead to the weakening of the moratorium that has protected the California coast for 25 years."

The Senate bill would tap into at least six times as much liquefied natural gas as the nation imports, and more oil than the reserves of Wyoming and Oklahoma combined, supporters said.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the lead sponsor of the Senate bill, inadvertently bolstered its opponents' concerns that his measure is only the opening wedge in a broader goal of eliminating the entire moratorium for other U.S. coastlines. Domenici said he didn't disagree with the House approach, he just didn't think it could pass the Senate this year.

"There's bigger future things we can do, but for right now, impact in the next couple of years, this is it," he said. "This is the first step."

House, Senate pass foreign-investment bills

The House passed its bill on a 424-0 vote, while the Senate approved its version of the bill by voice vote.
House and Senate negotiators must now work to iron out differences between the two pieces of legislation, which were inspired by the political backlash that followed a Dubai-owned company's effort earlier this year to acquire management rights at several major U.S. seaports.
Both bills would require the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, to add a 45-day national-security review to the process before allowing a transaction to proceed.
The House bill also increases the roles played by the secretaries of commerce and homeland security, with both serving as vice chairs of the committee. The interagency panel is chaired by the secretary of the treasury. The Senate bill would add the secretary of defense as the vice chairman.
The Senate bill also requires the executive branch to notify lawmakers when foreign companies seek to purchase U.S. companies.
"This bill strengthens the CFIUS review process in a number of ways, including by explicitly establishing a system of congressional notification that had previously been lacking," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
The notification requirement that has drawn the ire of some business groups and House members, however, who fear that such information could foster political interference.
Efforts to change the review process began earlier this year after Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company, was set to take over a number of major U.S. ports that were managed by a British firm. Facing congressional concern about national security, the Dubai company backed out of the deal.
"The Dubai Ports World fiasco exposed serious flaws with the CFIUS process," said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo. "The bill the House passed today is a common-sense fix to the problem that protects Americans first without hindering job growth and economic expansion."

Outlook dims in Senate for online gambling bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prospects have dimmed for swift U.S. Senate passage of a bill to outlaw most forms of Internet gambling as industry trade groups and lawmakers raise objections, congressional sources said on Wednesday.

Efforts to move a House-passed measure through the Senate have run into opposition from lobbyists representing casino owners and horse- and dog-racing interests in recent days. Some Republican senators have broken ranks and placed "holds" on it, the sources said.

"The House-passed bill is not going to pass the Senate," said one source who is knowledgeable about the legislation, adding that changes must be made to win sufficient support.

The industry is a major contributor to some congressional campaigns and sources said opposition could stir up new trouble among senators such as Republicans Jim Bunning and Mitch McConell of Kentucky or Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada.

The bill would prohibit most forms of Internet gambling and make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

The Republican-backed measure has been criticized by some as an election-year appeal to the party's conservative base.

Supporters of a crackdown on Internet gambling say legislation is needed to clarify that a 1961 federal law banning interstate telephone betting also covers an array of online gambling.

Backers of the legislation, led by Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, have been trying to build support and resolve differences as the Senate focuses on other legislative matters and gets ready for a month-long break.

However, congressional aides said some Republican senators have placed holds on the bill, and that Democratic senators may eventually do so as well depending on how talks proceed.

The bill was not among the priorities outlined by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, during a session with reporters on Tuesday in which he laid out measures he hopes to wrap up before the August vacation.

Any member of the Senate may place a secret "hold" on legislation, which prevents it from being brought up for a vote until concerns about the measure are resolved.

One aide said concerns had been voiced by representatives of casinos as well as horse-racing tracks, dog tracks and lotteries about limited exemptions in the bill.

So far in 2006, the casino and gambling industry has given more than $6.4 million to federal candidates, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. That amount places it 30th among the more than 80 industries tracked by the organization.

"There is always a chance that differences can be resolved and the Senate could vote before the August recess, but not a very good one at this point," one aide said.

In order to win support, Kyl may have to amend the Senate bill and ask House lawmakers to revisit a similar amended version, other sources said.

Supporters could take up the bill when the Senate reconvenes in September. But it would be difficult to work out changes in time for members of Congress to return to their districts to campaign before the November elections.

U.N. Nomination Comes Back To Senate

The nomination of John Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is coming before the Senate again.

Bolton is serving as U.N. ambassador in a recess appointment, which means his term runs out at the end of the year unless he's confirmed when lawmakers take up the nomination in September.

He remains a controversial figure.

It's quite clear that the Bolton style has incurred resentment at the U.N. and alienated friends that the U.S. may need when it tries to line up votes on Middle East issues. Their support is also needed on such other issues as tough sanctions against North Korea and Iran for their nuclear goals.

Despite the frustration and resentment he has evoked in the post, Bolton has the strong support of President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, both of whom think he is doing a terrific job.

He also has picked up the support of Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, whose opposition to the nomination last year was one reason the Senate never voted on whether Bolton should be confirmed. Bush then resorted to a recess appointment.

Also working in favor of his confirmation is the current instability in the Middle East, where Bolton is dealing with pressures to end hostilities between Israel and Lebanon.

"This is not the right time to depose the chief American diplomat at the U.N.," one of Voinovich's aides said.

Furthermore, the aide said that Voinovich has changed his view of Bolton, who he now sees as a "team player" and a "good soldier" following orders.

"He's not going off on his own, or he hasn't done it lately," the aide added.

In an article in The Washington Post last week, Voinovich said he believes Bolton has proved himself.

"In recent weeks I have watched him react to the challenges involving North Korea, Iran and now the Middle East, speaking on behalf of the United States," Voinovich explained.

Another advocate, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., noted that the "vitally important matters confronting the United Nations Security Council, such as Iran, Darfur, North Korea and Israel's efforts to combat terrorism demand steadfast action and leadership."

McConnell concluded that "Bolton is the right man for this job."

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., a constant critic of the U.N., said that in order to get the world body to reform, "You have to push, you have to be assertive."

"John Bolton is the right kind of change agent in a universe resistant to change," he said.

But two Democratic senators -- Joseph Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut -- are unimpressed with Bolton's performance in the post.

Dodd told CNN on Monday, "This is going to be a bruising fight. I regret this. I'm sorry the administration wants to go forward with this."

Biden said, "Instead of wasting time and playing politics, the administration should nominate someone else to take Mr. Bolton's place."

Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid of Nevada said he will consult with other party leaders on how strongly they will oppose the nomination. But he claimed Bolton "has done nothing to set himself out as somebody that should be approved by the Senate."

A neo-conservative, Bolton previously served in the State Department as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs.

His abrasive manner made him many enemies. Bolton's scornful remark that 10 floors of the U.N. headquarters building could be lopped off without being missed was widely noted. He also was contemptuous of career State Department officials who challenged his views in the past.

Bolton is a blunt-speaking lawyer, not a diplomat. He is not a schmoozer, and he skips the traditional niceties of diplomacy. He feels he has a mission to shake up the world organization that the Bush administration once disdained but now needs.

Bolton may now know that the day is past when the administration can go it alone.

US Congress Considers Amending Law on Wiretapping

The Bush administration has endorsed legislation to change U.S. law to accommodate a controversial anti-terrorism surveillance program that some critics have called illegal. A Senate hearing focused on the issue.

The wiretapping program allows for warrant-less eavesdropping on international phone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and suspected terrorists overseas.

Critics have questioned its legality, noting that it bypasses a special federal court whose approval is required under a 1978 law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for domestic wiretapping operations.

President Bush, who authorized the program after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, has argued he has the constitutional authority to do so to protect national security.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter, has worked with the White House to craft compromise legislation that would allow a secret court to review the program to determine its legality.

"The constitutional requirements are that there has to be a balancing of the value to security contrasted with the intrusion into privacy, and that can only be determined by judicial review," he said.

But critics, including the top Democrat on the Senate committee, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, say the legislation would basically rubber stamp the controversial program by not requiring individual warrants, the underpinning of U.S. civil liberties protections.

"It has been called a compromise," he said. "But this Vermonter does not believe we should ever compromise on requiring the executive to submit to the rule of law no matter who is president. I am sad to say I see the bill less as a compromise and more as a concession."

Under questioning by Senator Specter, Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, which conducts the program, said the process of obtaining warrants would take crucial time away from anti-terror efforts.

Alexander: "You would be so far behind the target if you were in hot pursuit with the numbers of applications that you would have to make and the times to make those, you could never catch up."

Specter: "So your conclusion is that to have individual warrants it would not be practical or effective in what you are seeking to accomplish?"

Alexander: "That is correct."

Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden, who set up the program when he led the NSA in 2001, endorsed the compromise legislation, saying it is necessary to update the 1978 law for the internet age.

"All of us exist on a unitary integrated global telecommunications grid in which geography is an increasingly irrelevant factor," he said.

It is not clear when the Senate will act on the legislation.

Congress considers halting cuts in Medicare doctors' fees

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Doctors who treat the elderly and disabled shouldn't have to face annual pay cuts from the U.S. government, said a lawmaker who helps oversee medical spending.

Congress should change its current system that now calls for yearly reductions of 4 percent to 5 percent in the Medicare federal health plan's doctors fees, said Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Lawmakers last year blocked a 4.4 percent reduction and now face a similar struggle.

"To provide just a one-year freeze again this year will cost billions more," Barton, a Texas Republican, said Tuesday at a hearing of his committee. "I don't believe we can continue this Band-Aid approach to fixing the recurring physician payment problem."

Congress is trying to balance demands to slow growth in Medicare spending, expected to double to $677 billion by 2013, with the need to keep doctors working with the program. Barton said an overhaul needs to keep limits on how many services doctors provide to the 43 million people in Medicare.

When Congress has to step in, as it has done since 2002, it has to increase all Medicare spending or find cuts elsewhere in the program.

The annual cuts are the result of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which created what is known as the sustainable growth rate system, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the advisory panel set up under that law.

The system factors in a target for Medicare payments to doctors, with a measure of inflation.

When spending increases exceed economic growth, payments to doctors are supposed to be cut. Under the system, payments to doctors would have to be cut by 5 percent a year through 2016 to meet program spending targets, according to federal estimates.

That is unlikely to happen. Lawmakers fear that any reduction in payments could add to the record increases in Medicare premiums and drive doctors from the program.

Rep. Michael Ferguson, R-N.J., said the mandated cuts system is "fatally flawed, and it's time we start writing its obituary today."

Rep. Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican and obstetrician, on Monday introduced a proposal that would raise fees about 2.8 percent next year. His proposal would rely more on the inflation measure, known as the Medicare economic index, according to a posting on his Web site.

The American Medical Association is urging Congress to act before an October recess to keep the cuts from happening.

Congress may not act before the November election, said Bruce Fried, a Washington-based lawyer with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and a former Medicare official. Congress will go on recess next month and then again in October, he said.

"There is so little time left in the session," Fried said.

If the Republicans were to lose control of one or both houses of Congress in the election, Congress might have to put off its temporary fix on doctors' pay until next year, Fried said. Republicans most likely would use the time remaining after the election, known as a lame-duck session, to address other issues and leave doctors' pay until 2007, he said.

"If lightning strikes and the Democrats regain one or both houses, then it might wait until next year," said Fried, who also was a health care adviser to Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for president.

Members of both parties are willing to revise the payment system to avoid the planned cuts, Fried said. The difficulty is figuring from where to take the money required to prevent the cuts and in gathering the political will to push such a major change through Congress, he said.

Jury struggled with verdict wording, foreman says

Some jurors in Andrea Yates' capital murder retrial struggled with the wording of the verdict during deliberations, wanting to find her both guilty of drowning her children and insane, the panel foreman said.

The jury found her innocent by reason of insanity Wednesday, after nearly 13 hours spent deliberating over three days.

"There were certain of us that would rather it have said 'guilty, but insane,'" jury foreman Todd Frank said after the verdict was announced. "We had discussed that at length as being an affirmative defense, but it still didn't sit well with everyone."

Jurors had the options of finding her guilty of capital murder, innocent or innocent by reason of insanity. Yates drowned her five children, ranging in age from 6 months to 7 years old, but was being tried for three of the 2001 deaths.

Frank, a 33-year-old marketing manager at a Houston engineering firm, sometimes fought back tears and had to clear his breaking voice while taking questions from reporters. The other five men and six women who served on the monthlong trial sat beside Frank but did not speak.

Some jurors smiled in the courtroom before handing over the verdict that sent Yates, 42, to a maximum security state mental hospital. Frank said he and his fellow jurors knew little about Yates' first trial in 2002, other than that Yates was found guilty of capital murder and that the verdict was later overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors maintained that Yates failed to meet the state's definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing that it is wrong.

About a half-hour before reaching a verdict, jurors asked to see a family photo and pictures of the smiling youngsters. Frank said the jury wanted to "take a moment to remember the children."

The jury was unaware that Yates would be committed to a mental institution for treatment until state District Judge Belinda Hill told them after the verdict.

By law, jurors were not allowed to be told that Yates would have been sent to a mental hospital if she was found innocent by reason of insanity, but Frank said that knowledge beforehand might have made the decision easier for some.

Frank said he couldn't speak for all the jurors, but it was clear to him that Yates had psychosis before, during and after the drownings.

"She needs help," Frank said. "Although she's treated, I think she's worse than she was before. I think she'll probably need treatment for the rest of her life."

Frank said about half of the jurors had children _ including his own 6 1/2-month-old son _ and that personal experiences with mental illnesses in their families came up during deliberations. He also said that faith and spirituality of jurors sometimes made deliberations difficult but did not elaborate.

Prosecutors showed jurors crime-scene photographs and videotape of the four youngest children laid out on the bed and the oldest, Noah, still floating in the tub.

"The first time I gave my son a bath, the day after I saw those pictures, it was pretty hard," Frank said. "That weekend my wife wanted me to take him to the pool. I didn't take him out very deep."

Cuba oil probe spurs calls for U.S. drilling

Congressional proponents of oil and gas drilling are pointing to Cuba's exploration off the coast of Florida -- with help from China -- as a prime reason to open up U.S. drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
But Florida legislators continue to resist, and some of them are trying to stop Cuba's activities by pushing to rescind a 1977 treaty dividing the Straits of Florida halfway between the two countries.
The Bush administration, with an eye toward the pivotal role Florida has played in presidential politics and out of solidarity with President Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has largely sided with Florida in the dispute. It supports only very limited drilling off the coast of Florida, as would be permitted under a bill pending in the Senate.
"American politics today -- it is the no-drill zone," said Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican.
"We sit here watching China exploit a valuable resource within eyesight of the U.S. coast," he said, noting that one 2005 U.S. Geological Survey estimated the North Cuba Basin may contain as much oil as the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska.
"I am certain the American public would be shocked, as this country is trying to reduce our dependency on Middle East oil, that countries like China are realizing this energy resource," Mr. Craig said.
"This is a pocketbook issue, not a political issue. Whole regions of the Gulf are not available for drilling today," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, who has sought to find ways to expand exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
"What is happening? Fidel Castro in Cuba is partnering with China and is moving forward. ... He can drill, but we cannot. He can take the money and fund his adventures around South and Central America. ... Is that what people would like to see?"
Congressional policies since the 1970s have fostered fuel consumption, he said, but at the same time prohibit further drilling domestically for the sake of the environment.
The result has been growing dependence on oil imports, which now provide more than half the fuel Americans use, although legislators routinely denounce the nation's reliance on "foreign oil" when they renew the ban on domestic drilling.
The Senate this week is expected to try one more time to break the impasse over drilling in the eastern Gulf with a bill that would open up a key tract to exploration but provide a 125-mile no-drilling buffer zone for Florida.
News last winter that Cuba has hopes of finding commercially viable reserves of oil in the Straits of Florida helped to nudge Florida's senators toward endorsing the Senate bill after years of opposing any drilling at all, congressional aides said. But Florida legislators in Congress continue to oppose any broad new exploration activities in state waters.
Mr. Craig said drilling advocates sought to alert Congress this spring to Cuba's activities. But rather than reconsider the U.S. drilling ban, he said, drilling opponents dug in their heels and tried to stop Cuba, too.
"Do we want to emulate the actions of nations like Cuba and China? Do we want the Florida Straits dotted with oil rigs?" asked Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Florida Democrat. "I think not."
Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, introduced legislation to prevent the Bush administration from renewing a maritime treaty that enables Cuba to conduct commercial activities in its half of the Straits -- unless the administration gets an agreement that prevents Cuba from putting oil rigs close to Florida.
The treaty carves an exception to the 200-mile boundary of control the U.S. claims in its coastal waters. It was never ratified by the Senate, so it must be renewed every two years by the State Department. It expired in January.
If the U.S. abandons the treaty, Mr. Nelson reasons, the Straits of Florida would become disputed waters and multinational oil companies would be reluctant to invest the money needed to explore for oil there. His bill would further discourage drilling by authorizing the administration to punish executives of foreign oil companies that continue to drill off the northern coast of Cuba by denying them visas.
"So far, there have been no significant finds of commercially viable oil. Yet some members of Congress now are citing Cuba's plans to drill close to Florida as justification for their proposal to allow U.S. oil companies to drill 20 miles off Florida's Gulf coast," he said.
Still, Mr. Nelson concedes that drilling proponents are making headway as the public fumes over record high fuel prices. "With several drilling proposals pending before Congress, our state's unique environment and tourism-driven economy are in more jeopardy now than ever before," he said.
Mr. Nelson on Monday renewed his vow to stop any drilling legislation that goes further than the Senate bill. A House bill would allow far more aggressive drilling in the outer continental shelf off Florida and elsewhere in the Gulf, if state legislatures vote to permit it. But it also would permit the Florida Legislature to ban drilling up to 100 miles offshore -- a provision widely supported by Florida's congressional delegation.

House, Senate pass foreign-investment bills

The House and Senate overwhelmingly passed separate bills Wednesday that would tighten the review process when it comes to foreign-owned companies seeking to buy U.S. assets.
The House passed its bill on a 424-0 vote, while the Senate approved its version of the bill by voice vote.
House and Senate negotiators must now work to iron out differences between the two pieces of legislation, which were inspired by the political backlash that followed a Dubai-owned company's effort earlier this year to acquire management rights at several major U.S. seaports.
Both bills would require the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, to add a 45-day national-security review to the process before allowing a transaction to proceed.
The House bill also increases the roles played by the secretaries of commerce and homeland security, with both serving as vice chairs of the committee. The interagency panel is chaired by the secretary of the treasury. The Senate bill would add the secretary of defense as the vice chairman.
The Senate bill also requires the executive branch to notify lawmakers when foreign companies seek to purchase U.S. companies.
"This bill strengthens the CFIUS review process in a number of ways, including by explicitly establishing a system of congressional notification that had previously been lacking," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
The notification requirement that has drawn the ire of some business groups and House members, however, who fear that such information could foster political interference.
Efforts to change the review process began earlier this year after Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company, was set to take over a number of major U.S. ports that were managed by a British firm. Facing congressional concern about national security, the Dubai company backed out of the deal.
"The Dubai Ports World fiasco exposed serious flaws with the CFIUS process," said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo. "The bill the House passed today is a common-sense fix to the problem that protects Americans first without hindering job growth and economic expansion."

ickle Philly punishes Boy Scouts

It is a violent summer in Philadelphia. Drug-related gang violence plagues the streets of the City of Brotherly Love. But one of the most outrageous attacks comes from the office of Philadelphia Mayor John Street. It is aimed at the Boy Scouts.

Nearly eight decades ago – 1928 – the city of Philadelphia granted the local Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts Council property at the corner of 22nd and Winter Streets "in perpetuity." Now, because the Boy Scouts believe as much in moral principle as they did in 1928, perpetuity is ended. Mayor Street's solicitor Romulo Diaz threatens eviction from what has become the council's headquarters building.

Street's and Diaz's list of options for the Scouts are few. First, end the policy of excluding homosexuals from positions of leadership, a policy which the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2000 the Scouts are within their rights to hold and which they will continue to hold by every indication. Second, pay a market rent in the upscale Philadelphia Art Museum district, which would require significant new council funds on top of the city government's broken promise. Finally, leave the headquarters building.

This final option seems to be the likely outcome.

That's not just bad policy. It is horrific.

Just what have the Boy Scouts done in Philadelphia that would justify eviction from their headquarters building? Well, they serve 40,000 youth in the city, many of whom would be left to gang violence and drugs without Scouting. They contribute hundreds of thousands of volunteer project hours to the city each year. They teach boys to become responsible citizens in the community.

Now, as far as Mayor Street is concerned, anything else the Boy Scouts do is irrelevant to his dealings with the organization. The city of Philadelphia should maintain a relationship with the Boy Scouts if for no other reason than that the Scouts are a big organization that can enhance the quality of life within the city in ways the city government itself could never do.

It isn't as though Street has never heard of public-private partnerships (partnerships between the city government and private nonprofit organizations ranging from Kiwanis and Rotary to the Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church). The mayor sat in the honor seat beside first lady Laura Bush at the 2001 State of the Union Address, he the personification of city faith-based initiatives. Philadelphia was the launchpoint for the Amachi Mentoring program, which enlists members of churches and synagogues around the nation as in-school volunteers. Further, around 40 percent of welfare-to-work programs in Philadelphia are based out of churches or other faith-based institutions.

Despite these successes and the proven work of the Boy Scouts in Philadelphia, Mayor Street is resolute. It is as if to say, give in or give up.

The Boy Scouts surely will not give in, though the temptations have been sore in the past few years. In 2003, the Philadelphia Cradle of Liberty Council temporarily said that it was accepting homosexuals until the national Boy Scouts, which happened to be holding its convention in Philadelphia at that time, said otherwise and threatened to revoke the Cradle of Liberty charter.

Since then, the Cradle of Liberty Council, the third largest Boy Scouts council in the nation, has suffered financially. The United Way pulled funding. Pew Charitable Trusts turned away dollars.

And now this wretched invitation to pack their backpacks and duffle bags from the city of Philadelphia.

They will not – they cannot – pack their honor. The Scout Oath says, "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight."

That is a statement of self-government, I think the best there is. And it is one of the most hated set of words in America today. Those words do stand for something.

