Other Political News

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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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

Mineta to Quit As Transportation Secretary

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, the only Democrat in President Bush's Cabinet, will step down next month.

Mineta's resignation is effective July 17, White House press secretary Tony Snow said Friday.

Mineta, 74, was plagued with back problems during his tenure as transportation secretary and spent months working from home and the hospital. But he has since recovered, and Snow offered no explanation for why he has decided to leave now.

Asked why Mineta resigned, Snow said: "Because he wanted to."

"He was not being pushed out," he said. "As a matter of fact, the president and the vice president and others were happy with him. He put in five and half years - that's enough time."

Snow paid tribute to Mineta's long history in public life: his service in the Army, his elections to local positions in California, his 20 years representing California in the U.S. House, and his tours in two Cabinet positions, as Commerce secretary under former President Clinton and now under Bush.

Snow credited Mineta with cutting regulations and red tape to liberalize the commercial aviation market, establishing the Transportation Security Administration, helping to shape the highway bill and injecting "sound economic principles" into the nation's passenger rail system.

He offered no other comment about Mineta's departure, which comes weeks after a shake-up in Bush's top staff and Cabinet had appeared complete.

Mineta had only been expected to stay in the post until major highway funding legislation became law. Congress failed to pass a six-year, $300 billion bill to pay for highway and mass transit programs when the last spending plan expired on Sept. 30, 2003. The previous level of spending was continued until the end of May.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.

[Soldier4Christ]

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.''

[Soldier4Christ]

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."

[Soldier4Christ]

    
Bill Would Protect Religious Speech


 Legislation now in the House would ban legal fees being awarded to groups that sue Christians for publicly acknowledging God.

Congress is considering banning the legal fees awarded to groups that sue Christians who express their faith in public.

American Legion Commander Rees Lloyd told a congressional hearing this week that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has taken religious-establishment litigation to a new and absurd level. He was involved in a suit against a 72-year-old veteran's memorial in the Mojave Desert.

"It's eleven miles off the highway. It's in the middle of the desert," he said. "You have to drive to it to be offended by it. A judge says, 'Tear it down,' and gave the ACLU sixty-three thousand dollars."

The Public Expression of Religion Act, currently being discussed in the House, would ban such awards, and could stop much of the litigation. The bill still needs a sponsor in the Senate.

"We're told that the ACLU and others," Lloyd said, "will not fight battles for what they believe to be the civil rights under the Establishment Clause unless they are enriched at taxpayer expense."

Liberal groups not only see religious-expression suits as cash cows, they use them as a bludgeon to discourage challenges, according to Jordan Lorence, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

"They say, 'We're going to sue you individually, your kids won't go to college, you won't have any money for retirement,' and the people cave in," he said.

Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, told Family News in Focus that adding to the lure for anti-Christian groups is that religious-freedom cases have a much lower standard to meet before a suit can be brought.

"In most lower federal courts," he noted, "a plaintiff can bring a challenge to the Establishment Clause simply because the litigant claims he or she is offended by the imagery, the words or the alleged action."

[Soldier4Christ]

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."

[Soldier4Christ]

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."

[Soldier4Christ]

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.