Other Political News

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Senate Republican energy plan has merit, Bodman says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A plan by Senate Republicans to soften the blow of rising gasoline prices by giving taxpayers a $100 check and suspending a retail fuel tax has merit, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said Friday.

Bodman's comments to CBS television were taken as an indication the White House could support a proposal advanced by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Thursday.

"It certainly has merit," Bodman told CBS. "Whenever you have a proposal of that sort there's always the question of unintended consequences, so we will be doing analysis."

Frist's bill would give all but the wealthiest U.S. taxpayers a $100 check to ease the burden of high pump prices.

It would suspend until September 30 the 18.4-cent-per-gallon retail gasoline tax. The measure would be aimed at helping consumers during the summer months, the heaviest driving season in the United States.

However, Bodman reiterated the White House will not support a plan to tax oil industry profits, which some Democrats have proposed.

"There are a couple of things that we know don't work -- that is one of them," Bodman said.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

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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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

Senate allocates US$1.9 billion for border security


Senate Republicans voted on Wednesday to trim US President George W. Bush's financing request for the Iraq war by US$1.9 billion and to use that money to improve border security.

The vote, 59-39, on an amendment to an emergency spending measure, was cast on a day of difficult choices for Republicans, who passed up opportunities to strip the bill of provisions unrelated to its primary purpose of paying for hurricane relief and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The action was unusual because Republicans have been adamant that the war is the highest priority and have been quick to attack Democrats who show signs of wavering on the issue. Three Republicans voted against the shift in money, seven Democrats voted for it and two Democrats did not vote.

But with Bush promising to veto the US$106.5 billion spending measure unless it is pared to less than US$95 billion, senators who wanted to improve border security, a cause that grassroots conservatives have declared a main election year goal, felt that they had to do so without letting the underlying bill grow bigger.

"This bill is about national defense, especially relative to terrorism," said Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican who is the amendment's lead sponsor. "And yes, fighting the war in Iraq is critical to this war on terrorism. Fighting the war in Afghanistan is critical to this war on terrorism. But I have to think equally important is making sure that our borders are secure."

The amendment would provide money to the Border Patrol and Coast Guard for new airplanes, helicopters, patrol boats and communications equipment. Democrats criticized the proposal as "a false, cheap choice to secure political points," in the words of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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[Soldier4Christ]

Wyden Detains Senate With Subsidy Protest



WASHINGTON -- Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden tied up the Senate for more than 4 1/2 hours Thursday trying to force a vote on a plan to end subsidies of energy companies that lease federal land.

When majority Republicans refused to vote, Wyden, a Democrat, took control of the Senate floor, and refused to allow senators to move forward on a $106.5 billion emergency spending bill for Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war.

Wyden finally relented after Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada asked him to stand down.

Reid praised Wyden for focusing attention on the issue. He said that as a former college basketball player, Wyden "certainly has the stamina to stand as long as necessary."

But Reid added: "I reiterate ... that the point's been made."

"Today is a sad day," Wyden replied as he relinquished the floor, four hours and 36 minutes after he began speaking _ a marathon appearance that his staff said took place without benefit of a break.

Wyden's talkathon _ which included several sharp exchanges with exasperated Republicans _ fell far short of fellow Oregon Sen. Wayne Morse, who in 1953 spoke for 22 hours, 26 minutes against giving states control over oil leases.

[Soldier4Christ]

 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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.”

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Shammu]

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

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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."

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.