Recognizing this, the Philadelphia Daily News compared the Boy Scouts to the Taliban a few years ago. "What's the difference between the Taliban and the Boy Scouts?" the newspaper asked, suggesting that there was very little difference.

But the difference is stark.

We might bring it back to Philadelphia to make it simple. What's the difference between a cracked-up gun-wielding teenage thug on the streets of Philadelphia, and a Boy Scout learning to live and lead in his inner city troop? That's easy.

"Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent."

Of such is the defeat of the Taliban, and the Philly murderer class, and the other great evils of our time. E-mail Mayor Street at mayor@phila.gov. Tell him to uphold his city's promise to the Boy Scouts "in perpetuity."

Democrats Oppose Bill Denying Attorneys' Fees In Church-State Suits

Democratic lawmakers in the House are expressing strong opposition to legislation that would deny attorneys' fees to individuals and groups who win cases challenging government actions as a violation of the Constitution's prohibition on the establishment of religion.

"In more than a century, nothing like this has ever been done," Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan and Queens warned as the House Judiciary Committee debated and considered amendments to the proposed Public Expression of Religion Act. "We would be telling government officials everywhere that Congress thinks it's okay to violate people's religious liberty with impunity, " he said.

The bill's chief sponsor, Rep. John Hostettler, a Republican of Indiana, said it is needed because the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have used the threat of large legal fee awards to intimidate local governments into dropping religious references in seals, monuments, and elsewhere. "They capitulate to these organizations and their often questionable pronouncement of what is or isn't constitutional," the congressman said. "I believe it's time to bring this extortion to an end."

Mr. Nadler accused Republicans backing the legislation of adopting the anti-judiciary campaign tactics of a segregationist Alabama governor and presidential candidate, George Wallace. "The governor would feel right at home with the sponsors of this bill today," Mr. Nadler said.

Mr. Hostettler insisted that his measure was not aimed at keeping anyone out of court, but encouraging local officials to contest such litigation. "The purpose is not to eliminate establishment clause cases from being adjudicated. In fact, it is just the opposite," he said.

The Indiana congressman said more such cases would allow new Supreme Court justices to clarify puzzling rulings, such as a pair last year upholding a Ten Commandments display in Texas while striking down another in Kentucky. "The jurisprudence in Establishment Clause cases is about as clear as mud," he said.

The Judiciary Committee rejected a series of amendments offered by Democrats, including a proposal by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas to treat attorneys' fees in church-state lawsuits the same way as fees in actions challenging eminent domain seizures. Many Republicans favor awarding fees to successful litigants in such takings suits.

"Freedom of religion is at least as important as private property," Ms. Jackson-Lee argued.

"To say the First Amendment is less valuable than the Fifth Amendment, surely, we would not want to say that," Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat of California, said. The committee defeated Ms. Jackson-Lee's proposal, 11 to 19.

A veterans' group, the American Legion, has pushed for the legislation out of concern that war memorials and cemeteries could be cleansed of religious symbols. Mr. Nadler called the gravestone issue a "red herring" and submitted a letter in which the ACLU said it would "vigorously defend" the rights of veterans to use any religious symbol they choose on grave markers. The letter did not address the use of Christian crosses in publicly owned group memorials or tombs for unknown soldiers.

The House Republican leadership has made the bill part of an "American Values" agenda aimed at helping the party prevail in this fall's election.

"It's Orwellian that this would fall under the umbrella of ‘American Values,'" Rep. Christopher Van Hollen, a Democrat of Maryland, said. "I can't think of anything that turns history on its head more than what we're working on."

After more than an hour of debate yesterday, the committee adjourned before taking an up-or-down vote on the bill.

Bush signs Voting Rights act extension

President Bush on Thursday signed legislation extending for 25 years the Voting Rights Act, the historic 1965 law which opened polls to millions of black Americans by outlawing racist voting practices in the South. "Congress has reaffirmed its belief that all men are created equal," he declared.

Bush signed the bill amid fanfare and before an South Lawn audience that included members of Congress, civil rights leaders and family members of civil rights leaders of the recent past. It was one of a series of high-profile ceremonies the president is holding to sign popular bills into law.

The Republican controlled Congress, eager to improve its standing with minorities ahead of the November elections, pushed the bill through even though key provisions were not set to expire until next year.

"The right of ordinary men and women to determine their own political future lies at the heart of the American experiment," Bush said. He said the Voting Rights Act proposed and signed by then-President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 "broke the segregationist lock on the voting box."

With the Republican Party's majority status in Congress in jeopardy and Bush's approval ratings low, the White House has turned to the South Lawn to provide a high-profile backdrop for signing popular bills into law.

Later in the day, Bush is to sign another bill sure to resonate with voters in this congressional election year: legislation establishing a national Internet database designed to let law enforcement and communities know where convicted sex offenders live and work.

By contrast, Bush chose to exercise the first veto of his 5 1/2 years as president in privacy last week, no audience, no cameras, no reporters. The bill he vetoed would have expanded federally funded research of embryonic stem cells, which is opposed by social conservatives but has wide support among the rest of the public.

White House officials said an open ceremony to veto a bill seemed inappropriate, although other presidents have done just that. Forty minutes after the Oval Office veto, Bush gave a major address on the issue in the East Room, open to the press and surrounded by families who have "adopted" leftover frozen embryos and used them to bear children.

In May, Bush took to the South Lawn to sign into law a bill that extended $70 billion in previously passed tax cuts. That package was also seen by Republicans as an opportunity to boost the popularity of the president and the Republican-controlled Congress

The South Lawn is hardly a common venue for presidential bill-signings, which usually occur in an office building next to the White House or, for particularly important legislation, in the East Room. The majestic backyard of the White House is typically reserved for pomp-filled welcoming ceremonies for foreign leaders or large social affairs like the annual Easter egg roll.

On Wednesday, workers scurried to get the expanse of lawn ready for the Voting Rights Act signing, setting up water stations and a large stage for Bush and the bill's primary supporters.

The list of some of the 600 expected guests reads like a who's-who of prominent black leaders and civil rights veterans: the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson; friends and relatives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks; Dorothy Height, the longtime chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women; and National Urban League head Marc Morial. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, despite its rocky history with Bush, was sending several representatives, including current president Bruce Gordon, chairman Julian Bond and former head Benjamin Hooks.

The White House also anticipated heavy participation from Capitol Hill, where a long line of lawmakers were looking for a chance to share the spotlight.

N-deal gets a House boost

The first step toward the signing of the US-India nuclear cooperation agreement was taken by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday with an overwhelming 359-68 vote to amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, and thus allow the US to sell nuclear technology to India.

The Senate will take up its version of the bill either on Thursday or Friday.

The House bill, which will now be named after Henry Hyde, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee chairman and its chief author, was debated in the house for over six hours, with six amendments being proposed.

Two of the amendments — proposed by Representatives Howard Berman and Brad Sherman — were soundly defeated as they were considered killer amendments by both Hyde and the bill’s co-author and Democratic Ranking Member of the International Relations Committee Tom Lantos.

Both amendments concerned asking the President to certify that India does not increase its levels of uranium it uses towards its weapons programme or that India halt the production of fissile material.

The voting pattern in the House of Representatives could be replicated in the Senate as its influential Foreign Relations Committee had voted in 16-2 in favour of the bill.

Lantos said, “This is no ordinary vote. It is a tidal shift in US-India relations. This will be known as the day when Congress signaled definitively the end of the Cold War paradigm governing interactions between New Delhi and Washington.”

After the Senate votes on the bill, the US Congress and the Bush administration will wait for the finalising of India’s negotiations with the IAEA on implementing additional protocols and safeguards on India’s civilian nuclear reactors.

There will be a delay in the legislation process as the Congress breaks for a five-week recess beginning July 29. Both houses of Congress will have to agree on a common language, only after which the bill will become law. The process is expected to get over in September.

Bolton ignites more partisan debate

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration and GOP leaders renewed their push Thursday to win Senate approval of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador. Democrats maintained he is too brash and ineffective to be confirmed.

The sharp division all but guaranteed lawmakers were headed toward another partisan showdown on the Senate floor, although Democrats would not say whether their opposition would amount to a filibuster as it did last year.

A Senate vote on Bolton could come as early as September, just as election season heats up with Bush's foreign policy a major issue for voters. The United Nations has been at the forefront of international discussions on North Korea's missile tests, Iran's nuclear program and the crisis in the Middle East.

"I do believe, without any reservation whatsoever, that the Senate will and should give that advice and consent to this nominee because he becomes an integral member of the president's national security team at a time when our nation is faced with these many complex issues," said Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va.

After repeated failed attempts by GOP leaders to grant Bolton Senate approval, Bush on Aug. 1 of last year used his executive power to sidestep Congress and temporarily assign Bolton to the job. Republicans decided to revive the matter this week after Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who last year sided with Democrats in opposing the president's nomination, announced he would support Bolton this time.

Several Democrats said during the nomination hearing Thursday that their views remained unchanged, citing reports that Bolton has alienated other ambassadors and failed to make progress on U.N. reform efforts.

"My concern is that at the moment of the greatest need for diplomacy in our recent history, we are not particularly effective at it," said Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the Foreign Relations Committee's top Democrat.

But Biden and others did not say whether they would try to block an up-or-down floor vote as they did last year. Since Voinovich is now siding with his party on Bolton, Republicans would need only five votes to shut off debate.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has "not made a decision either way" on calling for a filibuster, his spokesman said.

Political experts said choosing not to filibuster Bolton could be a political tactic in an election year, when Democrats plan to argue the Bush administration has failed at bringing peace to the Middle East and bringing U.S. troops home.

"To turn the issue to a Democratic filibuster, rather than Bush's foreign policy is a mistake," said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Boston University.

If Bolton is at the U.N., "he's someone they can point to" as obstructing real progress, he said.

Bolton _ once described by colleagues as a bully who led witch hunts to punish colleagues who disagreed with him _ struck a conciliatory tone before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asking to be given full consent to continue his work.

Bolton said he had established "good working relationships" with other members of the U.N. and was making progress, telling the senators, "I have done my best to work with others to advance our national interests."

The hearing was interrupted several times, twice by protesters opposing his confirmation. Later, while being peppered with questions on the nation's North Korea policy by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a water pipe above the hearing room burst and began dumping water between Bolton and Nelson.

Shrugging off the criticism of Bolton, Republicans predicted he would be confirmed soon for the position on a permanent basis. The White House on Thursday praised the work Bolton has done so far.

"We think Ambassador Bolton has done a terrific job," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "He's won over a lot of critics while building alliances on a range of issues, including Iran and North Korea, and working tirelessly to achieve meaningful results on reforms at the United Nations."

Speaking from prepared testimony, Bolton called for a "durable solution" to the violence in the Middle East and the need to "defang" Hezbollah.

"We are actively considering a variety of methods" to disarm Hezbollah, including establishing an international security force in the region, he said.

Bolton also said the U.S. remains committed to bringing peace to Darfur and that "modest progress" has been made in U.N. reform. "The goal now is to identify priority targets where progress can be made" and create a "lasting revolution of reform," he said.

Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Bolton exhibited "experience and accomplishment" and noted the Senate has already conducted an "exhaustive review" of Bolton's credentials.

By resubmitting Bolton's nomination to the Senate, the president has made clear "that Ambassador Bolton is important to the implementation of U.S. policies at the United Nations and to broader U.S. goals on the global stage," said Lugar, R-Ind.

House Democrats oppose Bush's spy law changes

Republican-backed legislation designed to broaden a 1978 eavesdropping law came under renewed attack on Thursday by Democrats who have been briefed about the details of the Bush administration's warrantless telephone and Internet monitoring program.

Meanwhile, the handful of Republicans present at a U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing here, including Chairman Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, touted a new proposal called the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act. Supporters say its provisions would speed initiation of terrorist investigations and account for use of communications technologies unforeseen by the 28-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"It should be clear that the intelligence community requires additional tools," Hoekstra said at the second open meeting he has convened in the past week. He went on to argue that the Bush Administration launched its terrorist surveillance program in the way it did "because of the deficiencies in FISA and the process used to implement it--not in spite of FISA."

FISA requires investigators to obtain a warrant from a secret court before conducting wiretapping on international communications when at least one end is located in the United States. The controversial National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program, confirmed by President Bush after a December New York Times report, did not receive the FISA court's approval prior to its start, even though officials, such as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have acknowledged that ordinary Americans may inadvertently be under surveillance.

The purpose of Thursday's hearing was to hear testimony from the sponsors of three FISA-related bills pending on the House side. It occurred one day after the heads of the Central Intelligence Agency and NSA urged a U.S. Senate committee to update FISA for the 21st century. The officials said it's impractical to use such warrants when tracking technologically-savvy, ever-shifting terrorist targets and endorsed a controversial "compromise" bill negotiated by Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and the White House.

"As one who has been briefed on this program, I strongly disagree with (NSA Director) Gen. Alexander," Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who serves as co-chairwoman of the intelligence committee, said Thursday. "The numbers (of targets requiring a warrant) are manageable, and the principle is non-negotiable."

Harman suggested the best way to manage "large volumes" of warrant requests is to beef up staffing and resources at the U.S. Justice Department, which she said would occur if her Democrat-backed bill passes.

The primary sponsor of the competing Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act, New Mexico Republican Heather Wilson, brought props to describe the necessity of her bill, which would permit warrantless surveillance for 45 days after a "terrorist attack" and for two months after an "armed attack" on the United States.

Wilson repeatedly raised a small scrap of paper that she pretended was inscribed with a phone number and retrieved by U.S. forces from a suspected terrorist overseas. If all the investigators have is that single phone number, she mused, they may not be able to come up with the "probable cause" argument needed to justify a warrant from the FISA court. "To get from that piece of litter to a complete FISA application package, that's what takes the time," and that's why more flexibility is needed, she said.

All ten Democrats appearing at the hearing assailed that bill's approach, saying it amounts to granting a "wish list" to the NSA and the Bush Administration. They questioned why additional action is needed now, arguing that the Bush Administration has never, until now, complained that the dozen amendments made to FISA after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks weren't enough.

"We know why we're here really--it is to address the embarrassing fact that the Congress has allowed the president to conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens in violation of FISA," said Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jerseys Democrat. "There's nothing...that leads me to believe we can't protect the security of Americans and do everything that needs to be done within the confines of FISA."

In an unusual show of bipartisan agreement, both Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, and Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, cast doubt on the Wilson bill, promoting instead a bill they introduced in March. Called the NSA Oversight Act, it says FISA is the "exclusive means" by which domestic surveillance can be approved and would require more extensive briefing to Congress on the extent to which Americans are caught up during the eavesdropping on terrorists. The bill has sponsorship by seven Democrats and seven Republicans.

Ohio's High Court Backs Property Owners

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that economic development isn't a sufficient reason under the state constitution to justify taking homes, putting a halt to a $125 million project of offices, shops and restaurants in a Cincinnati suburb that officials said would create jobs and add tax revenue.

The case was the first challenge of property rights laws to reach a state high court since the U.S. Supreme Court last summer allowed municipalities to seize homes for use by a private developer.

"For the individual property owner, the appropriation is not simply the seizure of a house," Justice Maureen O'Connor wrote in a case that pitted the city of Norwood against two couples trying to save their homes. "It is the taking of a home -- the place where ancestors toiled, where families were raised, where memories were made."

Property rights' advocates, business groups and backers of city planning were watching the Ohio case because of the precedent it could set. The ruling comes a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in a case from New London, Conn., that cities can take land for shopping malls or other private development.

Norwood wanted to use its power of eminent domain -- the authority to buy and take private property for public projects such as highways -- to seize properties holding out against private development in an area considered to be deteriorating.

In the ruling, O'Connor said cities may consider economic benefits but that courts deciding such cases in the future must "apply heightened scrutiny" to assure private citizens' property rights.

Targeting property because it is in a deteriorating area also is unconstitutional because the term is too vague and requires speculation, the court found.

O'Connor wrote that the court attempted in its decision to balance "two competing interests of great import in American democracy: the individual's rights in the possession and security of property, and the sovereign's power to take private property for the benefit of the community."

Dana Berliner, an attorney for the Arlington, Va.-based Institute for Justice that represented property owners in the case, said Wednesday's decision will have ramifications in high courts and legislatures across the country.

"This case is really part of a trend throughout the country of states responding to and rejecting the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo decision last year," she said. "There are now 28 states that have taken legislative steps to protect owners more after that decision, and this case is the next movement in that trend, and I believe now not only legislatures but other courts are going to begin rejecting that terrible decision."

After the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Ohio declared a moratorium that prevents local governments from seizing unblighted private property for use by private developers until 2007. A legislative task force is expected to go ahead with reforms when it meets Aug. 31.

"I anticipate that many of our recommendations, combined with today's Supreme Court decision, will ensure that Ohio sends a strong message to its citizens that their private property rights are secure," said state Sen. Tim Grendell, chairman of the state's Eminent Domain Task Force.

Norwood Mayor Tom Williams defended the plan and said he still believes the project was lawful.

"I believed that we did that right thing then, I believe we did the right thing now," he said.

Tim Burke, a lawyer hired by Norwood, called the decision a significant disappointment and said it will halt progress on the planned development. He said the city likely will not appeal.

"Norwood, every step of the way, followed the law as it existed," Burke said.

Development interests in other areas -- particularly Cleveland's Flats development along Lake Erie -- signaled their intentions to proceed with plans that involve similar seizures.

"The Flats case is fundamentally different from the Norwood case and as such, we do not believe today's ruling will impact the outcome of our legal actions," the Port Authority and The Wolstein Group said in a joint statement.

Berliner called Norwood emblematic of development trends across the country.

"This was a perfect example of what is going on all over the country: a perfectly nice, working class neighborhood with no tax delinquencies, no falling down buildings, a nice neighborhood of homes and businesses, that a developer thought could be much more profitable as an upscale shopping and high-end housing center," she said.

US Senate panel ties Peru trade pact to beef issue

The Senate Finance Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to require Peru to fully reopen its market to U.S. beef before a trade pact between the two countries would take effect.

Peru, like many other countries, shut down beef trade from the United States more than two years ago after a case of mad cow disease was found in Washington state.

Lima has taken some steps to resume beef trade, but continues to "arbitrarily block U.S. beef products from cattle aged greater than 30 months. That's unacceptable," Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat.

The Senate panel approved Conrad's amendment requiring Lima to fully reopen its market to U.S. beef before the trade pact would go into effect.

Everett Eissenstat, assistant U.S. trade representative for the Americas, said the Bush administration already "had every intention" of holding Peru to those terms.

The provision was expected to become part of a bill the White House will send to Congress to implement the Peru agreement.

U.S. trade law bars Congress from formally amending agreements negotiated by the White House. But key congressional panels are given a chance to help the White House shape implementing legislation for trade pacts.

Peru's Congress ratified the deal last month, and outgoing President Alejandro Toledo signed it.

The Senate Finance Committee, on a 10-10 tie vote, defeated a Democratic Party amendment to toughen the pact's labor provisions by requiring Peru to abide by core International Labor Organization standards.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, complained the Bush administration had decided not to include such a provision even though Toledo had publicly said Peru could accept it.

Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, told reporters he expected final Senate action on the agreement when Congress returns in September from a month-long break.

Democratic Party concerns that the pact's labor provisions are not strong enough would make final approval tough, "but not impossible," Grassley said.

The House also could vote on the pact in September, but Republican leaders may wait until after the November congressional elections to take up the pact.

Tennessee judges facing voter review
Next week's election called 'a farce' due to jurists' refusal to answer questions

An estimated 300,000 Tennessee families have been asked to review their level of trust in dozens of appellate court judges, most of whom wouldn't answer a short series of questions about their judicial philosophy as they seek voter permission to stay in office.

The e-mail campaign was organized by the Family Action Council of Tennessee, in preparation for the judges' retention vote on the primary ballot on Thursday, Aug. 3.

"These judges are asking for our vote to sit in judgment over us, but they don't want us to form any judgments about them based on information that we should be able to get," David Fowler, a 12-year state senator and the council's chief executive, said in an interview with WorldNetDaily.

For years, the annual judges "retention" vote has come and gone in many states with little reaction from voters. But because of the action of a few judges like those in Massachusetts who discovered a constitutional right to homosexual marriage and those in Tennessee who found a constitutional right to abortion, suddenly the philosophies of those individuals on the bench have become important, Fowler said.

So his group, in conjunction with the state Right to Life political action committee and with assistance from Christian ministry powerhouses American Family Association, the Eagle Forum and Focus on the Family, sent the information packets about the judges via e-mail to lists that crossed the state.

The survey questions were worded carefully and the judges were not asked to take a position on a future case. For example, the judges were asked which former president best represented their political philosophy: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan or Gerald Ford. They also were asked whether they agreed with the statement that there is no provision in the Tennessee Constitution requiring the public to pay for abortions.

However, with only a few exceptions, the judges responded with a uniform refusal to answer, Fowler said. One judge simply scrawled the following across the request for information, and returned it:

"Mr. Fowler – Thank you for your interest in an informed vote. For more information about my life and experience, please see deedavidgayforjudge.com." On that website, however, Gay does quote Ronald Reagan, "If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

Fowler said the problem is partly the appointment and retention system. Judges are appointed in most states by a governor or judicial panel, but at the same time many of those state constitutions call for judges to be elected. That's addressed by having "retention" elections, in which voters are asked only whether a judge should remain on the bench.

And while the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges have a right to speak out on issues of the day, they generally have declined to do so. In fact, the bar association asked Tennessee judges to make a commitment not to answer questions about themselves.

"The bar association basically asked them to retreat from the rights they had and continue under the guise of impartiality," Fowler said. "It does fit with the view of some judges that if they don't like the law they'll either disregard it or change it."

However, that leaves voters wondering whether a judge seeking another term on the bench will follow the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, or not, he said.

Fowler said his hope is that the 300,000 packet recipients will share them, and 700,000 or 800,000 voters will be able to review the questions to the judges, and their responses, in time for the election.

About half of the judges surveyed ignored the questions entirely; the other half generally sent letters explaining they didn't want to answer. Two state Supreme Court justices up for retention votes, Chief Justice William Barker and Justice Janice Holder, wrote letters.

"I agree with you and your organization that judges at all levels should be accountable – indeed, they should be accountable to our constitutions and to the rule of law," Barker wrote. Then he went on to cite his positions in previous cases regarding the death penalty and abortion. He did note there are some issues likely to come before the court he wouldn't want to discuss.

Holder, meanwhile, enclosed some biographical information and said her judicial philosophy "can best be determined" by reading her published opinions. "I conclude that I cannot respond directly to the questions contained in your survey," she wrote.

Fowler said he wanted to distribute the information, even though incomplete, to let people know as much as possible. "We’ve even encouraged some people to call the judges and say, 'I noticed you didn't answer the questions on the survey, but as a constituent I'd like to get some information from you.'"

Sunshine is good, he noted, and the more information voters have about all candidates, including those for the judiciary, the better.

"I don't wish ill on anyone," Fowler said. But if judges find their retention votes closer than expected, they might "realize that people did want the information."

The state Right to Life organization is utilizing the information in its specific campaign involving Barker and Holder. They were on opposite sides of the 2000 opinion where the state Supreme Court "found a right to an abortion in our state Constitution."

"If for example, (Justice) Barker, who dissented in the abortion case, he gets 60 plus percent, and Janice Holder, in the majority, gets 51 or 52 or 53 percent, I think it'll be a signal that people were paying attention," Fowler said.

Even some of those within the system agree there needs to be some light shed.

"This is a matter of judicial philosophy that every voter has a right to know about every retention ballot candidate; otherwise the 'election' is a farce," longtime attorney Larry Parrish told WorldNetDaily. "By a compact of silence, every retention ballot candidate respectfully has refused to share his or her judicial philosophy on this important issue. This, to me, is wrong; I know no other way to say it."

Spokeswoman Karen Burkhardt of Tennessee Right to Life said her group focuses on the issue of life, and in that, is highlighting the two Supreme Court justices who differed on the question of abortion.

"The problem here is that we have had a liberal administration for a number of years, and most of the judicial appointments have gone against the right-to-life movement," she said.

Nearly 300 state workers may be fired as tax scofflaws

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Nearly 300 state employees could be fired for failing to comply with Oklahoma's income tax laws.

The Oklahoma Tax Commission notified several state agencies this month that some of their employees have had three years to address tax problems and now face being fired under legislation passed in 2002.

"It's never our goal for people to lose their jobs, but to make them comply with the law, which makes it fair for those who do comply," said Paula Ross, a Tax Commission spokeswoman.

"It's particularly important for state employees who are paid with money from taxpayers."

State employees who are not in compliance with tax laws receive a notice from the commission with an explanation of the problem and a calculation of how much money they owe.

If the employee doesn't respond for six months, a letter is sent to the agency where the person is employed.

The process is repeated for three years. If the worker hasn't addressed the problem by then, he or she faces termination, Ross said.

At Oklahoma State University, where 20 workers were at risk of losing their jobs, 11 have been fired, said Gary Shutt, an OSU spokesman. Nine had already settled their taxes, he said.

"We complied with the state law," Shutt said. "The employees have known for three years that they were out of compliance. This didn't sneak up on anybody."

He said the employees had 30 days from the date they were fired to reapply for their jobs.

If they are rehired, their records will look as if the firings never happened, Shutt said.

Catherine Bishop, a University of Oklahoma spokeswoman, said the Tax Commission told OU that 17 Norman campus employees and 11 Health Sciences Center employees had not paid their taxes.

Some employees have since complied with the law, but eight Norman campus and five Health Sciences Center employees have yet to resolve their taxes, she said.

About a third of the state workers, or 92, at risk of losing their jobs are employed by the Department of Human Services, according to the Tax Commission.

However, Douglas Doe, a DHS spokesman, said the number was lowered to 67 after several employees came into compliance and others quit working for the agency.

No one has been fired so far because of the tax violations, Doe said.

"The critical thing to remember here is this is a state law, so we're obligated to take appropriate action under that law," he said. "We're trying to give the employees a fair shake and ensure all the information is accurate before we go down that road of termination proceedings."

The Department of Corrections had listed 18 noncompliant employees, but its spokesman Jerry Massie said the number was down to five. Seven have resigned, and the others are in compliance, he said.

"We're still checking on those five," Massie said. "We're going to ask the Tax Commission if they've come into compliance."

The Tax Commission also has listed 10 workers each at Tulsa Junior College and Langston University as being noncompliant.

City considering dress code for teachers

The city, which already has a strict dress code for public school students, is considering implementing a similar one for teachers and other professionals in the school system.

The Board of Education is developing a policy that would ban such clothing as stretch pants, low-cut shirts, sun dresses, sandals and hats in the workplace. A draft proposal details the acceptable and unacceptable clothing, including what material is appropriate for pants, and would stipulate that skirts can rise no more than three inches above the knee. It would also ban facial piercings. The board plans to vote on the policy next month.

Some board members say the measure is necessary to reverse what they call slipping standards of professional dress.

"What you have here is a set of criteria that allows (principals) to make that call, and make that call consistently throughout the system," Ann Marie Sweeney a board member.

But the teachers' union says any rigid dress code would violate its contract with the city. That contract, which took effect July 1, states that principals should ensure that teachers wear "appropriate professional attire."

"For the Board of Education to add a laundry list of do's and don'ts regarding attire is simply insulting," said Patrick J. Ospalek, head of the Waterbury Teachers Association. "With student achievement being obviously the greatest concern, I think the board is simply wasting its time."

Waterbury's student dress code was the most extensive in Connecticut when it was enacted in 1998. It specifies what types and colors of tops and bottoms elementary and middle school students can wear, and prohibits clothing such as jeans, sweat pants and spandex.

Vincent Mustaro, a senior staff associate with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, said he couldn't name any locations in the state with a dress code for teachers. A few school districts inquire about the topic each year, he said, but his organization generally counsels against a specific dress code.

'Home intruder' law vague to judge
Refuses to dismiss murder charge

A Fayette judge struggled to make sense of Kentucky's new "home intruder" law yesterday, calling the National Rifle Association-backed legislation confusing, vague and poorly written.

"I'm not quite sure that the drafters had even a marginal knowledge of criminal law or Kentucky law," Circuit Judge Sheila Isaac said. "It is absolutely silent on the court's role."

Isaac rejected James Adam Clem's request to have his murder charges dismissed because of the recently enacted law, which grants immunity to homeowners who use deadly force to defend themselves from robbers or intruders.

The law says a person has the right to use lethal force if he has "reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred." It also applies if a person is attacked in a public place "where he or she has a right to be."

Clem, 27, says he killed Keith Newberg, 25, in self-defense after Newberg allegedly attacked him upon entering Clem's apartment early in the morning of Aug. 9, 2004.

Isaac sided with prosecutors, who said that whether Newberg was an intruder or had committed a crime is a factual question that jurors must decide.

"To go into whether he is immune clearly requires fact-intensive decisions" that judges should not make, Isaac said.

Prosecutors around the state have expressed concerns about the law, which they say is difficult to interpret and raises numerous questions.

In an interview yesterday, University of Kentucky law professor Robert Lawson, widely considered the state's foremost expert on criminal law, sharply criticized the law. It was approved overwhelmingly by the General Assembly this spring, and it took effect this month.

"It is the worst legislation I have ever seen in 40 years," said Lawson, the principal drafter of Kentucky's penal code, which was adopted in 1975.

Supporters of Senate Bill 38, also called the castle doctrine, said that previous law required Kentuckians to retreat from robbers breaking into their home or car.

Not so, Lawson says: Unlike many states, Kentucky never had such an obligation.

When drafting the penal code, the General Assembly voted down such a requirement, he said.

A 1931 Kentucky Supreme Court decision, Gibson vs. Commonwealth, bluntly spells out the right of self-defense without retreat.

"It is the tradition that a Kentuckian never runs," the opinion states. "He does not have to."

May be state's 1st such case

Lawson said the home intruder law "is aimed at a problem that didn't exist" and will create "huge problems of interpretation."

The politically powerful NRA has convinced 15 states to pass castle-doctrine laws since 2005. The doctrine has its origins in English common law.

Supporters in the legislature, who acknowledge the NRA's influence in drafting the bill, say it is needed to protect homeowners from being sued or prosecuted for shooting intruders.

Yesterday, Judge Isaac and attorneys on both sides debated what the law means to Clem's case. It was the first time in Fayette County, and possibly the state, that the home intruder law has reached the courts.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has never ruled on the law, giving Isaac no precedent to follow. Because she is a circuit judge, her ruling does not create precedent, and it applies only to Clem's case.

Isaac said the law provides no guidance for how courts should apply the immunity provision, which bars police from even arresting somebody who defends himself.

It's not clear what the standard of proof is or how the burden of proof shifts, she said.

"We are all kind of treading on unknown water," she said.

Clem's trial starts Monday. Isaac said defense attorneys could refile their motion after prosecutors have presented their evidence.

Change in judges

Isaac is now presiding over the case. Judge Mary Noble recused herself this week.

A written order of recusal has not yet been entered. But Tucker Richardson, one of Clem's defense attorneys, contributed to Noble's Supreme Court campaign against Justice John Roach.

Noble previously has said she does not track who contributes to her campaign. Her campaign manager has said Noble learned of Richardson's donations only after the family of a victim in another case criticized her for not recusing herself in the trial of Keita Hayden, who was acquitted of murder charges.

Republicans now want to raise minimum wage

Making an abrupt reversal just months before crucial congressional elections, House Republicans last night were working on a package that would raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.

In a vote that could come today, GOP leaders have yielded to intense pressure from party moderates and virtually all Democrats to raise the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour for the first time since 1997.

But House Republicans want a minimum-wage increase tied to a measure that would allow small businesses to band together to buy health insurance for their workers. Organized labor and many Democrats oppose that plan, arguing that it would allow small companies to avoid state health-insurance mandates.

Rep. Deborah L. Pryce of Upper Arlington, the No. 4 House Republican who is facing a difficult race, said, "It's pretty obvious that we're going to try and do this before we leave. We're right in the middle of trying to put a package together that will provide relief to small businesses that raising the minimum wage would tend to hurt.''

Pryce and Republicans Pat Tiberi of Genoa Township and Steven C. LaTourette of Madison have pressed House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, to agree to a floor vote on the minimum wage and the small business health plans before the August recess. Another Republican facing a difficult campaign, Rep. Bob Ney, of Heath, also has been pressing for a vote to raise the wage.

Republicans have been on the political defensive for the past few months as Democrats have assailed them for blocking an increase in the minimum wage. Although the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that only 1.9 million American hourly workers are paid the minimum wage or less, an increase is popular with voters.

While many small companies oppose an increase, they have signaled they would support a broader package that helps small businesses buy health insurance — a concept known as association health plans.

Amanda Wurst, a spokeswoman for Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, Pryce's Democratic challenger, dismissed Pryce's support for the minimum wage as "just playing politics with the well-being of Ohio families.''

For Pryce, the move allows her to demonstrate her independence from President Bush and the conservatives who dominate the House. Jerry Austin, a Democratic consultant in Ohio, quipped that Pryce is so eager to distance herself from the Republicans that she might "be putting out literature that says, 'Vote for Deborah Pryce for Congress and Ted Strickland for governor,' '' a reference to the Democratic gubernatorial nominee who has a healthy lead in the Dispatch Poll.

But a number of Republicans doubt opposition to the minimum wage hurts them politically. Barry Bennett, chief of staff for Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, said, "Of all the things we get mail about from our district — immigration, the pension bill, Iraq — we don't really hear a lot about the minimum wage. Not too many people work at minimum wage anymore. I don't think it gets you anywhere politically.''

The AFL-CIO and leading Democrats object to including the association health plans in any bill to boost the minimum wage. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, said, "We already know that there is bipartisan majority support for increasing the minimum wage to $7.25, so Congress should pass that increase on a straight up-or-down vote and stop playing games.''

China planning to strengthen control of foreign acquisitions

The Chinese government is drawing up rules that will make it more difficult for overseas investors to buy Chinese assets, a move aimed at curbing inflows of foreign capital to cool China's soaring economic growth.

The Ministry of Commerce will be added to a list of government agencies that must review foreign takeovers and purchases of Chinese assets by offshore shell companies, according to a draft dated June 30.

The government will ban the sale of assets that "threaten China's economic safety," the document said.

The ministry declined to comment.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is trying to slow foreign investment after China's economic growth accelerated to 11.3 percent in the second quarter, the fastest pace in more than a decade.

"There is no doubt Beijing wants to tighten its control over foreign investors," said Kathleen Ng, managing director at the Center for Asia Private Equity Research, which is based in Hong Kong. "The country is trying to become less reliant on foreign capital."

China's credit rating was raised one level by Standard & Poor's on Thursday after the government improved bank finances and clamped down on lending as part of efforts to cool the economy.

S&P raised its long-term foreign and local currency rating to A from A minus, citing "persistent efforts to strengthen the banking sector" and the economy's "excellent growth prospects."

The rating on China's $33 billion worth of foreign currency debt is the sixth-highest, putting China at the same level as South Korea and Greece.

S&P raised its long-term credit ratings on China Development Bank and Export-Import Bank of China to A from A minus, the rating agency said. S&P also raised Hong Kong's long-term credit rating to AA from AA minus, citing improved credit fundamentals of "ultimate sovereign" China.

"Over all, it's a big endorsement" of the government's economic policies, said Liu Yang of Atlantis Investment Management in Hong Kong. "It will give comfort to investors who are purchasing Chinese assets. It also will drive interest in the banking system."

China has attracted more than $248 billion in foreign direct investment since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, helping to stimulate the country's economic growth, which averaged 10 percent in the past three years.

The government tightened rules on overseas buyers of real estate this week and will raise the percentage of deposits banks must set aside as reserves on Aug. 15 to cool lending.

Yuan gains on dollar

The yuan rose 0.1 percent against the dollar in Shanghai on Thursday, the most since China scrapped a peg to the currency last summer after U.S. lawmakers threatened trade sanctions unless gains accelerated by Sept. 30, Bloomberg News reported from Beijing. The dollar fell to 7.9768 yuan.

The lawmakers, Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham, told Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday that they wanted to see the yuan appreciate or they would push ahead with legislation to impose a 27.5 percent duty on Chinese goods.

U.S. wary of Shanghai grouping
China, Russia intensify efforts to isolate U.S. from Central Asia

PRAGUE, July 27, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A senior U.S. State Department official says the United States should not worry too much about any threat emerging from the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steven Mann reassured members of Congress at a hearing in Washington on July 25 by a House of Representatives' international relations subcommittee that he does not view the SCO, which is dominated by China and Russia, as an emerging threat to Western interests.

Excluding U.S. From Central Asia

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Republican-Florida) told the hearing that the SCO's summit in June provided evidence that Russia and China have intensified efforts "to isolate the U.S. politically, militarily, and economically from Central Asia."

Her comments follow pointed remarks last month by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the United States should not be excluded from regional groupings, and he expressed surprise that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad was invited to attend the SCO summit. The United States views Iran as a supporter of terrorism.

Mann acknowledged that the SCO had occasionally cut across U.S. interests; for instance, its 2005 summit called for Washington to set a timetable for the withdrawal of its military from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Uzbekistan subsequently asked the United States to leave, and Kyrgyzstan signed a deal with the United States greatly increasing the fees it receives for hosting U.S. forces.

Natural Rivalry

Mann said that since then the tone of the SCO towards U.S. bases in the region has become more constructive. As quoted by AP, he expressed confidence that contacts with major institutions like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO held enough interest for Central Asian members of the SCO to prevent them from developing a hostility toward the West.

Nevertheless, regional analysts say there remains a natural rivalry between the East and West for influence in Central Asia, particularly in view of its vast oil and gas reserves.

"The role of the Central Asian republics is as a kind of balancer between Russia and China [on the one hand] and the Western world [on the other], so it is a very important area for both sides, which strive to attract attention and offer cooperation [to the Central Asians]," says Keun-Wook Paik of the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs:

Keun-Wook Paik says that despite Mann's suggestion to the congressional panel that the United States can be relaxed on the issue of the SCO's ability to undermine Western influence in Central Asia, the administration of President George W. Bush is actually "very nervous" about the possibility that the Russians and Chinese might gain ground.

It does not like to particularly see Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan, in the Caucasus, falling under Moscow's or Beijing's spell, nor the plans for new gas pipelines from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan going directly into China.

Conversely, Washington is in favor of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline inaugurated on July 13, which links the Azerbaijani oilfields with the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, and which Kazakhstan also plans to join.

Democratic Values Vs. Realpolitik

One predicament for the West is the autocratic nature of the Central Asian regimes. At the congressional hearing, Mann described the U.S. strategic goal in Central Asia as "to support their development as fully sovereign, democratic, stable, and prosperous nations."

In the meantime, Washington has to deal with the dictatorial or semidictatorial regimes as they are, which has caused some disquiet among human rights advocates at home and abroad.

"It is a contradiction one sees in the foreign policies of many governments -- the United States is only one of them -- that on the one hand there are governments, individuals, institutions, organizations, in the way a country is run in different parts of the world, and the rest of the world has to trade and deal with them; to what extent do you want to stop because they are autocratic, or not 100 percent democratic," says analyst Manochehi Takin of the Center for Global Energy Studies. "Really, it's more of a so-called realpolitik."

Continuing on this theme, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mann described Washington's relations with Central Asia as resting on three pillars: namely democratic reform, economic development, and security.

Singling out Kazakhstan, he said it is one of the leading performers in two of those divisions, but needs to improve its democratic life. Kazakhstan has been a focal point of U.S. diplomatic attention in Central Asia following the souring of relations with Uzbekistan.

Senate: Drilling bill can't be altered

WASHINGTON - Senate leaders from both parties will not support offshore drilling legislation that deviates from a carefully worded compromise bill worked out by Gulf Coast senators, according to correspondence released Thursday by a Florida lawmaker.

Senators had sought to reassure Bill Nelson, D-Fla., that the Senate's narrowly tailored legislation would not be gutted if lawmakers had to reconcile the measure with a more expansive House-passed bill that would allow drilling closer to the Coast.

In an e-mail, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he would not bring anything back to the Senate that "does not provide adequate protection to the state of Florida."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it was his expectation the House would accept the Senate's bill without any amendments or modifications.

"If the House does not accept the Senate bill as passed," Reid said in a letter, he would "produce the votes to sustain the filibuster to prevent the passage of the bill."

House leaders have indicated the Senate bill is unacceptable.

The Senate proposal would open an 8-million-acre tract of the Gulf of Mexico about 120 miles southeast of Biloxi, known as Lease Area 181, to oil and gas exploration. Drilling would be prohibited through 2022 within 125 miles of the Florida Panhandle and 230 miles off Florida's west coast.

The bill would also mean hundreds of millions of dollars in new royalty payments for Mississippi and three other Gulf Coast states.

The broader House bill would scrap a 25-year-old ban on drilling as close as 50 miles to the shore. Under the bill, states also could opt to allow drilling even closer, or ban all activity within 100 miles of the coast.

Despite Senate leaders' declarations that they would preserve their bill's coastal protections, on Thursday local environmental groups remained skeptical.

"We want simple language. We don't want to have to have an attorney to come and tell us what the bill says," said Robert Barq, chairman of the Twelve Miles South Coalition, which seeks to preserve Gulf Islands National Seashore.

"We're for drilling, we're for oil, we're for gas. But we don't want it on our shorelines," Barq said.

Senate votes to extend statute of limitations
Bill adds 12 years to child sex abuse reporting period

The state Senate voted yesterday to extend the statute of limitations for child sex abuse claims by 12 years, raising hopes the Legislature will send the governor a bill before it recesses for the summer.

The Senate approved a bill passed by the House late Wednesday that would increase the statute of limitations from 15 to 27 years after the accusers' 16th birthday, giving them until they are 43 to report sexual crimes.

The House bill would also require sex offenders to register at least 10 days before they leave prison, verify that they are living in a homeless shelter within 45 days of release, and, among other provisions, require the most dangerous sex offenders who fail to register to submit to lifetime community parole supervision.

``We feel that we've passed the most sweeping sex offender legislation since the inception of the sex offender registry," said Representative Tom Golden, a Lowell Democrat who has been one of the bill's main supporters. ``We're closing loopholes, increasing penalties, and expanding the opportunities for prosecutions. It's all done to protect our citizens from these heinous crimes."

The Senate's version of the bill requires the state to establish nursing homes and other facilities for the most dangerous sex offenders. It requires sex offenders to wear global positioning satellite devices while on probation.

It would also delay the clock on the statute of limitations if the accuser does not come forward because of threats of physical violence, physical or psychological injury caused by the abuse, or any period where the defendant prevents witnesses or evidence from being available.

Kyle Sullivan, a spokesman for House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, said he expects the legislation to be sent to Governor Mitt Romney by Monday.

Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's spokesman, said the governor wants to sign a bill that would extend the statute of limitations.

``The administration's preference is to lift the statute of limitations entirely for victims of child sexual abuse, but this represents progress, and we look forward to receiving the bill," said Fehrnstrom.

Ed Saunders, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, a lobbying organization that represents the Archdiocese of Boston, said the state's bishops support extending the statute of limitations.

He also said they would support delaying the statute of limitations as proposed by the Senate.

But he said they do not want to completely discard the statute of limitations.

``I think by eradicating the statute of limitations, you run into some due process issues," Saunders said. ``The accused must have the right to properly defend themselves."

Defense attorneys who represent accusers said the proposed legislation does not go far enough.

Carmen L. Durso, a Boston-based attorney who has represented more than 200 alleged victims of child sex abuse, said the bill should lengthen the statute of limitations for children 14 and older who have been sexually assaulted but not raped and for children age 16 and older who have been raped.

``The Legislature has made a very tentative step in the right direction, but in doing so, they have eliminated a group of people they have protected in the past," Durso said. ``That's a huge error, which I hope they will correct, and correct quickly."

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, who has long pushed for such legislation, said he will continue to push the Legislature to scrap the statute of limitations for child sex abuse.

``Far too often, prosecutors in my office and across the state have met with grown men and women who needed decades to learn that the abuse and exploitation they suffered as children was not their fault, only to find that the legal clock had stopped ticking years earlier and that their abusers had avoided accountability for their crimes," he said.

``It is because those victims now have, if not all the time we would hope, then at least more time than they have previously had, that I believe this compromise was good and worthwhile," Conley said.

Dump Condi: Foreign policy conservatives charge State Dept. has hijacked Bush agenda

Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration’s national security and foreign policy agenda.

The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The president has yet to understand that people make policy and not the other way around," a senior national security policy analyst said. "Unlike [former Secretary of State Colin] Powell, Condi is loyal to the president. She is just incompetent on most foreign policy issues."

The criticism of Miss Rice has been intense and comes from a range of Republican loyalists, including current and former aides in the Defense Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. They have warned that Iran has been exploiting Miss Rice's inexperience and incompetence to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. They expect a collapse of her policy over the next few months.

"We are sending signals today that no matter how much you provoke us, no matter how viciously you describe things in public, no matter how many things you're doing with missiles and nuclear weapons, the most you'll get out of us is talk," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.

Miss Rice served as Mr. Bush's national security adviser in his first term. During his second term, Miss Rice replaced Mr. Powell in the wake of a conclusion by the White House that Mr. Bush required a loyalist to head the State Department and ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflected the president's agenda.

"Condi was sent to rein in the State Department," a senior Republican congressional staffer said. "Instead, she was reined in."

Mr. Gingrich agrees and said Miss Rice's inexperience and lack of resolve were demonstrated in the aftermath of the North Korean launch of seven short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles in July. He suggested that Miss Rice was a key factor in the lack of a firm U.S. response.

"North Korea firing missiles," Mr. Gingrich said. "You say there will be consequences. There are none. We are in the early stages of World War III. Our bureaucracies are not responding fast enough. We don't have the right attitude."

Several of the critics have urged that Mr. Bush provide a high-profile post to James Baker, who was secretary of state under the administration of Mr. Bush's father. They cited Mr. Baker's determination to confront Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in 1990.

A leading public critic of Miss Rice has been Richard Perle, a former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and regarded as close to Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Perle, pointing to the effort by the State Department to undermine the Reagan administration’s policy toward the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, has accused Miss Rice of succumbing to a long-time State Department agenda of meaningless agreements meant to appease enemies of the United States.

"Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, a mere mile or so away," Mr. Perle wrote in a June 25 Op-Ed article in the Washington Post that has been distributed throughout conservative and national security circles. "What matters is not that she is further removed from the Oval Office; Rice's influence on the president is undiminished. It is, rather, that she is now in the midst of—and increasingly represents—a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."

Mr. Perle's article was said to have reflected the views of many of Mr. Bush's appointees in the White House, Defense Department and State Department. Mr. Perle maintains close contacts to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams and Mr. Cheney's national security adviser, John Hannah.

A major problem, critics said, is Miss Rice's ignorance of the Middle East. They said the secretary relies completely on Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is largely regarded as the architect of U.S. foreign policy. Miss Rice also consults regularly with her supporters on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Richard Lugar and the No. 2 Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

The critics said Miss Rice has adopted the approach of Mr. Burns and the State Department bureaucracy that most—if not all—problems in the Middle East can be eased by applying pressure on Israel. They said even as Hezbollah was raining rockets on Israeli cities and communities, Miss Rice was on the phone nearly every day demanding that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert exercise restraint.

"Rice attempted to increase pressure on Israel to stand down and to demonstrate restraint," said Stephen Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "The rumor is that she was told flatly by the prime minister's office to back off."

The critics within the administration expect a backlash against Miss Rice that could lead to her transfer in wake of the congressional elections in 2006. They said by that time even Mr. Bush will recognize the failure of relying solely on diplomacy in the face of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"At that point, Rice will be openly blamed and Bush will have a very hard time defending her," said a GOP source with close ties to the administration.

Senate candidates gathering cash at record pace for '07 races

RICHMOND, Va. -- While a high-profile U.S. Senate race grabs headlines, candidates in next year's state Senate races are grabbing cash at a record clip for a pivotal election still 16 months away, campaign finance data reveal.

State Senate campaign committees have raised more than $6.2 million toward the 2007 election, more than double the amount raised at the same point four years ago leading into the 2003 election.

Factor in the expense of modern campaigning, the likelihood of primary challenges against senior Senate Republicans and the fact that 2007 is the last Senate election before the 2011 reapportionment and you have the makings of Virginia's most expensive state Senate battle.

Fundraising among House campaign committees is up slightly, from $1.1 million in mid-2002 to slightly less than $1.4 million now. House fundraising years ago escalated into a full-time, nonstop enterprise for delegates, who serve two-year terms. Senators serve four-year terms.

"Historically, many senators did not raise much money in the first three years of their terms. Now, with the increasing costs of campaigns and with all these intraparty challenges, senators are recognizing they can't wait until the fourth year to start raising money," said Scott Leake, director of the Republican Senate Leadership Trust.

By June 30, 2002--still 17 months from the 2003 fall Senate elections--Senate candidates had raised an aggregate $2.8 million, about $670,000 of it in the first six months of 2002, according to State Board of Elections data compiled by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project and analyzed by The Associated Press.

Eventually, fundraising totaled nearly $14.1 million for the 2003 Senate elections.

By the end of last month, state Senate campaign committees had amassed $6.2 million, $1.1 million of it in the first half of 2006. That coincided almost exactly with the record-long legislative debate over a new $72 billion state budget, which ended June 28.

State Senate fundraising flourishes even as it competes with one of the nation's most closely watched U.S. Senate matchups: Republican Sen. George Allen's re-election bid against Democratic challenger Jim Webb.

Republicans dominate state Senate fundraising, accounting for nearly $4.5 million, or 71 percent, of the $6.2 million raised so far. Because Democrats are within four seats of taking control of the 40-member Senate, Republicans are taking no chances.

"I take 2007 very seriously," said Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach and candidate recruitment chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.

Stolle and Sen. Thomas K. Norment, R-James City, were nearly tied at the top of the 2007 Senate fundraising class as of June 30, the last SBE reports available. Stolle had raised $420,846; Norment, $420,540.

Both know that Democrats aren't their only threats.

In the most bitter 2003 primary challenge, Norment raised and spent slightly more than $1 million while his opponent, wealthy businessman and anti-tax activist Paul C. Jost, spent nearly $850,000, most of it his own. Together, the two Republican rivals spent an average of $111 for each ballot cast as Norment took 62 percent of the vote in Virginia's most expensive state Senate primary ever.

"It is a sobering experience that I don't think I'll ever forget. So, from my own experience, I have intensified my fundraising efforts in anticipation that I would have primary opposition," Norment said in an interview.

Senate President Pro Tem John H. Chichester of Stafford and Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. of Winchester also fended off nomination challenges from the GOP Right in 2003.

Centrist Senate Republicans are likely to face primary challenges again next year.

Conservatives swore vengeance on them in 2004 for siding with Democrats, including then-Gov. Mark R. Warner, to enact a budget-balancing $1.4 billion tax increase.

Redistricting heightens the urgency both parties feel to raise cash fast. Though the Senate's GOP leadership and the Democratic minority forged an uncommonly close coalition, partisan comity ends at reapportionment. Without remorse or mercy, legislative majority parties engineer new political districts to their maximum advantage. If Republicans still rule the legislature in 2011, Democrats know they could be locked into the minority for at least another decade.

"If we don't have either the Senate or the House or the governorship (in 2011), that would be disastrous," said Sen. Linda "Toddy" Puller, D-Fairfax County.

She has raised a modest $125,694 so far for her 2007 re-election and plans a golf tournament fundraiser for early this fall to boost her treasury.

Today's consultant-guided, poll-driven campaigns rely more than ever on paid advertising. The larger the media market, the greater the costs, making campaigns in the Washington, D.C., suburbs among the nation's most expensive.

"Legislative campaigns in the major media markets now use TV, and so the candidates now have to raise enough money to pay for it," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "They now have to do what candidates for governor had to do 10 or 15 years ago."

House Passes Bill to Block Web Sites

A near-unanimous vote in the U.S. House of Representatives may soon make social networking sites and chat rooms inaccessible in public locations such as libraries and schools, however its broad wording may end up shuttering access to many sites that do not pose a threat to minors.

Called the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), the bill's supporters regularly mention MySpace in defense of it. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, a Republican from suburban Philadelphia and chief sponsor of the legislation, said the bill would give parents more control over what their kids are doing on the Internet when away from home.

"Parents pay the taxes that fund the Internet access to schools and libraries and they should have a say in how their subsidy is used," Fitzpatrick said. "Today, Congress has acted on their concerns. My bill will help parents protect their kids when they are not home."

The bill passed with wide bipartisan support, on a 410-15 vote. But its wording could lock out access to thousands of innocent sites due to its vagueness. In the bill, a social-networking site is defined as one that allows users to create an online profile, blog, post personal information and interact between users.

Essentially, this would mean sites such as BetaNews, which allows commenting on its articles, could be locked out. Other sites that would be targeted include Amazon.com, which allows its customers to post profiles; Web logs such as Engadget, which allows interaction between users; and blog services such as Blogger, MSN Spaces and Yahoo! 360 which allow the posting of personal information.

While the bill has passed with support from both Republicans and Democrats, it is seen as mostly a conservative-driven effort by those who oppose it. Republican pollsters surveyed nearly two dozen districts to find out what issues are important among its voters, and the problem of online predators surfaced as a common issue.

Fitzpatrick himself is involved in a tough fight with Democrat Patrick Murphy, an Iraq War veteran. The district is considered one of the Democrat's second tier pick-up opportunities, although its makeup favors socially conservative candidates.

Murphy has proposed laws protecting children, and has said that DOPA does not go far enough. "It seems our Congressman is involved in the typical Washington game of putting out nice sounding legislation that could make the problem worse, not better, and leaves the dangerous impression that he's actually doing something to protect children," he said.

Tech lobbyists are attempting to block what looks to be a speedy passage in the Senate, saying the law is way too broad and risks blocking sites that pose no risk to minors. Furthermore, MySpace has put 100 people on the job of security and customer care in an effort to address concerns.

U.S. House Of Representatives Passes Health IT Bill

The bill's passage comes several months after the U.S. Senate passed its own health IT bill with many similar provisions. Washington insiders expect a compromise bill that if passed, could be signed into law by President Bush by the fall.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a health IT bill that aims to make permanent the sub-cabinet position of national health IT czar and a committee to govern national standards for interoperability.

The Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2006, or H.R. 4157, aims to accelerate health-care providers' adoption of information technology. This includes interoperable electronic health record and e-prescribing systems, which can reduce medical errors, inefficiencies, and costs.

The bill's passage comes several months after the U.S. Senate passed its own health IT bill with many similar provisions. However, among the differences is a quality provision in the Senate bill; the House bill also provides $30 million in grants for the implementation of electronic health record systems.

Washington insiders expect the Senate and House to soon work on a compromise bill that if passed, could be signed into law by President Bush by the fall.

Bush two years ago set the goal for most Americans to have electronic health records by 2014. And last week, the Institute of Medicine issued a report recommending that all U.S. doctors and hospitals adopt e-prescribing by 2010 in order to reduce the 1.5 million preventable drug mistakes that are estimated to happen annually in the U.S.

Bush in the spring of 2004 also issued an executive order creating the sub-cabinet position of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to direct government agencies and health-care providers in the creation of a national electronic infrastructure to support interoperable digital health records.

The position, which reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, was held until recently by Dr. David Brailer, who resigned from the post in April, citing personal and family reasons including the weekly commute from his home in San Francisco to Washington, D.C.

A replacement has not yet been named.

Both the House and Senate bills aim to codify—or to make permanent—the National Coordinator for Health IT position so that it remains intact even after President Bush leaves office.

Minimum Wage Fight Heads to the Senate

A bitter fight over legislative tactics and the minimum wage shifted to the Senate after the House early on Saturday approved a $2.10 increase in the wage scale but tied it to a reduction in the estate tax and a package of tax breaks.

In an early-morning decision that Republican leaders said they hoped would provide political benefits to lawmakers headed home for five weeks of campaigning, the House voted 230 to 180 to increase the federally required pay rate to $7.25 over three years — the first increase in nearly a decade.

“This bill actually stands a chance of being signed into law,” said Representative Frank A. LoBiondo, Republican of New Jersey. “If we really want to give relief to working men and women who deserve this change, this is the opportunity.”

But Democrats criticized the decision as a cynical charade intended to give Republicans the appearance of supporting an increase in the minimum wage through a bill that would not clear the Senate because of opposition to an estate tax change aimed at extremely affluent Americans.

“In all my years here, this is the height of hypocrisy,” said Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who said Republicans were moved to consider a raise in the minimum wage only out of fear of losing House seats in November. “If you really cared, you would have acted long ago. This is not an election-year conversion; it is an election-year trick.”

Senate Democrats, who have successfully blocked past Republican efforts to slash the estate tax, suggested that they would try to do so again despite the inclusion of the minimum wage increase they had been clamoring for in recent years.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Saturday that he did not expect the Senate to approve the plan when it reaches the floor next week, which, he said, was just what the House Republican leadership wanted.

“Last night the House Republicans played a cynical game of politics with the lives of millions of hard-working American families,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I am confident the Senate will reject this political blackmail, as the House leadership is banking on.”

But 34 House Democrats joined 196 Republicans in sending the measure to the Senate, while 158 Democrats, 21 Republicans and one independent opposed it.

Under the minimum wage proposal, the rate would increase from the current $5.15 per hour in three increments, reaching $7.25 in June 2009. It would also allow tips to be counted toward minimum wage increases in some states where that is now prohibited, a provision Democrats said would cut wages for thousands of workers in those states.

House Republican leaders said their Senate counterparts had argued that the only way the wage increase would survive in the Senate was if it was coupled with the estate tax reductions. To sweeten the pot even more, Republicans moved $38 billion in a wide array of tax breaks to the estate tax bill from a pension overhaul that was approved Friday.

“What we have done is try to package this to succeed in getting the minimum wage through the other body,” said Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

But critics said voters would see through the ploy. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, called the legislation “an insult to the intelligence of the American people.”

The tax provisions restored and extended such popular breaks as a maximum $4,000 income tax deduction for higher-education expenses and a variety of benefits for industry and communities, including a $1.75 billion tax credit for New York City to be used for projects like a rail link between Kennedy International Airport and Lower Manhattan.

Under the estate tax provisions, estimated to cost $268 billion in federal revenue over 10 years, $5 million of an individual’s estate would be fully exempt by 2015. Estates up to $25 million would be taxed at the rate for capital gains, now 15 percent. The bill also phases in a reduced tax rate on amounts in excess of $25 million, eventually setting it at 30 percent.

With no changes, the current estate tax exemptions would revert in 2011 to $1 million per person with a maximum estate tax rate of 55 percent.

The minimum wage vote came after House Republican leaders scrambled to respond to appeals from Republicans in the Northeast and the Midwest who said they needed to dilute escalating Democratic attacks and were worried they would be pounded in the August recess by labor groups. Some Republicans said they would have preferred that the wage increase be tied to legislation other than the estate tax cut, with a health initiative for small businesses one popular alternative.

But Republican leaders seized on the opportunity to advance the estate tax plan, and advocates of a wage increase went along. “It could have been done differently,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, “but it is done.”

Trading blows will hurt US less than most

“HE that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone …” EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, secure in the knowledge that the biblical interdiction doesn’t disqualify him as a first-stone thrower, rushed to the television studios to blame the United States for the collapse of the Doha round of trade talks. Never mind that it was his EU masters, led by France, who forced Pascal Lamy, director-general of the 149-member World Trade Organisation, to suspend the negotiations indefinitely after five frustrating years of trying to get the key players to agree on new trade-opening measures.

President Bush had offered such great cuts in trade-distorting agricultural subsidies (60% reductions over five years, followed by complete phasing out) that Alexander Downer, Australia’s foreign minister, called it “a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity that ought to be grasped”. France is in no mood to do such grasping, so the EU contented itself with such ludicrous offers as reducing tariffs on high-quality beef from an eye- watering 80% to a still-trade-blocking 61%, while retaining bogus health restrictions should any imports manage to climb the tariff wall. According to The Wall Street Journal, the French agricultural minister said: “I would prefer the negotiations fail rather than . . . raise questions about . . . agriculture.” So rich French farmers shot down a deal that the World Bank has been saying is crucial if poverty in underdeveloped countries is to be relieved.

France’s farmers had help from politically potent farm blocs in Japan and India. And American rice, corn, wheat and cotton farmers proved unwilling to surrender price supports that encourage them to glut markets that might otherwise absorb produce from poorer developing countries.

Still, America went further than other countries in offering concessions. As US trade representative Susan Schwab pointed out shortly after negotiations were suspended, the EU “has average agricultural tariffs twice those in the US and domestic supports three times greater than the US,” meaning that without major concessions EU markets would remain in effect closed to the products of America’s far more efficient farmers.

Sherman Katz, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says: “All is not lost until all is lost.” But, even though Schwab says the suspension “doesn’t mean the US is giving up”, resuscitation is unlikely. The so-called fast-track authority that allows the president to put any trade deal to Congress on a take-it-or-leave-it basis expires on June 30 next year. The law requires him to allow Congress 90 days to consider any agreement, so there is little time left for the negotiators to reassemble and iron out differences that have endured through five years of acrimonious meetings.

As with all such failed negotiations, there are winners and losers. The clear winners are the farmers of France and the rest of Europe, and small farmers in several other countries, most notably Japan, whose principal trade negotiator told the press that the failure of the talks “enabled us to avoid the worst scenario, in which a food importer like Japan is forced to widely open its market”. Translation: our small, inefficient farmers will continue to charge consumers exorbitant prices without fear of attracting competition from abroad.

With no hope of expanding markets for their agricultural produce, advanced developing countries have retained their swingeing tariffs on manufactured goods, and bars to imports of services. Brazil and India, for example, levy duties of about 30% on imported manufactures, to the disadvantage of companies in the US, Japan and South Korea, among others.

America is not likely to be the biggest loser. It has been running a huge trade deficit, now at nearly 7% of GDP. Although opportunities to increase its exports would be in America’s interests, it is not at all clear that such reductions in barriers were ever on the Doha table. America’s agriculture is probably the world’s most efficient, it is a major winner in the competition to sell aircraft, and its audiovisual industry makes programmes and films that the world’s consumers lust after. But a successful Doha round would not have done much for exports from these “three A” industries.

The EU was never going to open its markets to American foodstuffs and, even if it lowered tariffs a bit, would continue to use health issues to bar US imports. The state-sponsored Airbus consortium will continue to subsidise the development of new airliners until the WTO calls a halt, in proceedings quite independent of the Doha round.

Pirating of audiovisual products and other intellectual property by China is slowing exports, not tariff barriers. The Hay Group consultancy recently reported that pirating by Chinese firms was increasing at an annual rate of 1,000%. It is common knowledge that pirated DVDs of American hit movies are available on the streets of Beijing for about $1 before they are shown in American cinemas.

The Chinese authorities, who can sniff out a single dissident, can’t seem to find the factories supplying goods based on stolen intellectual property, including all the pirated software used by government agencies — or agree to revalue their undervalued currency.

Meanwhile, America goes ahead with negotiating bilateral agreements to open markets for insurers and other financial-services firms. Twelve Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are already in force (with Chile, Singapore, Central America and Australia, among others), six more are pending approval by Congress or the other signatory, and 11 more are being negotiated. The lure of access to America’s rich, free-spending consumers is an attraction many countries find sufficiently irresistible to persuade them to open their own markets to American products, even with Doha a failure.

None of this is to say that the failure of the Doha round is of no consequence. But the US is better positioned than most to capitalise on available opportunities.

Audit finds San Diego accounting chicanery

Budget analysts changed employee time cards to allow the San Diego City Attorney's Office to funnel extra money from lucrative special city accounts, according to results of an internal investigation released yesterday.

City Attorney Michael Aguirre said the improper accounting, which took place from 1997 to 2004, included time cards being altered to reflect work for the wrong department, and part-time work billed as full-time.

Questionable billing of other city departments continued in his office through this week, Aguirre acknowledged, even though he said he put new policies in place to stop the activities within a month after he took over in December 2004.

Yet he drew a distinction between the recent problem, which he characterized as “an allocation issue” – the office's Civil Enforcement Unit calculated hours worked based on a formula, not on actual time served – and the falsified time cards.

That, he said, could be tantamount to “misappropriation of public funds” and require legal action against supervisors who allowed it. He believes employees in other city departments also could have tampered with work records.

“If it happened in the City Attorney's Office, it's hard to believe it didn't happen elsewhere,” he said.

Aguirre said he conducted the investigation into his office's accounting at the behest of auditors hired by Mayor Jerry Sanders. Sanders called for the audit following a county grand jury report that accused the city of failing to properly account for special transactions between city departments.

This type of spending is outlined in contracts called “service-level agreements,” which offer details of work city employees from one department perform for another, and at what price. Aguirre said use of the contracts rose in the City Attorney's Office when his predecessor, Casey Gwinn, was in charge, from 1996-2004.

The deals, along with other types of special fees, have come under scrutiny in the past decade, particularly in regard to exchanges between the city's tax-supported general fund departments and those that receive fees from residents and businesses for services, called enterprise funds.

The grand jury has issued two critical reports, most recently in April, accusing the city of improperly tapping into those accounts.

The largest of the enterprise departments, the city's water and sewer services, are projected to bring in nearly $700 million in revenue in the fiscal year that began July 1.

The city's general-fund budget, backed by proceeds from taxes – sales, property and others – is set at $1 billion, but has borne increasing strain as the city contends with a billion-dollar pension debt and hundreds of millions in mandated infrastructure upgrades.

It's difficult for city officials to raise tax rates, but the City Council can – and has often – allowed fee increases for water and sewer services. That has led some critics to accuse the city of improperly siphoning money from the enterprise funds.

The auditors' report should help shed light on that issue. It is due Wednesday, said Fred Sainz, Sanders' spokesman, and will be broken into six parts examining the use of bond proceeds, ratepayer revenue and service-level agreements in two departments: water and wastewater.

Updates from the auditors, Sainz said, support Aguirre's conclusions about past practices in the City Attorney's Office. Sainz said it is unclear what remedies are available to the city.

The auditors also have consulted with officials from Kroll Inc., a risk management firm conducting a far broader inquiry into the city's financial practices.

Kroll is aware of the allegations about improper accounting in the City Attorney's Office, Sainz said, and is investigating.

UK, Calif. to Strike Global Warming Deal

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced an agreement Monday to bypass the Bush administration and work together to explore ways to fight global warming.

The two leaders announced the pact as they met with business leaders on clean energy and climate issues against the backdrop of a BP oil tanker at a terminal in the Port of Long Beach.

"We see that there is not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment," Schwarzenegger said. "We know there is global warming, so we should stop it."

Addressing business leaders during an earlier panel discussion, Blair called global warming "long-term, the single biggest issue we face."

The agreement calls for collaboration on research into cleaner-burning fuels and technologies, and looking into the possibility of setting up a system whereby polluters could buy and sell the right to emit greenhouse gases. The idea is to use market forces and market incentives to curb pollution.

Environmental groups questioned the value of the agreement, calling it little more than a symbolic gesture.

California is looking to cut carbon dioxide _ a byproduct of coal, oil and gasoline combustion _ and other heat-trapping gases that scientists say are warming the planet. President Bush has rejected the idea of ordering such cuts.

"This is an agreement to share ideas and information. It is not a treaty," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn. "Right now, all we are doing is talking about sharing ideas."

"It will be markets, not governments, that will decide which technologies are chosen in the future. Governments can give clear, credible, long-term signals to the market which will enable companies to develop the technology that will result in cleaner technology, more energy efficient technology," said a Blair spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, in line with government policy.

Kristen Hellmer, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the agreement was "a wonderful amplification" of talks last year between the president and Blair.

"It's just another step forward," she said. "This is a way to share ideas, what works and what doesn't work."

For Schwarzenegger, a Republican who is running for a full term in November, the agreement comes at a time when he has been trying to distance himself from Bush in this mostly Democratic state.

His aides disputed speculation that the agreement was an attempt to sidestep the White House. In a conference call with reporters, state Environmental Secretary Linda Adams said the agency is in "constant contact" with federal regulators, but added that there was no discussion with Washington about Monday's agreement.

Craig Noble of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said the pact had symbolic value, but that "the time for talk is over." He urged passage of a proposal, pending in the state Legislature, that would make California the first state to limit greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources.

"The bottom line is, voluntary is not enough," Noble said.

While partnering with Britain, Schwarzenegger is seeking changes to the state bill that Democrats say would undermine its goals.

Schwarzenegger has proposed creating a board of agency heads who would set emission limits after taking into account the economic effects. Democrats say the independent state Air Resources Board should oversee the program.

The world's only mandatory carbon dioxide trading program is in Europe. Created in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international treaty that took effect last year, it caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in more than two dozen countries.

Companies can trade rights to pollute directly with each other or through exchanges located around Europe. Canada, one of more than 160 nations that signed Kyoto, plans a similar program.

Although the United States is one of the few industrialized nations that have not signed the treaty, some Eastern states are developing a regional cap-and-trade program. And some U.S. companies have voluntarily agreed to limit their carbon dioxide pollution as part of a new Chicago-based market.

A main target of the agreement between Britain and California is the carbon dioxide from cars, trucks and other modes of transportation. Transportation accounts for an estimated 41 percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions and 28 percent of Britain's.

Schwarzenegger has called on California to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010. California was the 12th-largest source of greenhouse gases in the world last year, bigger than most nations.

Blair has called on Britain to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 60 percent of its 1990 levels by 2050. Britain also has been looking at imposing individual limits on carbon pollution. People who accumulate unused carbon allowances _ for example, by driving less, or switching to less polluting vehicles _ could sell them to people who exceed their allowances _ for example by driving more.

Bush has resisted Blair's efforts to make carbon dioxide reduction a top international priority. After taking office, Bush reversed a 2000 campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, then withdrew U.S. support from the Kyoto treaty requiring industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse gases to below 1990 levels.

The United States is responsible for a quarter of the world's global warming pollution. Bush administration officials argue that requiring cuts in greenhouse gases would cost the U.S. economy 5 million jobs.

Instead, the administration has poured billions of dollars into research aimed at slowing the growth of most greenhouse gases while advocating a global cut on one of them, methane.

Senate Vote on Offshore Drilling Expected

The Senate cleared the way Monday for legislation that would open 8.3 million protected acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

Senators voted 72-23 to limit debate, assuring a final vote on the bill later this week before senators depart for the summer recess. The bill's supporters said they have the majority needed to push it through.

But a battle loomed with the House, which has approved a bill that would allow drilling far beyond the limited acreage in the central Gulf of Mexico. Negotiations to reconcile the two measures won't begin until September.

The House would lift a quarter-century moratorium that has kept 85 percent of the nation's coastal waters off-limits to energy companies from New England to Alaska. Senate Democrats and GOP moderates have vowed to block legislation that would jeopardize the drilling ban along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Senate leaders have promised lawmakers from Florida and other coastal states that they would insist a final bill not go beyond the Gulf waters. The Senate legislation also would provide tens of millions of dollars to four Gulf states for coastal restoration.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., one of the bill's principal sponsors, bemoaned "the crazy idea that these resources should be locked up" when the country needs more domestic oil and gas supplies.

They've "been locked up for no good reason other than emotion," he argued.

But Domenici said while he favors lifting the moratorium in some waters outside the Gulf he would "do everything in my power" to structure a final compromise with the House that can pass the Senate and avoid a filibuster. Senate Democrats have said if the Senate measure is substantially changed they would block it by a filibuster if necessary.

The Senate bill would require the Interior Department to issue drilling leases within a year in 2 million acres known as Lease Area 181 and in another 6.3 million acres just south of it in the east- central Gulf of Mexico. Both areas have been off limits to energy companies and are believed to have 1.2 billion barrels of oil and nearly 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to heat 6 million homes for 15 years.

To gain the support of Florida's senators, no drilling would be allowed within 125 miles of Florida's coast and in some areas the leases would be more than 230 miles from the state's beaches.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., called it a "good compromise ... to protect Florida" while addressing "the great pressure that we're under" to expand the search for domestic energy because of high natural gas prices and the growing reliance on foreign oil.

Broad opposition to the bill began to melt away last week when Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who had threatened to filibuster any offshore drilling legislation, announced his support for the bill after being assured by Senate leaders they would not accept the House measure.

The bill has been a top priority of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who pushed for a change in how the government shares royalties from oil and gas development with the four Gulf states that have drilling rigs off their shores.

Under the bill, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas would get 37.5 percent of the revenue, compared to the less than 2 percent they now receive. In 10 years, when the new sharing agreement would cover existing as well as new leases, the four states are expected to get an additional $1.2 billion a year, about half going to Louisiana.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said he opposed the bill largely because of the revenue sharing change, saying it would take too much money out of the federal Treasury for the benefit of only four states.

Landrieu, said it is only fair that the states get a larger share from offshore energy development since they supply the infrastructure needed to explore and produce oil and gas off their shores.

"We will use the money to restore a great coastline ... restore the great wetlands" off the Louisiana coast and improve storm protection, she said.

The issue has attracted intense lobbying by environmentalists, who oppose tampering with the long-standing drilling restrictions, and business groups that argue the additional oil and gas is needed to reduce prices.

At a news conference Monday, officials from groups representing the chemical industry, manufacturers, the fertilizer industry, the forest and paper industry and natural gas utilities argued that the country's offshore oil and gas resources needed to be tapped to increase domestic supplies.

"We need the supply. We can't tolerate these prices as they are," said John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. Another representative said 19 fertilizer plants have closed because of high natural gas costs.

But environmentalists maintain it will be years before the energy from newly opened leases would be available. "It's not going to bring energy prices down," said Melinda Pierce of the Sierra Club.

Kerry Proposes Universal Coverage by 2012

Sen. John Kerry on Monday proposed requiring all Americans to have health insurance by 2012, "with the federal government guaranteeing that they have the means to afford it."

The Massachusetts Democrat, whose name is figuring prominently in 2008 White House speculation, repeated his 2004 presidential campaign call for expanding the federal Medicaid program to cover children. He also proposed creating a program to cover catastrophic cases so an employer providing insurance doesn't have to pass the cost to his other workers, and; offering Americans the ability to buy into the same insurance program used by federal workers such as members of Congress.

Kerry proposes to pay for the program by repealing tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration that benefit those earning over $200,000 annually. He did not immediately elaborate on how he would enact his insurance mandate, but one aid said he would do so with a requirement written into the legislation spelling out that the government covers anyone who is uninsured.

"One of my biggest regrets is that fear talk trumped the health care walk, and that we are less safe abroad and less healthy at home because of that," Kerry told a crowd of several hundred during a midday speech at Faneuil Hall. The senator had previously delivered two other speeches at the Revolutionary War meeting house laying the ground work for a second presidential campaign.

The senator also promoted his health care proposal in a Boston Globe op-ed piece published Monday morning, and during an appearance on Don Imus's national radio program.

Kerry conceded his health care proposal is virtually the same as the program he outlined during his failed campaign. However, he said that continuity was a measure of his commitment to his health care ideals.

"Every day since the election, the health care crisis has grown steadily worse," Kerry said. "The president has stuck to his guns _ or, more accurately, his empty holster _ and done nothing beyond trotting out the conservative hobby horse of health savings accounts."

The senator said his plan will lead to universal coverage by 2012, "but if we're not there by 2012, we will require that all Americans have health insurance, with the federal government guaranteeing they have the means to afford it."

The Republican National Committee, which typically responds to political criticism of the president, said Kerry's critique ignored the prescription drug program enacted by the Bush administration.

"It's unfortunate that John Kerry's bitterness over losing the election clouds his ability to recognize the president's prescription drug plan is providing millions of seniors with more affordable medicine," said RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.

Whatever his criticism, Kerry faces the reality that the governor of his home state _ Republican Mitt Romney, himself a potential 2008 presidential candidate _ has not only talked about but enacted a sweeping health care overhaul designed to bring universal coverage to Massachusetts. Last week, Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, called the program "a model" for the nation.

Romney negotiated the plan with a Democratic Legislature, and in cooperation with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., Kerry's senior colleague.

Under Romney's plan, which the federal government is assisting with $385 million annually, Medicaid will be expanded for 100,000 people, the government will cover premium costs for another 200,000 who buy private programs, while an additional 200,000 will be required to buy insurance from low-cost policies offered by private companies working in tandem with the government.

Romney signed the bill into law in April on the same Faneuil Hall stage where Kerry planned his remarks.

State Being Sued Over Stock Trading Law

The State of Utah is being sued over the Legislature's attempt to regulate stock trading. In a recent special session, the Legislature passed a law to prevent what some call the 'manipulative and predatory' stock trading trick, 'naked short selling'.

Many companies, including Utah's Overstock.com, have been affected by the practice. In a nutshell, Naked Short Trading involves trading massive amounts of stock that doesn't actually exist. It can artificially change the value of stock, potentially wrecking companies. And the powerful securities and exchange industry doesn't want the state to try and regulate it.

From one of his Overstock.com warehouses, CEO Patrick Byrne is outspoken about the insider trading practice 'Naked Short Selling'.

Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com Chairman/CEO: "I think we're on the edge of the greatest financial scandal of the last 100 years. It's something that will make Enron look like a Sunday picnic."

In traditional stock trading, a buyer pays money to a seller in exchange for shares of stock. The market determines the value of that transaction. With naked short selling, there is no actual stock in the transaction. A legitimate stock's value can artificially be affected, usually sharply lowered, allowing the naked short-seller to profit.

That kind of transaction is technically illegal, and is called 'Failure to Deliver'. But critics, like Byrne, say large brokers and hedge funds do it all the time, making billions, even trillions of dollars.

Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com Chairman/CEO: "The stakes here are so large, and what's going to come to light about Wall Street is so ugly, that they have to try and stop this."

During this summer's special session, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 3004, an attempt to provide an additional checkpoint on the practice. But the financial industry is fighting back, through the non-profit Securities Industry Association with a lawsuit against the state, filed in Third District Court.

Among the claims in the suit, That Senate Bill 3004 is treading on Federal territory, regulation that's the exclusive province of Federal law, it says. And it claims Utah's law violates the commerce clause of the Constitution.

Byrne, as Chairman and CEO of the online 'closeout' retailer, says anyone with any involvement in the stock market--from a 401-K, to any publicly traded company--is affected.

Patrick Byrne: "I don't interpret this in terms of Overstock. I'm saying Main Street America is being destroyed. Somewhere in America there is a person eating dog food tonight so these guys on Wall Street can drive Porsches."

Two representatives of the Securities Industry Association did not return my phone calls today. We wanted to ask them, if this problem is as bad as Byrne says it is, why aren't Federal regulators doing something? Turns out no one has a clear answer to that question and why Utah passed its law.

Holding the line: Virginia Guard troops man the U.S.-Mexican border

U.S. Senior Border Patrol Agent Jim Hawkins pointed Monday to the shallow, chocolate brown waters rushing north through a concrete tunnel entrance.

Last Thursday, Hawkins explained, a group of 34 Mexican immigrants waded through the water - dark with mud and industrial waste - for about a mile to breach a pair of metal flood gates and enter the United States.

While they pushed along in knee-high water, heavy rains started a flash flood, filled the tunnel and burst open the storm gates. A small army of U.S. border patrol agents waited on the concrete banks. They pulled dozens of men and women from the rushing waters as they spilled into the shopping district of this small border town. At least two died trying to reach the United States.

Such rescues are common, Hawkins said.

"The flooding happens very quickly," he said. "You can't escape."

The Virginia National Guard has jumped into this vortex.

On Monday, the last large group of 440 Virginia troops arrived in southern Arizona to support border patrol agents in a mission known as Operation Jump Start.

President Bush announced in May a plan for 6,000 National Guard troops to supplement border and customs duties by Aug. 1, although only about half have reached duty stations along the border, Guard officials told T he Associated Press.

The operation is designed to bolster federal border patrol with reserve units from around the country by establishing new observation posts and barriers along the Mexican-U.S. line in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

It also serves to highlight a contentious and long-standing issue - illegal immigration - during a congressional election year.

The reserve forces will act as extra eyes and ears along the rugged terrain. Guard troops will build new walls in cities and patrol roads and barriers in the desert.

Virginia mustered volunteers for the operation. They trained at Fort Pickett for two weeks in July. The last of three units arrived in Tucson on Monday on a KC-135 cargo plane.

About 30 guardsmen were delayed by troubles with their aircraft, said Col. Mike Harris, commanding officer of the Virginia unit, which will serve until Sept. 30. Harris also will direct troops from other states deploying on two-week rotations.

The Virginia guardsmen are based in Tucson and spread out at posts between the Arizona border towns of Nogales and Lukeville.

"We're already working," Harris said.

Troops have begun to man observation posts in Nogales and the desert. The Tucson corridor is the busiest crossing for Mexican immigrants. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents apprehended 439,000 immigrants last year in this section of the desert, more than three times the number of detainees caught in San Diego.

As of late July, border agents had captured 794,000 immigrants trying to cross into Southwestern states.

Virginia and other hurricane-prone states were initially exempted from the operation until after storm season. But slow responses from a stretched N ational G uard forced leaders to ask E ast C oast states for volunteers.

Virginia officials say they can handle their emergency responsibilities at home during the southwestern deployment. The Virginia Army and Air National Guard have about 8,200 troops.

The small, run-down border towns and mesquite and rattlesnake-filled desert will be their workplace out west.

As Hawkins drove along the streets of Nogales early Monday, small crowds gathered along a small-town Main Street shopping district lined with Spanish boutiques and grocers.

Less than a half-mile away, up a few steep hills, stood a 15-foot steel fence, topped with metal grating that hung over into Mexico.

The 4.5-mile fence testified to the long relationship the border patrol has had with reserve units, Hawkins said. National Guard engineers and Marine Corps reservists built large sections of the steel barrier, which was finished in 1999.

Along its base, large patches have been welded over openings cut through by smugglers. Border agents have shifted some of their efforts to tunnels dug underneath the wall.

Drug smugglers also have hired children to toss balls of heroin over the fence and into a waiting dealer's yard, Hawkins said. Agents drive along the fence in "rock-proof" trucks, up-armored with metal grates across the windshields to survive melon-sized stones lobbed over the wall.

About a mile west of Nogales, the steep, rocky hills and green valleys have held smuggling paths for generations. Virginia troops have set up new observation posts, Hawkins said.

Agents also have several unmanned cameras with infrared sensors stationed on the desert ridges. Senior Border Patrol Agent Shannon Stevens said apprehensions of illegal immigrants have dropped 9 percent in the Tucson region compared with the same time last year.

Stevens said the border patrol believes the National Guard troops have played a role in reducing the number of illegal crossings. The summer heat, which can strike 120 degrees in the desert, also discourages illegal immigration.

On Monday, a group of Kentucky guardsmen and border agents trudged cut railroad rails up steep, mud-and-rock trails around Mariposa Canyon.

Hawkins, who has patrolled the area for seven years, said it's a favorite place for smugglers to pack hundreds of pounds of marijuana into pick up s and speed for the border.

If they avoid the mesquite bushes, mudslides and authorities, they can break on to the city streets and melt into traffic. The Kentucky guardsmen brought heavy equipment and welding materials to build steel barriers across the smuggler's trails. They arrived Sunday and began working the next day.

Hawkins said the border patrol constantly tries to stay steps ahead of Mexican gangs moving people and drugs. Guard troops from Virginia and around the country will help free border agents to work the front lines, he said.

"We have to improvise," he said. "These ideas don't come from think tanks."

Marine to get revenge for flying U.S. flag?
Law signed by Bush could help man at war with homeowners association

A patriotic Marine who has been at war with his homeowners association and local government for flying an American flag on his property may finally be able to wave his troubles good-bye and recoup thousands of dollars, thanks to a new law taking effect Monday.

The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 – signed by President Bush last week – prevents a condominium association, cooperative association, or residential real-estate management association from denying an owner or resident from displaying the U.S. flag on their residential property within the association.

The measure is a huge relief to George Andres, a 69-year-old veteran who has spent some $70,000 in legal fees and fines since the homeowners association in his Indian Creek subdivision objected to the flagpole on his front lawn at the start of the millennium.

"It wasn't worth it, but it was worth it," Andres told the Jupiter Courier. "How can somebody sue over a flag?"

Andres has been battling since 2000 when his homeowners association ordered him not fly the flag on a flagpole, suggesting he instead fly it on his house. But Andres says that suggestion violated municipal codes in this south Florida town.

The Indian Creek homeowners association had placed a lien on Andres' home, but failed in court to foreclose on the property.

Andres is now hoping the new federal measure will help him as he seeks to get back the money spent for defending his ability to fly Old Glory.

"Too many people have died protecting that flag," Andres told the Courier. "It's a passion that gets into you."

Andres has online support from people posting messages on the paper's website:

# "Good for him. These people need to get a life and worry about real things like the wars we've got going on." (Chris Mangen)

# "This is an example of how HOA abuse their power. Instead of using HOA fees in a positive manner, they attempted to foreclose on the property. It just goes to show that HOAs are really out for themselves." (Paul Bennett)

# "HOAs are mini governments with the power to tax and levy fines but without the checks and balances to ensure they represent the people fairly. ... A hostile HOA board can destroy the harmony of a community and drive home values down. In this case, the HOA wasted association funds to harass one individual and only the lawyers profit." (Ed Blackburn)

# "Go for it, George. You are a man to be admired for your courage and determination. I really hope you bankrupt your oppressors."

CDC Conference Dismisses Abstinence Education
Witness Claims Traditional View Mocked

(AgapePress) - Though the federal government spends millions of dollars promoting abstinence to America's youth, it appears that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) failed to get the memo.

That is the conclusion of Focus on the Family sexual health analyst Linda Klepacki, who attended the 2006 National STD Prevention Conference, sponsored by the CDC in May. With the laudable goal of preventing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), the conference was attended by more than 1,300 public health professionals and academics.

Klepacki, however, was shocked at the ideological tone permeating what was supposed to be a conference based on scientific fact. "It was blindingly clear that the majority of the attendees wished Christian conservatives would go away and let them tell our young people how to have sex at any age, at any time, with anyone," she said.

As the dates for the CDC conference approached, Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), a supporter of abstinence education, noticed that the conference appeared to promote a lopsided view of the entire issue. The conference's symposium on the subject was titled, "Are Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs a Threat to Public Health?" There wasn't a single speaker scheduled who favored either abstinence-only education or the federal support of such programs.

According to online magazine Slate's Amanda Schaffer, Souder proceeded to contact an official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and demanded more ideological balance at the symposium. Apparently, the CDC acquiesced, adding two pro-abstinence speakers: Dr. Eric Walsh, an instructor at the Family Medicine School of Medicine at Loma Linda University, and Dr. Patricia Sulak, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Texas A&M University's College of Medicine, and founder of the abstinence program Worth the Wait.

Souder's attempt to add balance apparently failed, according to Klepacki's account of the conference in an article in CitizenLink. Despite the views of the two token abstinence proponents, the entire approach of the conference was a haughty, sneering indictment of traditional beliefs about sex and marriage. For example, Klepacki said:

* Dr. Bruce Trigg of the New Mexico Department of Public Health said the government should not be about the business of promoting marriage, which, he said to cheers, is a homophobic institution anyway.
* Dr. John Santelli of Columbia University told the gathered conference attendees that when it came to the subjects of sex and marriage, "You know a whole lot more than parents."
* Dr. King Holmes of the University of Washington, the last plenary speaker, told the conference that he hoped that one day "a gigantic condom would cover the Washington Monument."

Santelli recently made waves with two articles he wrote for the Journal of Adolescent Health. In them he dismissed abstinence programs as failures and "morally problematic" because they deny adolescents the "fundamental human rights" to a full explanation of contraceptives and access to condoms, with or without parental approval. Santelli said federal funding of abstinence programs in schools should be repealed.

His charges were answered by a paper issued by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health titled "The Attack on Abstinence Education: Fact or Fallacy?" That report analyzed Santelli's criticisms of abstinence programs and "found a significant number of serious omissions, misrepresentations, deviations from accepted practices, and opinions presented as facts."

With such a biased approach so prevalent at the conference, how did attendees respond when Sulak spoke? At one point during a question-and-answer session, Sulak said, "I think we can all agree, even from a purely medical standpoint, that high schoolers ought not to be having sex."

Klepacki said, "She was shouted down with a boisterous and unified ‘No!'"

"It's clear that tolerance and inclusion extends only so far in the world of public health," Klepacki noted. "There is no tolerance of conservatives, especially if they are religious. We were clearly an un-tolerated minority [at the conference] that was mocked, booed and smeared."

That an anti-family ideology should have taken root so deeply at the CDC and among the medical professionals who are working to halt the epidemic of STDs among the nation's youth is distressing. Klepacki said the response to Sulak's view was "just a further demonstration of the political and social push for our children to be sexually active."

Senate Rejects Minimum Wage Hike, Estate Tax Cut

Senate Democrats late Thursday refused to accept a bill raising the nation's minimum wage because the bill also would have eliminated the "death tax" on estates up to $5 million.

Republicans needed 60 votes to cut off debate and bring the bill to a vote -- but in the end, they managed to muster only 57 votes.

Furious Democrats called it "sham" legislation and they accused Republicans of "trickery."

"Americans are too smart to be tricked into foregoing middle class tax relief, so America can borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to give tax breaks to a wealthy few," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

According to Reid, the bill would have "bankrupted" the country by adding $800 billion to the national debt.

"It's unimaginable Republicans would deny millions of small business a research and development tax credit, it's unimaginable Republicans would deny 15 million workers a $2.10 raise, it's unimaginable Republicans would deny millions of middle class families tax relief, if 8,000 of their wealthy friends don't get billion-dollar tax breaks first," Reid said.

Reid said the American people will "see through these political games."

The Senate has now adjourned for its August recess, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he worries what kind of message senators are sending to their constituents by refusing to bring the minimum wage/estate tax bill to the floor for a vote: "That's tantamount to saying, 'We don't care about America's economic security.' And I'm deeply ashamed that we, the United States Senate, would ever dare send such a message to the American people," Frist said.

The Washington Post reported that 38 Democrats, one independent and two Republicans -- Lincoln Chafee (R.I.) and George Voinovich (Ohio) -- refused to support the bill, while four Democrats joined a majority of Republicans in trying to let the bill proceed to a vote.

Conservative groups such as the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) oppose increases in the minimum wage. Government wage controls are no different than government price controls, IPI contends, adding that minimum wage increases end up harming the people they are designed to help.

"The minimum wage is a tricky issue, because everyone wants workers to get a 'fair' wage (enough to live on), but not to the extent a mandated minimum destroys jobs by making the cost of new hires too big for some businesses," IPI Senior Research Fellow George Pieler wrote in an email to Cybercast News Service.

"Raising the minimum wage doesn't make it harder for people to look for work, but it means (other things being equal) fewer jobs available at the given price point when the minimum wage goes up," Pieler stated.

Most liberals who favored a higher minimum wage opposed the estate tax cut. They were also strongly opposed a provision in the Senate bill that they say would have eliminated state-approved minimum wages for employees who receive tips.

The Senate bill would have superseded minimum wage laws in California, Alaska, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State, according to liberal Democrats such as Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. Boxer was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as labeling the measure dealing with the state minimum wage laws "a devastating proposal."

The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) described the estate tax cut and other measures submitted by the Senate's Republican majority as "sweeteners to purely attract votes." But CBPP Executive Director Robert Greenstein warned that middle-class taxpayers eventually would have to pay more in order to compensate for the reduction in taxes on wealthy estates.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which bills itself as "nonpartisan," has released a study showing that 8.3 million workers would benefit from the minimum wage increase by 2009, when the average yearly income for full-time minimum-wage workers would rise from the current $10,712 per year to $15,080 per year.

EPI's report also said that estate-tax relief would benefit 8,200 households by 2011. "This [legislation] is more of an excuse to address the estate tax," CBPP Senior Fellow Joel Friedman said.

William Dickens, a senior economic fellow at the "independent" minded Brookings Institution, also supported boosting the minimum wage and rejected the theory that it would reduce the number of available jobs.

"No study I'm aware of has demonstrated that minimum wage increases lead to layoffs. What they show is that the total number of hours worked at affected firms drop," Dickens wrote Cybercast News Service in an email. "The employment reduction can also take place through attrition. But even if someone does lose a job, the low wage labor market is pretty fluid," he added.

Earning power is not based on a higher minimum wage, but rather on education, Pieler noted. There is "plenty of reason to stay at least through high school and preferably beyond ... but a higher minimum wage can reduce opportunities for high-school age workers who may want that option," he said.

The U.S. House on July 28 passed its version of the minimum wage increase bill by a vote of 230 to 180. That bill would hike the minimum wage from the current $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour in 70 cent increments over three years.

Pension Overhaul Bill Sent to President

Congress passed major pension legislation designed to assure American workers, including millions of baby boomers nearing the end of their working careers, that the pensions they have been promised will be there when they retire.

The Senate, in its last vote before adjourning for a four-week summer break, approved the 900-page bill that compels employers with defined-benefit pension plans to meet their funding obligations and seeks to prevent companies from terminating plans and shifting the financial burden to the taxpayer. The House passed the bill last week.

The 93-5 Senate vote late Thursday on the pension bill came shortly after the Senate fell four votes short of the 60 needed to advance a Republican-crafted package that combined an estate tax cut with a federal minimum wage increase.

Republican leaders, unsuccessful earlier this year in moving an estate tax cut through the Senate, tried to attract Democratic votes by linking it to a package of popular middle-class tax breaks and the offer to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over three years.

Democrats, backed by unions pushing for what would be the first increase in the minimum wage in nine years, overwhelmingly rejected the deal.

Votes on the pension bill and the estate tax package became possible after leaders from the two parties agreed to put off until September final action on a spending bill for the military.

During three days of debate, senators increased the size of the defense package to almost $469 billion with the addition of $13 billion to supplement the $50 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and $1.8 billion to build 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along the border with Mexico.

The pension bill now goes to President Bush for his expected signature and gives lawmakers returning to their states and districts a major achievement in an election-year session characterized more by partisan politics than legislative accomplishments.

"This bill is the most important action to safeguard the retirement of hardworking Americans in a generation," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said.

The legislation affects some 44 million workers and retirees with defined-benefit pension plans, forcing employers with such plans to meet their full funding obligations within seven years. Currently a 90 percent funding level is deemed acceptable.

Companies that fall seriously behind in their contributions must follow an accelerated funding program and are prohibited from taking steps, such as promising new benefits, that could cause further deterioration in their financial status.

"Promises made will be promises kept by limiting when benefits may be increased," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The bill was the result of years of debate and months of negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers trying to work out a formula that would force companies to meet their pension obligations without driving more companies toward terminating their plans and shifting benefit responsibility to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

The PBGC, the federal agency that insures pension plans, has accumulated a deficit of $22.8 billion, in part from taking over defunct steel and airline industry pensions. There is concern that a rash of future terminations could result in a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout.

The legislation carves out special treatment for the airline industry, giving airlines that are in bankruptcy court and have frozen their pension plans an extra 10 years above the seven years for other plans to become financially whole.

That would directly benefit Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWACQ), although two others with active defined-benefit plans, American Airlines and Continental Airlines Inc. (CAL), would be eligible for the same break if they decided to freeze their plans. Otherwise they would get 10 years - the seven plus an extra three - to reach full funding after the new rules go fully into effect in 2008.

Northwest, in a statement, said the bill "will save the pension benefits of 73,000 current and former Northwest employees."

"The winners are tens of thousands of employees in the airline industry, confronted within the next 30 to 60 days with the loss of up to 70 percent of their pensions with them going on the back of the PBGC," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., a leading advocate of the airline provision. Delta is based in Georgia.

Critics of the legislation said that it does little to reverse the trend of employers dropping defined-benefit plans in favor of less secure defined-contribution plans such as 401(k)s.

"Except for the helpful relief for airlines and multiemployer plans, the new funding regime for most companies will inject more unpredictability into their pension financial obligations," said James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, which represents companies with defined-benefit plans.

But the bill also won praise for encouraging Americans, particularly young workers, to save for their retirements through such steps as allowing the automatic enrollment of workers into 401(k) plans.

The bill also:

_Makes permanent provisions in a 2001 tax cut law that raised annual contribution limits for IRAs.

_Ends the legal uncertainty surrounding cash balance pension plans, which have run into legal challenges from employees who have claimed that older workers lose out when employers switch from traditional defined-benefit plans.

_Permits qualified financial firms that manage investment firms to offer face-to-face investment advice to help employees manage 401(k) and other retirement options.

Is Estate Tax Reform Dead?

Senate Republicans' attempt to push through a permanent cut in the estate tax before adjourning was nothing short of a spectacular flop.

Despite having sweetened the tax cut with a minimum wage hike and provisions extending a host of popular tax breaks, the Senate leadership tempted only one senator who hadn't previously supported it: Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., gave in, but only thanks to a last-minute add-on that would have paid for the cleanup of abandoned coal mines.

The defeat seems all the more glaring because it comes on the heels of two other failed attempts to get the estate tax through the Senate--one as recently as June.

And yet Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., seems hardly chastened. Rather, he has exhorted his opponents to "rethink long and hard" during the four-week recess that began early today, suggesting that another vote is in the offing.

All told, supporters were three votes shy of the 60 needed to advance the legislation, which passed the House handily last week. The final tally, 56-42, reflected Frist's switch from yea to nay--a parliamentary tactic needed to preserve his flexibility to bring up the bill again later this session. But will another attempt really stand a chance?

A third of the Senate is up for reelection in November, and legislation to permanently lower the estate tax is popular with voters. If nothing is done, the estate tax will disappear altogether in 2010 before snapping back in 2011 at the older, far steeper rates. Few would relish such a turn of events.

Republicans are betting that Democrats will come back to Washington repentant after taking heat from voters, many of whom might also be dismayed by the defeat of the minimum wage hike. Groups working to repeal what they call the "death tax" will surely pull out all the stops to make August a very uncomfortable month for the waverers. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., are seen as prime targets for such pressure.

But Republicans are also at risk of voter backlash on the issue of policy leadership. Many supporters of estate tax repeal or reform are scratching their heads over Frist's strategy.

"Why would you couple estate tax reform with a minimum wage hike?" asks William Beach of the conservative Heritage Foundation. "If you really want to pass something, you have a standalone bill that the Democrats want to sponsor."

Lost amid all the political rhetoric is the fact that there is a consensus in the Senate for estate tax reform: Democrats want to lower the tax--albeit by a smaller amount than Republicans want--and they prefer to carve out exemptions in special circumstances or for particular industries. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ariz., one of only four Democrats to vote yes on last night's bill, has floated such a plan, and it enjoys widespread support.

Regardless of the merits of the approach, it represents the best chance of compromise on an issue that is important to voters.

"There's no question that there are cases where this is a tough tax," says Gary Bass, executive director of Americans for a Fair Estate Tax, which advocates a moderate lowering of the tax.

With the old rates slated to return in 2011, it won't be long before the need for reform becomes urgent. The Senate leadership would be wise to not put off making a genuine stab at reform, as eventually it will become a consumer issue rather than just an irritant to small-business owners and the wealthy, warns Bass.

"How in the world will a family do estate tax planning?" he asks.

Lesbian custody ruling
'tramples' parent rights
Case challenging reach of civil union law
likely will be decided by Supreme Court

Addressing a dispute over the universality of same-sex civil union laws, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled today the state has exclusive jurisdiction over a child custody battle between two women who were in a lesbian relationship in Virginia.

The case pits Vermont's civil union laws against laws in Virginia that preserve traditional marriage, limiting matrimony to one man and one woman.

"Today's ruling tramples on parental rights and state sovereignty," argued Mathew D. Staver, chairman of the public-interest legal group Liberty Counsel.

Pointing out that Virginia law refuses to recognize same-sex marriage or civil unions, Staver asserted that under the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Vermont does not have the right to impose its same-sex union policy on Virginia.

"The Vermont ruling illustrates that same-sex marriage or civil unions will inevitably clash with other states," he said. "This case will have to be resolved at the United States Supreme Court."

The case centers on a dispute between Lisa Miller, represented by Liberty Counsel, and her former partner Janet Jenkins over Miller's biological child.

In December 2000, the two women, while living in Virginia, obtained a civil union in Vermont, which earlier that year became the first state to establish a legal arrangement offering same-sex couples most of the benefits of marriage.

Miller later gave birth to a girl through artificial insemination, but the child was not adopted by Jenkins.

The relationship ended when Miller became a Christian and claimed Jenkins was abusive. Miller, who says she no longer is a lesbian, lives with her daughter in Virginia.

A Vermont court awarded Jenkins "parent-child" contact and visitation. But a Virginia court declared Miller to be the sole parent, ruling the Virginia Marriage Affirmation Act barred recognition of civil unions.

Today, Justice John Dooley wrote that Vermont civil union laws govern the case because the women were legally joined in a civil union there in 2000.

"This is a straightforward interstate jurisdictional dispute over custody, and the governing law fully supports the Vermont court's decision to exercise jurisdiction and refuse to follow the conflicting Virginia visitation order," Dooley wrote.

Liberty Counsel contends that in addition to state law, the cases involve application of the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act – which requires courts to recognize out-of-state custody and visitation orders – and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to reject out-of-state, same-sex unions and any rights from that relationship.

Staver pointed out the Miller-Jenkins case is unique because, in addition to dueling federal laws, it represents the first time the courts of two states have issued conflicting decisions over a same same-sex union case.

Star's man in Havana caught by Castro
Star reporter in Havana gets a taste of official Cuba at its most oppressive

HAVANA—"Mr. Timothy, you must come with me. There is a problem in your room."

I had just tucked into a pork sandwich at the hotel bar when the ominous voice from behind stopped me in mid-bite.

I was about to get a hard lesson in the sensitivity to foreign journalists poking around in Cuba as long-time President Fidel Castro — potentially — lingers near death.

For three days here, the Star was prevented from reporting on the situation in this country, even as other journalists arrived on tourist visas and reported without official detection.

Our crime? Playing by the rules, applying for the needed visa upon arrival in Havana, an instance when honesty did not necessarily pay.

As I was escorted by hotel security from the poolside bar, I was led into the main building where waiting for me were a uniformed member of the Cuban ministry of the interior, an official-looking balding gentleman who may have been his superior and a fourth man who appeared as if he could have been a maintenance worker brought along for an interrogation he may have found amusing.

All the while, the hotel security man mumbled something into his wrist.

I was marched through the lobby of my upscale Havana hotel as if I was some type of flight risk who might try to swim to Miami, brought up six flights on the elevator, directed to my room, told to open it so we could deal with the "problem," and made to hand over my passport to the hotel security agent who interrupted my sandwich in the first place.

It was the fifth time in two days here that some official had walked away with my passport without explanation.

This was official Cuba at its most oppressive — a world away from the welcoming vacation beaches known to most Canadians.

The fact that the interior ministry could immediately find me at a hotel restaurant — not in my room — led me to believe that I had been closely monitored during my stay here.

Who had so easily pointed them in my direction? Hotel security? Perhaps the cab driver with whom I chatted on the way back to the hotel, maybe the two young Cuban men with whom I had shared a beer the evening before?

Were they listening in on my phone calls?

That possibility had led to a roll of the eyes and laughter from a government official with whom I had met earlier in the day, but my visit came five hours after I left her office.

"You are a journalist," the government official kept telling me.

I readily agreed, but time and again I told him I had written nothing, mindful of the half-written report that sat on a computer downstairs in the hotel business office.

Where was my camera? They wanted to know.

Who was my boss? Where did I work? Who had I spoken with?

What was that tape recorder doing on my bedside table?

The official, the little man with the tie — none offered identification or names — would gratuitously and randomly throw out English words and phrases, for no apparent reason.

"Be careful, be very, very careful," he said solemnly, his tone reminiscent of some old black-and-white Hollywood product he had once seen.

The only words in English offered by the man in uniform caught me off guard.

"Are you sick?" he said.

I hesitated, wondering whether he was offering a judgment on my state of mind.

"Are you sick?" Then he pointed to a handful of ibuprofen that sat on my desk, an over-the-counter drug I use to ease back pain.

It was made clear that if I wrote anything about Castro, I would be gone, "bye, bye," the one man said as the other chuckled sardonically, but the tone also suggested that my penalty would not be an air-conditioned limousine ride to the airport.

I would never come back to Cuba. Did I understand?

In the midst of the interrogation, a surreal element was injected when the power went off in the hotel. In the darkness, he didn't miss a beat and continued his questioning.

I could go to the pool and enjoy the hotel, I was told.

Could I go downtown, I asked? Oh sure, I was told after a moment's hesitation.

Eventually, it was explained that I was simply being "reminded" about a promise I made at the Havana airport during a four-hour odyssey after which I was finally admitted as a tourist, while vowing to seek the proper papers.

I did, although it was clear no one was eager to accommodate me.

The questions at immigration included queries about what I knew about Castro's illness, how I found out, what did I think of Castro, what kind of stories about the president does my newspaper publish?

After 90 minutes of appeal, I was granted entry, only to face almost three hours more of waiting and sweating at Cuban customs.

Every piece of paper I had in any bags was scrutinized. At one point, six officials huddled in deep conversation while they studied a scrap of paper on which was written my computer password, a piece of gibberish even to English speakers.

I was questioned about an old travel itinerary from Washington to Ottawa, which had been simply left in the bag for no apparent reason.

In fact, anything that indicated my U.S. address came under intense, microscopic scrutiny, including whether I had been to Miami — the scene of loud anti-Castro protests — and whether I knew the "mafia" there.

After a couple of hours, I forged a relationship with my overly efficient customs officer, who ultimately wanted to know if I was rich. That provided a much-needed moment of levity.

Ultimately, I was convicted of a terrible crime and made to hand over the day's copies of The New York Times and The Washington Post, plus some printouts of wire service stories dealing with Castro's illness.

But first, I was asked to offer a cursory translation and everyone huddled around to look at the newspaper accounts.

The paperwork dealing with the seized newspapers — which I gleefully and politely offered to simply hand over — took another 90 minutes of lecturing, passport seizures by one official after another and endless forms handwritten in triplicate.

Finally, here was the Toronto Star's crime — quickly getting to Cuba to try to tell readers about the mood on the street, the fallout of a protracted illness or death of Castro, and the future of the country.

News of Castro's illness broke very late Monday evening.

Six hours later, at 4:30 a.m., I was headed for the Washington airport to catch a flight to Toronto where I could get a connector to Havana. Clearly no time to obtain the needed papers, an explanation that curried no favour here.

So, at the beginning of the third day here, essentially under house arrest, I did what they wanted.

I left.

Bush fetes border security improvements

With 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to Southwestern states, President Bush said Saturday he has fulfilled his pledge to help beef up border security and challenged Congress to give him legislation that will welcome more foreigners into the country.

Speaking in his weekly radio address, Bush said immigration reform can only be successful if the get-tough border security to keep people from sneaking in is combined with opportunities for more immigrants to enter the country legally.

"By passing comprehensive immigration reform, we will uphold our laws, meet the needs of our economy and keep America what she has always been — an open door to the future, a blessed and promised land, one nation under God," Bush said Saturday. He recorded the remarks Friday from his ranch near Crawford, Texas, where he is on a 10-day vacation from the White House.

Bush wants to provide more temporary worker permits for foreigners willing to take low-wage jobs and allow illegal immigrants working in the United States for some time to become citizens. But Congress has been unable to agree on such legislation.

Conservatives in Bush's party have stood firm against his plans and say the U.S. should instead strengthen security along the border to keep illegal immigrants out.

In an attempt to appease them, Bush announced in May that he would send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border by Aug. 1.

"The arrival of National Guard units has allowed the Border Patrol to move more agents into front-line positions, and this additional manpower is delivering results," Bush said in the radio message. "With the support of the National Guard, Border Patrol agents have seized over 17,000 pounds of illegal drugs and caught more than 2,500 illegal immigrants since June 15th."

Bush didn't mention that only about half of the troops assigned to the four states bordering Mexico are on duty along the border. Many are still in training, the Guard said Monday.

Bush said, "Rational and comprehensive immigration reform must begin with border security, and we have more to do." He said he asked Congress to fund increases in manpower and technology, including high-tech fences, motion sensors, infrared cameras and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings.

But he said immigration reform must include four other goals to be successful:

_A temporary worker program.

_More ways for employers to verify whether workers are in the country legally.

_A path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already working in the country.

_Tools to help immigrants learn English and otherwise assimilate.

U.S. planning for post-Castro Cuba

The United States has big plans for Cuba once Fidel Castro is gone for good.

The administration is prepared to assist a pro-democracy transition government in Cuba — assuming one materializes in the aftermath of communist rule.

Just how far the administration is willing to go in support of a democratic outcome was underscored in an official document made public just three weeks before Castro, citing an intestinal ailment, relinquished power to his younger brother, Raul.

The document was written by the Commission for Assistance for a Free Cuba, appointed by
President Bush and chaired by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. It was a follow-up to a similar report issued two years ago.

The two reports, neither of which have received much attention, focus on the tasks that the commission believes United States should address in the post-Castro era, so long as Cuban authorities are agreeable.

Very little about Cuba's presumed needs escaped the commission's gaze.

As the panel sees it, the administration should "assist with garbage trucks" to ensure proper trash collection and disposal and water trucks to help thirsty communities.

The aid program also should provide "soap, disinfectant, and cleaning materials to vulnerable groups."

In addition, Uncle Sam's envoys should be on hand to suggest options if food prices on the island spiral out of control.

Obviously, the report also addresses the major issues that Cuba could confront — issues that help define a nation. It recommends U.S. help in the dissolution of Cuba's one-party system and its replacement by "a level playing field for a competitive political process." It also urges the establishment of an American training program on the principles and functioning of a free press.

The administration's byword these days for Cuba is "transition," which appears almost 400 times in the more recent of the two reports, 95 pages long.

In contrast, Cuban officials scoff at the notion that a transition is needed, insisting that a seamless communist "succession" from Fidel Castro will take place.

But the administration sees the prospective demise of Castro, relegated to the sidelines weeks before his 80th birthday, as an opportunity that must not be squandered.

Castro is, after all, the man who dealt a humiliating defeat to the United States at the Bay of Pigs, helped bring the world close to a nuclear holocaust during the 1962 missile crisis and has steadfastly opposed America's blueprint for the world for virtually all of his 47 years in power.

The United States has plenty of resources to toss Cuba's way in the post-Castro era. But its record of nation building in recent years is widely considered to border on failure. Exhibit A is
Iraq.

Cuban officals are only too happy to draw parallels between the American experience with ousting a hostile leader in Iraq and its aspirations for Cuba.

"Regime change: that's the concept that they (the Americans) have applied in Iraq," Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said recently, implying that Washington would do no better in orchestrating a transition to democracy in Cuba.

Cuba lacks the sectarian divisions that have played havoc with nation building in Iraq. What is still in question is the number of Cubans who will be willing to scuttle the current system and embrace multi-party democracy.

"We need a reality check here," said Wayne Smith, America's top diplomat to Havana from 1979 to 1982. "Anyone who knows Cuba knows the Cuban people aren't going to rise up against a successor regime."

Rice disagrees, telling the Cuban people Friday an address over U.S.-government run broadcast facilities:

"The United States respects your aspirations as sovereign citizens, and we will stand with you to secure your rights to speak as you choose, to think as you please, to worship as you wish, and to choose your leaders freely and fairly in democratic elections," she said.

Attacks against Iraqi civilians climb

Up to 80 percent of the attacks in one of Iraq's most troubled provinces are against civilians rather than the U.S. military, a deliberate shift in tactics over the past eight months, a U.S. commander said Friday.

The description of kidnappings, assassinations and other attacks in Diyala province followed testimony Thursday by two U.S. generals to Congress that an upsurge in violence in Iraq could drive the country into civil war.

"Initially we were the target of just about 60 percent of the attacks," Col. Brian Jones, commander of the 4th Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team, said Friday.

Now, he said, "we are seeing anywhere from 20 to 25 percent of the attacks, and a majority of the attacks are now amongst the civilian population."

The attacks in Diyala, north of Baghdad, often are assassinations or kidnappings for extortion, Jones told
Pentagon reporters in a briefing from Iraq.

The Bush administration and military leaders have been reluctant to characterize the sectarian violence as a civil war. But on Thursday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told a Senate committee that it could lead that that.

Jones said the kidnappings provide money for insurgent operations, but it is not clear whether the abductions are orchestrated by local militia groups or foreign fighters.

"It's very difficult to classify what's being conducted by insurgents as opposed to what's sectarian because there are so many interests that collide here in Diyala," Jones said. He noted that while Sunnis accounts for a majority of the population, the provincial government is run more by Shiites and Kurds.

Jones offered an optimistic assessment of the Iraqi Army units in his region, saying he believes they will be ready to operate on their own by the end of this year or the middle of next year. He said the units are not independent yet because they lack military intelligence capabilities and logistical support, such as the ability to get enough gas to run their trucks.

When asked why the Iraqi Army's progress has not stemmed the violence, he said the situation would be much worse without them.

"I can't imagine what the violence would be like if the (Iraqi) army wasn't working," he said. "I think what you'll see is a peak in the violence, and I think it'll start to drop off.

Gov't adding fruits, veggies to WIC list

The grocery shopping list for the far-reaching Women, Infants and Children program is getting its first significant update since the 1970s. Fruits, vegetables and whole grains are being added to the program, which helps feed more than half the babies born in the U.S. To cover the cost, WIC will pay for less of the juice, eggs, cheese and milk that have been staples of the program.

The changes to the low-income nutrition program were proposed Friday and will be finalized next year. Anti-hunger groups are enthusiastic about the additions.

"Overall, we're really happy about this food package. We think, for WIC clients, this is going to make a huge difference," said Geri Henchy, director of early childhood nutrition at the Food Research and Action Center.

"We like the idea that there are choices, that clients go to the grocery store and can pick the fruits and vegetables they want," she said.

The revisions follow the advice of the federally chartered Institute of Medicine, which said the WIC program needs to reflect changes in science and society since it was created three decades ago.

Adding fruits, vegetables and whole grain products follows changes last year to the government's dietary guidelines.

"The WIC food package has not been revised or updated since 1980," said Kate Coler, the Agriculture Department deputy undersecretary who oversees the program. "We thought it was a prudent time to have a scientific review of the package."

The department aims to add the new foods without changing the overall cost.

The shopping list has gone largely unchanged since WIC began in the 1970s. In the meantime, food availability has grown, obesity has become a major public health threat and WIC itself has grown dramatically, reaching 8 million people nationwide.

Knowledge about nutrition has also advanced, another impetus for updating the list of WIC foods. The government proposes to add fruits and vegetables and cut the amount of juice by half or more. The government now encourages whole fruits rather than fruit juices, which can have more sugar and less fiber, in its dietary guidelines

Juice makers said the juice reductions are much too severe. Allowing more juice would help ensure kids are getting the vitamin C they need and discourage kids from drinking soda or other sweetened drinks, said Jim Callahan, spokesman for Welch's.

Anti-hunger groups expressed some disappointment over the Agriculture Department's decision to pay for fewer fruits and vegetables than recommended by the institute.

"We are disappointed that some budget constraints USDA placed on itself means the proposal doesn't allow the full amount of fruits and vegetables, which WIC clients need and the Institute of Medicine recommended," Henchy said.

The program would pay for $6 worth of fruits and vegetables for children and $8 for women per month. These totals are about $2 less than the institute recommended, keeping the program's cost unchanged from current levels.

Under the WIC program, people receive vouchers or food checks that can be redeemed at stores for infant formula and specific foods worth about $35 a month, depending on who is receiving the food. People can be at or slightly above the federal poverty level, depending on the state. A family of four with income averaging $37,000 would qualify.

Under the proposed changes, the monthly value would increase for women and infants but drop for children ages 1 through 5, which is another sore point with nutrition groups. Children 1 through 5 are the majority of people in the program.

The program also offers nutrition education, health and social service referrals and breast-feeding support.

Among the proposed changes:

_The amount of juice would be cut from up to 9 ounces daily to 4 ounces for children ages 1 through 5.

_Milk would be cut from up to 3 cups daily to 2 cups for children 1 through 5. New substitutions would allow soy milk and tofu for people who have milk allergies or trouble digesting lactose.

_Whole grain bread would be added to the list. Substitutions such as corn tortillas and brown rice would be allowed to reflect the cultural diversity of those served by WIC.

WIC encourages mothers to breast-feed their babies by offering more foods, particularly for women whose children aren't getting formula through the program. Those women currently can get one vegetable, carrots, as well as canned tuna.

The new list would increase the amount of canned fish to 30 ounces and add canned salmon as an option. The president of the U.S. Tuna Foundation, Anne Forristall Luke, applauded the plan.

"Canned tuna is a convenient, affordable and nutritious food we all grew up on and is unrivaled in its nutritional benefits," she said.

WIC pays for canned white, light, dark or blended tuna packed in water or oil.

The expanded food list was outlined Friday in a proposed change to the WIC program. The Agriculture Department will accept comments from the public over the next three months. Final approval is expected next year.

Deficit estimated lowest in 4 years

The federal deficit will register $260 billion this year, the lowest in four years, reflecting a strong economy and resulting growth in tax revenue, congressional analysts said Friday.

The estimate by the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office is well below its earlier predictions and also below the $296 billion White House estimate less than a month ago.

Better-than-expected revenues are driving the deficit down from last year's $318 billion figure and far below the record $413 billion posted in 2004.

At $260 billion, it would be the lowest since the $158 billion figure in 2002, the first deficit following four years of surpluses.

The deficit picture is even better when measured against the size of the economy, which is the comparison economists think is most important.

"At 2 percent of gross domestic product, the 2006 deficit would be smaller than the deficit recorded in the past three years — 3.5 percent in 2003, 3.6 percent in 2004 and 2.6 percent in 2005," said the CBO report.

So far this year, taxes on corporate profits are 27 percent or $56 billion higher compared to the first 10 months of last year. That reflects the strong economy. All told, receipts from corporate profits are estimated to tally two and a half times those collected in 2003, CBO said.

The budget year ends Sept. 30.

Receipts are also 20 percent higher on income and payroll taxes paid quarterly by wealthier people and small businessmen but taxes withheld in paychecks are only 8 percent higher. Tax receipts are estimated to run $223 billion higher than 2005, CBO said.

The CBO estimate continues a positive trend on the deficit after a grim deficit performance during
President Bush's first term.

Republicans credited GOP fiscal policies centered on tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 and a clampdown on domestic agencies funded by Congress each year. Were it not for the war in
Iraq and ongoing hurricane relief costs, the deficit would be far lower.

"Even with the extraordinary circumstances of the past year — including Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing War on Terror — we're seeing the deficit fall," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa. "Thanks to pro-growth policies and a responsible budget blueprint, we're on the right track, but we've got to remain diligent."

Democrats said a $260 billion deficit is nothing to crow about.

"The deficit for this year will be the sixth largest in history, and will stand a long way from the $236 billion surplus recorded in 2000, the last year of the Clinton Administration," said top House Budget Committee Democrat John Spratt Jr. of South Carolina.

The Bush White House has gained a reputation for overstating deficit figures early in the year in order to report better news later. In February, the White House predicted a $423 billion deficit for the current year.

Rice sends message of US support to Cubans

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent a message of support to Cubans on Friday, urging them to stay at home to work for "positive change" now that President Fidel Castro's leadership was in question.

Castro temporarily handed over control of the country to his brother Raul Castro this week while he recovers from intestinal surgery, raising speculation over how much longer Castro will rule the communist island.

"All Cubans who desire peaceful democratic change can count on the support of the United States," said Rice in a message taped at the State Department in Washington and intended for broadcast via networks that reach the Cuban people.

"We encourage the Cuban people to work at home for positive change, and we stand ready to provide you with humanitarian assistance as you begin to chart a new course for your country," the top U.S. diplomat added.

The United States is anxious to avoid a flood of refugees amid the political uncertainty that has followed Castro's illness, and Rice made clear Cubans should not attempt to cross the Florida Straits to reach the United States.

"Clearly we believe that Cubans should stay in Cuba and be a part of what will be a transition to democracy," said Rice in an interview to be aired on MSNBC's "Hardball" program.

Referring to the handover in power to Castro's brother, Rice said it was not acceptable to "go from one dictator to another" and the Cuban people deserved better.

A U.S. government report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba recommended a month ago the United States act fast to boost a transitional government in Cuba when Castro's rule ends and get advisers on the ground within weeks.

U.S. officials say this plan has not been activated and White House spokesman Tony Snow said on Friday the United States was still trying to assess the situation in Cuba and no changes were planned in overall policy at this point.

Snow also sought to reassure Cubans the United States would not use the uncertainty surrounding Castro's illness to invade the communist island.

Rice's taped message is intended to be broadcast on Radio Marti, a Miami-based network which transmits Spanish language broadcasts to Cuba.

However, few Cubans are likely to receive the message via the U.S.-funded network as Cuba successfully jams the TV Marti signal and most of Radio Marti broadcasts in Cuban cities. The message is more likely to reach Cubans via commercial Miami-based stations which they get through pirate satellites.

Rice urged all democratic nations to join together to call for the release of political prisoners in Cuba and a transition that quickly leads to multi-party elections there.

"It has long been the hope of the United States that a free, independent and democratic Cuba would be more than just a close neighbor -- it would be a close friend," said Rice.

Justice frees records in library search

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Wednesday ordered full disclosure of records in a court battle between FBI terrorism investigators and Connecticut librarians.

Using a national security letter rather than a subpoena signed by a judge, the FBI sought records last year of a library computer in Connecticut. Such a letter allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena.

Four librarians who received the demand resisted, though they said they might have been willing to comply with a similar demand had it been approved by a judge, according to the
American Civil Liberties Union, which represented them.

The librarians had been under a gag order that prohibited them from even acknowledging the existence of the demand for the material.

The FBI dropped its demand for the computer records in June, saying it had discounted a potential terrorism threat. In July, the FBI said it would not seek to enforce nondisclosure in the case.

The court fight had been waged largely in secret and with the battle over, the ACLU last week asked the Supreme Court to release the records in the case.

Ginsburg directed that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York and a lower federal court in Connecticut unseal the material.

The national security letter sought subscriber and billing information related to a computer used within a 45-minute time period Feb. 15, 2005, when the potential threat was transmitted from a library computer. Authorities have declined to say where exactly that computer was located, but that the request did not involve reading lists of library patrons. The potential threat was in an e-mail.

"We concluded that based on the passage of time as well as other information we've been able to develop that this threat is probably not viable," U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor in Connecticut had said.

The ACLU said it was not seeking to unseal any of the classified information filed in the case.

Hoping for Castro's exit, exiles plan transition
Some question if post-Castro reforms are likely

BOGOTÁ -- After an ailing Fidel Castro ceded power last week to his younger brother, Raúl, reinvigorated foes of the legendary revolutionary returned to their situation rooms in Washington and Miami to strategize about how to bring about a democratic transition on the island 90 miles south of Florida.

The so-called transition plans range from a Bush administration vision of rebuilding the island and a congressional effort to fast-track $80 million to dissidents in Cuba, to independent efforts such as Peace Corps-style humanitarian brigades, and schemes by militant exiles to send boatloads of Cuban-Americans to foment revolution.

Yet all of the plans depend on a crucial, and not-at-all foregone conclusion: that Cuba's military officers, bureaucrats, or ordinary citizens will rise up in a post-Fidel era to demand democracy and free markets. The transition plans, many Cuba watchers say, have scant hope for success if Fidel Castro's passing from power results in a long-planned succession to his 75-year-old brother and revolutionary comrade, the defense minister.

``They're all pie-in-the-sky plans," said Wayne Smith, a former top US diplomat in Havana and director of the Cuba program at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank. ``The Bush administration's new plan is to . . . insist on a transition government acceptable to the US. Are the Cuban people going to rise up and make that happen? How can they?"

For nearly half a century, the White House and Cuban exiles have plotted and prepared for a post-Fidel Cuba. Yet despite every conceivable pressure -- from the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, to diplomatic and economic isolation from an embargo that began in 1962, to hundreds of shadowy assassination attempts and propaganda drives -- Washington's wily nemesis has survived , and brutally suppressed dissent at home. Now Castro's opponents in the United States think they have a unique opening to try again.

Since 2003, the Bush administration has been working on a plan to hasten the end of communism in Cuba. The first report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, a controversial 423-page document released in May 2004, advocated tightening the embargo and travel ban, and limiting family contacts and remittances to deprive the regime of currency and bring about Castro's demise. Critics say the measures have cut exiles off from their families and closed down back channels to influence the regime, while failing to weaken Castro.

The report envisioned that after Castro, Cubans would appeal for help and Washington would respond with 100,000 tons of food, as well as water, fuel, vaccines, and medical equipment. Under the scenario, US advisers and nongovernmental groups would establish democratic institutions and free elections, American technicians would rebuild the nation's infrastructure, and financial specialists would establish banks, a tax system, private property, and small businesses.

The report was bitterly denounced by the Cuban government, which questioned why a country with universal healthcare and one of the world's lowest illiteracy rates would need humanitarian aid from its archenemy.

``How dare they talk of `transition.' Our transition occurred 47 years ago with our revolution. Why would we want to go back to how it was before, with a few people controlling everything, with private healthcare, private education?" a Cuban diplomat said on condition of anonymity last week.

Lisandro Pérez, a sociologist and founder of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, called the Bush administration report ``a thinly disguised plan to create a US protectorate under a presumed scenario of chaos."

In a telephone interview, Pérez complained that the administration and many exiles assume that Cubans are waiting for salvation from the outside world.

``A lot of these plans and people advising the US government haven't been in Cuba in more than 40 years. There's language in the report about getting in vaccines, helping the starving masses, keeping schools open that leads you to believe these people think Cuba is like Sudan," he said.

The commission's 93-page follow-up report last month, which includes a classified appendix purported to address a US response to a post-Castro emergency on the island, conditioned its offers of assistance on the wishes of Cubans .

On Thursday, Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, introduced a bill dubbed the Cuba Transition Act to speed the report's recommendation to disburse $80 million to members of the small and besieged dissident community.

But several dissidents on the island worried the money would give Castro ammunition to discredit them as US-funded mercenaries. ``Those are 80 million arguments for the Cuban government" to portray us as US lackeys, said democracy campaigner Manuel Cuesta Morúa.

The White House has sought to cool emotions in Florida, where more than a dozen exile groups across the political spectrum were refreshing their action plans. The most radical said that they were preparing flotillas of boats and planes to send exiles to the island to unite internal opposition or foment rebellion.

Coast Guard officials said boats trying to make the illegal crossing would be stopped and sent home.

Francisco Hernández, president of the Miami-based Cuban-American National Foundation, an influential exile group that collaborated closely on the US government report, said his organization has had its own transition plan for 14 years, ``but it is changing almost every day."

The foundation's vision is of a civilian-military transition government that would release political prisoners, call for multiparty elections, and permit foreign governments and exiles to participate in reconstruction.

With some 800,000 Cuban-born Americans, including entrepreneurs who represent 52 of the richest 100 Latinos in the United States, according to Forbes magazine, ``We have enough wealth to take on a substantial amount of reconstruction that's needed," Hernández said.

Olga Nodarse, founder of Cuba Corps, a Florida-based initiative to train 700 volunteers as a Peace Corps-style brigade, said her group has sent books and assistance to 79 civil society groups on the island, from independent libraries to clandestine democracy campaigners. The Corps' plan is to send volunteers ``when relations are reestablished and the State Department says it is OK."

Eric Driggs of the University of Miami's ``Cuba Transition Project," cautioned that while many exiles have been ``looking at Fidel's incapacitation or death as the starting point for transition, I don't think that's happening." While some analysts predict that the younger Castro may take steps toward Chinese-style mixed-economy changes after consolidating his power, no one suggests he will move away from one-party rule.

Whatever scenario plays out, Driggs said, ``the exile community has really matured. Twenty years ago, they wanted to go back and relive the Cuba they knew. The majority now realizes their role is secondary, a support role."

Some have gone even further, shifting their position from demanding the violent overthrow of Castro to calling for an end to the US embargo and engagement of the communist regime, much like President Nixon engaged Mao Zedong in China.

Alfredo Durán, a prominent Bay of Pigs veteran, dismisses transition plans cooked up in Washington and Miami as ``unrealistic" and ``counterproductive," rooted in Washington's ``historical arrogance over why Castro hasn't given in."

The United States would be wise, said Durán, a board member of the Miami-based Cuban Committee for Democracy, to allow succession to run its course. Most Communist Party central committee members are younger and well educated, he said, and ``know Cuba has to get into the 21st century, which will require changes in politics, economics, and social structures."

If the US government or exiles interfere in what he and many academics see as an inevitable opening, ``hard-liners in Cuba will get into their bunkers and say they're under threat, and moderates willing to make a transition will be unwilling to be seen as traitors," Durán said. ``We need a silken hand to wait this process out before we make any rash decisions."

McKinney alleges voting irregularities

By Carlos Campos | Tuesday, August 8, 2006, 08:17 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Shortly after the polls opened on Tuesday, allegations of voting irregularities began appearing on U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s campaign Web site.

At 8:14 a.m., the first complaint appeared: “Less than an hour into voting, McKinney’s name is not on ballot, opponent’s is,” read an item on her blog.

Other similar allegations would follow throughout the day as 4th Congressional District voters decided whether to send McKinney back to Congress, or give the Democratic nomination to runoff opponent, Hank Johnson, a lawyer and former DeKalb County commissioner.

The McKinney Web site noted voting machines not working or mysteriously casting incorrect ballots, “insecure” voting equipment, police harassment, and poll workers refusing to hand out Democratic ballots.

At one campaign stop Tuesday, McKinney said, “We also had a problem at Midway [elementary school polling place], where my name was not on the ballot,” McKinney said.

“My opponent’s name was on the ballot. … We are disappointed that the secretary of state’s office has not dealt adequately with these electronic voting machines and the deficiencties. Also, polling places have opened up and some of the machines were not zero-counted out. … And that is a problem. That is a serious problem.”

Dana Elder, the precinct manager at the school, said there was a power failure around 2:20 p.m. affecting one machine that lists registered voters in the precinct, but it posed no problem because there was another backup machine. The broken machine was fixed within 10 minutes and did not affect the actual voting machines, Elder said.

“It was really nothing,” Elder said.

The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office kept an eye on the elections, with 15 roving monitors on the ground in the 4th District, said spokeswoman Kara Sinkule.

Sinkule noted that the complaints were only coming from the McKinney campaign. “We are not having voters saying we are having equipment malfunctions,” Sinkule said.

McKinney has always held a distrust of the state’s new touch-screen voting machines. She has appeared at events promoted by activists opposed to electronic voting in Georgia. One of her congressional aides, Richard Searcy, was one of the most outspoken critics of Georgia’s electronic voting platform before taking a job in McKinney’s office.

When McKinney beat out five opponents in the Democratic primary in 2004 to re-claim her congressional seat, she did not question the voting machines’ accuracy or the results. On Tuesday, she was anything but silent on the issue.

“Voters should be able to go into the precinct with the assurance that their vote is actually going to be cast, first of all, and counted,” McKinney said Tuesday. “But at this point we have had voters to tell us the voting machines took several tries before they would actually even cast the correct ballots.”

McKinney made other claims about voting problems but did not elaborate or take questions before disappearing into a truck.

Both local and state elections officials said they are taking McKinney’s allegations seriously. But they were also quick to say many of the complaints were unwarranted.

The DeKalb County elections office released a statement addressing complaints from the McKinney campaign.

In answer to an allegation that a voter tried to vote for McKinney, but the machine popped up a vote for Johnson, the office said:

“Upon investigation by the manager, it was determined while the one candidates’s name was touched by the ball of the finger, the fingernail hit the name,” the statement read. “We do not expect voters to cut their nails to vote, but we are cautioning everyone to make certain they are satisfied with their choices before they hit the ‘cast ballot’ button.”

“We don’t have a problem addressing any claims that they have,” said Linda Lattimore, head of elections for DeKalb County, where much of the 4th Congressional District lies. “We’ll investigate and respond to each claim.”

The statement from Lattimore’s office addressed other issues raised by the McKinney campaign, claiming they were immediately rectified when brought to officials’ attention.

Some voters who wanted to vote in the runoff did not realize congressional lines were redrawn by the state Legislature in 2005, Lattimore said. So some voters accustomed to voting in the 4th District were perplexed at not being able to do so.

Lattimore said some voters who were told to wait while a poll worker investigated a problem misinterpreted it as being turned away from the polls. “We ask a voter to wait a second and suddenly [they think] we turn them away.”

Georgia Congresswoman Ousted in Runoff

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, known for her conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks and a scuffle with a U.S. Capitol police officer, conceded the Democratic primary runoff early Wednesday in a speech that blamed the media for her loss and included a song criticizing President Bush.

McKinney, the state's first black congresswoman, said electronic voting machines are "a threat to our democracy" and lashed out a journalists, accusing them of injuring her mother and failing to "tell the whole story."

"My mother was hurt by someone in the press in this room tonight," McKinney said after losing to challenger Hank Johnson Tuesday. "One of my assistants needs stitches because of the press that are in this room tonight."

WXIA-TV said on its Web site that a boom microphone had struck members of McKinney's entourage: "In the confusion, McKinney staffers struck an 11Alive photographer and knocked his camera equipment to the ground." Earlier in the day, the station said a McKinney staffer had scuffled with another 11Alive photojournalist.

Johnson defeated McKinney by more than 12,000 votes, getting 59 percent of the vote to 41 percent for McKinney. The black attorney and former DeKalb County commissioner is now the general-election favorite in the predominantly Democratic district east of Atlanta.

He will face Republican Catherine Davis, a black human resources manager who ran against McKinney in 2004.

"The people in District Four were looking for a change," Johnson said. "And what happened indicated it was time for a change."

In her concession speech, McKinney repeated her criticism of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, and said electronic voting machines, which have been used in all of Georgia's precincts since "are a threat to our democracy."

"Let the word go out. We aren't going to tolerate any more stolen elections. ... We want our party back!" she said.

Her campaign manager, John Evans, blamed the loss on the ABC _ Anybody But Cynthia _ movement and the Capitol Hill incident.

"It's over," he said. "Folks just beat us. They got a lot of white votes, a lot of Republican votes and they took some of our votes where we have been stable."

McKinney has long been controversial, once suggesting the Bush administration had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Tuesday's election was the second time in three election years that she has lost. After 10 years in Congress, the firebrand lawmaker lost in the 2002 primary to political newcomer Denise Majette, who vacated the seat two years later to run for the U.S. Senate. McKinney emerged from a crowded 2004 primary to reclaim the seat.

After her return to Washington, McKinney kept a relatively low profile until March, when her scuffle with a Capitol Hill police officer grabbed national headlines.

McKinney struck a Capitol Police officer who did not recognize her and tried to stop her from entering a House office building. A grand jury in Washington declined to indict her, but she was forced to apologize before the House. She drew less than 50 percent of the vote in last month's primary, forcing Tuesday's runoff.

"I'm getting tired of being embarrassed. She's an embarrassment to the whole state," said James Vining, 72, who said he voted for McKinney's opponent.

But Anthony Tyler, 47, said he backed McKinney because of her outspoken nature. "She speaks her mind, regardless of the issue. She is straight forward," he said.

Lieberman Files to Run As Independent

Hours after a Democratic primary defeat, Sen. Joe Lieberman filed petitions Wednesday morning to run as an independent in the general election. Senate party leaders in Washington quickly said they'll back the anti-war businessman who beat the three-term senator.

"The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the chairman of the party's Senate campaign committee, said in a joint statement. They said they "fully support" Lamont's candidacy and congratulated him on the victory and a "race well run."

Lieberman said his campaign collected more than 18,000 signatures on its petitions, more than twice the number needed to get on the fall ballot under the new party created, called Connecticut for Lieberman. The new party allows him to secure a position higher on the ballot than he would have if he petitioned as an individual.

If the signatures are approved, as expected, it set up a three-way November race with Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, who won the Democratic primary, and Republican Alan Schlesinger.

"Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else," Reid and Schumer said. "The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction."

The two Senate Democrats did not address whether Lieberman should follow through with his plans to run as an independent but it was clear that they do not intend to support him.

"I'm definitely going forward," Lieberman told The Associated Press. "I feel that I closed strong in the primary. I feel we began to get out message across strongly and we're going to keep on going.

"This race is going to be all about who can get more done and who can be a better representative of Connecticut."

In Cleveland, Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman seized on the results in the Connecticut primary to assail the Democrats on national security and called Lieberman's defeat a "shame."

"Joe Lieberman believed in a strong national defense, and for that, he was purged from his party. It is a sobering moment," Ken Mehlman said.

The Republican National Committee chairman said Lieberman's loss also is a "sign of what the Democratic Party has become in the 21st century. It reflects an unfortunate embrace of isolationism, defeatism and a blame America first attitude by national Democratic leaders at a time when retreating from the world is particularly dangerous."

Bush 'in bid to protect top staff'

The Bush administration has drafted changes to the War Crimes Act that would protect US policymakers from possible retrospective criminal charges for authorising humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.

The move marks the administration’s latest effort to deal with how the US should treat people taken into custody in President George Bush’s campaign against terror.

At issue are interrogations carried out by the CIA and the degree to which harsh tactics such as waterboarding were authorised by administration officials. A separate law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applies to the military.

The Washington Post first reported on the War Crimes Act amendments yesterday.

One section of the draft would outlaw torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, but it does not contain prohibitions from Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions against “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment”.

A copy of the section of the draft was obtained by The Associated Press.

Another section would apply the legislation retrospectively, according to two lawyers who have seen the contents of the section.

One of them said the draft was in the revision stage, but the administration seems intent on pushing forward the draft’s major points in congress after it returns from its recess in early September.

“I think what this bill can do is in effect immunise past crimes. That’s why it’s so dangerous,” said a third lawyer, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

Fidell said the initiative was “not just protection of political appointees, but also CIA personnel who led interrogations”.

Interrogation practices “follow from policies that were formed at the highest levels of the administration”, said a fourth lawyer, Scott Horton, who has followed detainee issues closely. “The administration is trying to insulate policymakers under the War Crimes Act.”

The administration argues that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions includes vague terms that are susceptible to different interpretations. The refurbished War Crimes Act is supposed to rectify that.

Extreme interrogation practices have been a flashpoint for criticism of the administration.

When interrogators engage in waterboarding, a prisoner is strapped to a plank and dunked in water until he fears he is drowning.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a former military lawyer, said congress “is aware of the dilemma we face, how to make sure the CIA and others are not unfairly prosecuted”.

He said that at the same time, however, that congress “will not allow political appointees to waive the law”.

Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA’s executive director, said: “President Bush is looking to limit the War Crimes Act through legislation” now that the supreme court had embraced Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.

In June, the court ruled that Bush’s plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals broke Common Article Three.

The Psy-Kos-is of the Left — The Terror Plot was all about Ned Lamont?

So predictable, ridiculous and outrageous are the conspiracy squeals from the Left about today’s great news that thousands of deaths may have been prevented that it’s hardly worth analysis…but doesn’t it say everything you need to know about the Left?

If they seriously believe that a renewed focus on terrorism is a PR boost for Bush, that the administration would “orchestrate” the entire plot and its release to the media because of its benefit to Bush, isn’t that an admission of several things:

1) That the Left knows the American people will always trust the GOP more than the Democrats in matters of national security and war-fighting when those issues are front-and-center.

2) That the Left is conceding their impotence and lack of ANY ideas about how to confront the most important issue of this era of history, despite their screams that they are the real “security party.”

3) That they fear being exposed as the Flaccid Sallies they are when the American people are confronted with a choice in a time when strong leadership is required.

Why else would they fear how they will be seen by the American people in the wake of what looks like a very close call? How else could they conclude that this “conspiracy” was carried out in connection with uber-Leftist’s Ned Lamont’s defeat of ultra-Leftist, but sane Joe Lieberman unless they KNOW that no answer they can give America will be a good one now that they’ve purged a loyal Party man for the mild apostasy of actually taking seriously the threat of IslamoNAZI terror WHEREVER it exists?

ANYWAY, if a terror plot would have benefitted Bush and by extension Lieberman, wouldn’t they have orchestrated this conspiracy prior to the primary in order to push Lieberman over the top if this was all part of the conspiracy?
Nonetheless, a sampling of the dementia:

From the Koshevics

The terror alert level is red today, and I smell a PR blitz. Ned Lamont won a big one for the peace movement on Tuesday, and by Thursday cable TV watching Americans find themselves in dire fear of toothpaste tubes. Suspicious minds might discern a connection.

BuzzFlash: U.K. Terror Plot Foiled Just a Day after Lieberman’s Defeat. Coincidence?

And now today, a few men in England were arrested for a plan to blow up planes flying to America, just a day after Connecticut voters flatly rejected Joe Lieberman and the war in Iraq.

We certainly can’t deny that there may have indeed been plans to commit these acts. But the timings of the arrest announcements are awfully suspicious.

HuffPo: On Heels of Joe’s Defeat, Terror Plot’s Revealed: Is There a Connection?

This news comes less than a day after an interview in which Veep Cheney said that Joe Lieberman’s defeat in Connecticut is likely to give comfort to the same Al-Qaeda by showing we- or at least the Democratic portion of “we,” are soft on terrorism.

Do you see a message coming out? Iraq is part of the war on terror, and those mouse-y pacifists in the Democratic party revealed their true colors by nominating a (gasp) anti-Iraq War dove instead of a pro-Iraq War hawk.

So in other words, the Dems - who are now rallying around that appeasing peacenik Ned Lamont- just make Osama jump for joy in whatever Wazeristan abode he happens to be in at the moment.

America Blog: Lieberman loses, CODE RED, CODE RED, CODE RED

And isn’t it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman’s loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

If Mehlman is in fact doing this, the Left has proved him right. After all, what has the reaction been — relief that thousands of innocent people were spared or has it been an all-out attack on our country’s leadership? What else can one conclude based on the hysteria in the Left-os-fear?

If they are actually convinced that they are “the real party of security” and that President Bush is an incompetent chimp, how do they reconcile all this with their trembling fear at the opportunity to appeal to America with their superior political, diplomatic and national security prowess?

Today is proof positive that the Bush Administration doesn’t even need a PR offensive to bury the Left, they can just sit back and watch the Surrender Party implode all on its own.

I couldn't figure out where to put this so...............................
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Defected Chinese Pilot Seeks Political Asylum in U.S.
Aug 10 2:24 PM US/Eastern
News Advisory:

WHEN: Friday, August 11, 2006 at 10 a.m.

WHERE: National Press Club (Zenger Room), 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC

Sheng Yuan, 39, a veteran co-pilot of Flight MU 583 with Chinese Eastern Airline, decided on Wednesday to leave the crew, after their arrival in Los Angeles. He is now seeking asylum in the US.

Just before his flight took off in Shanghai, the airport police questioned him and wanted to take him away, because he told another airport worker about the fact that more than 12 million Chinese had quit the communist party and the affiliated communist organizations, as well as the persecution of Falun Gong. The latter reported him to the police.

Yuan himself is also a practitioner of Falun Gong and was once thrown into a brainwashing class in China for his peaceful practice.

The police finally allowed the flight to take off after one hour’s delay, due to the fact that all the passengers were boarded and they could not find a replacement for Yuan. But the police chief told him they would like to "talk with him again" after he came back and took down his address and phone number and all the return flight information.

Yuan considered his situation ominous. He knew someone that was sentenced to four years in prison just because he possessed a copy of “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party”, a book that triggered the massive resignation from the communist party and the affiliated communist organizations in China since 2004.

Yuan, after a sleepless night, decided to stay in the US after his arrival in Los Angeles. He said he still did not know how to tell his parents or daughter in China about this yet. His wife in Shanghai could only sweep on the phone after learning this news, as they both knew the phone conversation could be monitored.

The Airbus left Los Angeles for the return flight hours ago. It is scheduled to land in Shanghai at 6 a.m. on Friday August 11 (New York Time). Yuan hopes the Chinese Authority will not persecute his family and colleagues for his own decision.

Defected Chinese Pilot Seeks Political Asylum in U.S. (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/10/144-08102006.html)

Terry gets 'Clinton' to endorse opponent
Florida state Senate candidate has fun in battle for GOP District 8 nomination

How do you try to beat a good ol' boy politician in Florida? Get Bill Clinton to endorse him!

That's the approach being used by family-oriented conservative candidate Randall Terry, who is challenging incumbent Republican Jim King in the primary election Sept. 5 for the nomination for the state Senate seat in Florida's 8th District.

Terry has launched a telephone campaign to deliver 43,000 calls to Republicans in the district with messages that purport to be from Clinton.

There's nothing deceptive about it: One script says, "Hello friend, Bill Clinton here – not really!" and the other says "This is a celebrity impersonation."

Campaign officials for Terry, who founded the Operation Rescue anti-abortion group, say the first round of calls already has gone out, and the second round is pending.

Terry told WorldNetDaily that he's had Republicans tell him the ads are a "breath of fresh air."

The "endorsement" from "Clinton" talks about how King is a good ol' boy, and has served the Clintons well in the past. "Clinton" also condemns Terry as being one of those anti-abortion, pro-family conservatives.

The voice sounds – mostly – like the former president, and promises King will give illegal immigrants college tuition, let homosexuals adopt kids and is pro-choice.

"Don't vote for Randall Terry. He's for traditional marriage, right to life, fair tax, wants to protect our borders; and no amnesty for all those potential Democrat voters!" the script continues.

"We are already getting rave reviews – people are laughing out loud," said Terry. "We decided that the voters deserved to laugh a little bit, even while considering the serious issues of this campaign. We can show the stark differences between Senator King and me, and have fun doing it."

Terry is the author of six best-selling books and has lectured at Yale, Southern Methodist, the Vatican and at Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church.

He's appeared on Hannity and Colmes, 60 Minutes, Nightline and other shows, and has college degrees from State University of New York and Whitfield College.

Terry has spent time in jail for his peaceful civil disobedience operations while with Operation Rescue in the 1980s and 1990s. It was during that period when he received a letter from Mother Theresa advising him that Christ, too, suffered for the sins of others.

Terry said early voting in the election starts Aug. 21.

Bush signs sweeping pension bill reform

WASHINGTON -
President Bush signed a broad overhaul of pension and savings rules Thursday, giving millions of people a better chance of getting the retirement benefits they have earned.

The law, passed with fanfare by Congress two weeks ago, gives companies seven years to shore up funding of their traditional pensions, also known as defined benefit plans. Special rules for seriously underfunded companies require them to catch up faster.

The 30,000 such plans run by employers are estimated to be underfunded by $450 billion.

"Americans who spent a lifetime working hard should be confident that their pensions will be there when they retire," Bush said.

He added a stern instruction to corporate America.

"You should keep the promises you make to your workers," the president said. "If you offer a private pension plan to your employees, you have a duty to set aside enough money now so your workers will get what they've been promised when they retire."

At the same time, the law recognizes the evolution in workers' benefits — a gradual disappearance of pensions in favor of savings accounts such as 401(k)s that require workers to amass their own retirement savings.

Those accounts, also known as defined contribution plans, got a boost in the new law. It is this step that many expect will do the most over time to help people working toward retirement.

The law lets employers automatically enroll workers in 401(k) plans. In addition, there is a mechanism to increase gradually the amount saved, and employers are encouraged to match some of the dollars that workers stash away.

A nonprofit research organization, the Retirement Security Project, estimated that the change, when fully in effect, could mean employees will save an additional $10 billion to $15 billion in 401(k) accounts each year.

"Those additional contributions will bolster retirement security for millions of workers," said Peter Orszag, director of the project, which works to improve retirement benefits for low- and middle-income workers.

Some changes were sparked by corporate scandals that saw workers, who had put much of their nest egg in company stock, lose their retirement savings. The new law requires companies to give their workers more investment options.

The law is not without its critics, some of whom say it does nothing to encourage employers to offer pension benefits and the reliable income they give retirees.

Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record) of New York, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said lawmakers may look back at the law as the "Trojan horse that brought the end of the defined benefit pension system."

"Erosion of the defined benefit pension system represents a dangerous shift from a 'we' society to a 'me' society, where every worker is on his or her own," he said.

The ERISA Industry Committee, which represents the retirement, health and compensation plans of the nation's largest employers, said the number of defined benefit pension plans fell from 112,000 in 1985 to fewer than 30,000 in 2004.

Of those still in place, the group said, many are closed to new participants or frozen, preventing employees from earning new benefits.

"With each past reform — often based on government revenue needs — employers have exited the defined benefit system as a result of the governments changes, which often resulted in burdensome and costly regulations," said Mark Ugoretz, the committee's president.

Leaders hope these revisions will prevent a costly taxpayer bailout of the federal agency that insures the pension system, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Some fear taxpayers will pay if too many companies dump their plans at once.

"Every American has an interest in seeing this system fixed, whether you're a worker at a company with an underfunded pension or a taxpayer who might get stuck with the bill," Bush said.

The law also:

_gives airlines that are in bankruptcy proceedings and have frozen their pensions an extra 10 years, or 17 years total, to meet their funding obligations. Others with active plans get 10 years to meet their obligations.

_requires companies to give employees more information about their pensions.

_puts certain "hybrid" plans, which have been challenged as discriminating against older workers, on stronger legal footing.

_says companies with seriously underfunded plans cannot promise their workers bigger benefits.

_makes permanent the higher savings contribution limits that were set to expire in the next decade. People can now put more money in their IRA and 401(k) accounts in the coming years. That includes a new option made available this year known as Roth 401(k)s. Those accounts let workers pay tax on their earnings before saving, but the money then accumulates and can be spent in retirement tax-free.

The Human Rights Campaign praised the law for changes that the group said will help same-sex couples by expanding benefits once only allowed for spouses or dependents.

Bush praised the measure for enacting the most sweeping overhaul in more than 30 years. But he said the changes must be coupled with revisions to the two government programs that benefit retirees,
Social Security and Medicare.

"As more baby boomers stop contributing payroll taxes and start collecting benefits — people like me — it will create an enormous strain on our programs," said Bush, who turned 60 last month.

'Gag order' for judges challenged in court
Family Council says voters deserve to know jurists' philosophies

Activists in Florida have launched a campaign to give voters information about the legal philosophies their judges hold with a lawsuit over an opinion from the state Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee warning judges to hold their tongues.

John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, told WorldNetDaily, that people are becoming "more and more aware of the third branch of government and realize it should not be covered with a shroud of secrecy and mystery."

The recent lawsuit in Federal Court for the Northern District of Florida makes Florida another in a growing list of states where similar issues have been addressed, because of the desire for voters to know the philosophies that dominate the judiciary.

"If a judge tells me Roe v. Wade was correctly decided and is good law, that tells me something about their judicial philosophy," Stemberger told WND, "because even the most liberal judges now realize Roe was horribly constructed legally."

The offending opinion came recently from the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, which told judges they have a right to express their judicial philosophy.

If they do, however, they are subject to being excused from certain cases, or to discipline if they don't excuse themselves, Stemberger told WND.

The issue is the same, although some circumstances are different, as other states where people also are clamoring for information about their judges. A few states where the issue already has become a hot button are Minnesota, Tennessee, Kansas, South Dakota, Alaska and Kentucky, observers said.

In Minnesota, a court concluded that an announcement clause in the state judicial rules was unconstitutional.

"We don't have an announcement clause," Stemberger said. "We have a pledges and promises clause."

And the ethics commission interpretation of that was: "It must be remembered that when considering motions for disqualification that the eye of the beholder is the primary focus.... The judicial candidate must not furnish answers that appear to bind the candidate if such issues arise once the candidate has assumed judicial office."

Stemberger said that means judges are not supposed to promise voters or other interests what they will do while in office. But he said stating a judicial philosophy is not the same as making promises.

Voters, said Stemberger, need to know "a judge is going to understand the proper role of a judge, the limited role as an intellectual academic arbiter of what the law is, not as a social change agent."

"We are not so much interest in their personal opinions. We want to know their opinions on decisions that have been decided.

"In our country, by and large, we elect circuit and county court judges by looking at the color of yard signs. That's pitiful for a robust democracy," he said.

The recent lawsuit seeks to have certain judicial rules declared unconstitutional as "chilling and prohibiting Plaintiffs' rights to speak and to receive and publish speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution."

The Florida Family Policy Council said it issued its voter guides on judges this year, even though about half declined to respond and those who did mostly declined to answer questions because of the burden of the rules.

"Judicial candidates have the constitutional right to announce their views on legal and political issues," the lawsuit said. "While the recusal requirement applies in appropriate situations. …it also applies to protected speech when applied to the (judicial surveys). This canon deprives judicial candidates of their right to inform voters of their views on disputed legal and political issues and imposes an unconstitutional penalty on judicial candidates who exercise their constitutional right to announce their views on disputed political and legal issues."

ChristiansUnite Forums

Entertainment => Politics and Political Issues => Topic started by: Soldier4Christ on April 28, 2006, 11:03:36 AM