Other Political News

[Soldier4Christ]

House members not sure they'll back Senate drilling deal

WASHINGTON — For the past few days, members of the Florida delegation have been sifting through the details of a Senate compromise on oil drilling, dissecting each word, debating the pros and cons, deciding if it is a deal they can wholeheartedly support.

On the surface, they say, the agreement Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., helped craft this week is a worthwhile attempt at protecting Florida’s beaches and its economy.

The deal aims to open a large portion of the controversial Lease-Sale 181 area in the Gulf of Mexico and would keep oil rigs 125 miles off the coast of Florida. Because of language in the measure protecting a military mission zone, oil and gas exploration could occur no closer than 325 miles off the coast of Naples.

But some House lawmakers said this week that the Senate measure has many flaws and is unlikely to gain the support of their colleagues. Many say they still favor the bipartisan legislation the House passed last month, which they say offers more protection to the state’s shorelines.

That measure would give state legislatures the authority to ban drilling within 100 miles from its shores. It also protects a good portion of the eastern Gulf Coast because of the sacred military area where various Air Force and Navy missions are conducted.

“The Senate bill is certainly a step in the right direction,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, the Miami Republican who represents part of Collier County. “But there are parts of it that are highly problematic.”

For starters, the Senate bill offers no protection for the Atlantic coast and the Florida straits, something Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, said is “one of the most troubling aspects” of the agreement.

“It’s worse than the House bill that the Congresswoman voted against,” said Jonathan Beeton, a spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston. “It’s pretty much a non-starter.”

The House measure offers state legislatures the opportunity to keep drilling pushed as far away as 100 miles offshore. The Senate bill extends a drilling ban through 2022, while the House measure offers permanent protection — at least for 50 miles off the coast.

The House bill in general is more inclusive and is not just Florida-specific, lawmakers added, and doesn’t give pro-drilling states like South Carolina and Virginia the opportunity to do so.

“The Senate’s is a more limited bill,” said John Hambel, chief of staff for Rep. Adam Putnam, the Bartow Republican who helped craft the House measure with House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif. “There are definitely a couple of concerns that we have.”

Lawmakers agree there are some advantages to the Senate bill. The most obvious: it provides 125 miles of protection compared to 100 miles of protection the House secured.

“I love the fact that it’s 125 miles versus 100 miles,” Diaz-Balart said. “Obviously, we’ll take the extra 25 miles.”

The Senate bill also eliminates the House provision that would give state legislatures the power to decide how close to shore drilling could occur, a move that pleased lawmakers like Foley and Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers.

But even Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said while he finds the Senate deal promising, he still has his reservations and stopped short of supporting it this week.

If the bill does pass the Senate later this month as Senate leaders expect it to, House members say they hope to combine the best of both bills in a conference committee, where lawmakers in both chambers attempt to iron out their differences.

“We’re really not that far off,” Hambel said. “When you get to the real meat of it, we’re talking about 25 miles. We’re not that far apart.”

If the House and Senate fail to reach a compromise, however, that will put Florida lawmakers in an increasingly difficult position in the face of rising gas prices and the increasing pressure to open up domestic resources.

“Now that’s scary,” Diaz-Balart said.

[Soldier4Christ]

CAIR Asks Bush To Demand That Israel Allow Evacuation of Americans in Lebanon

Muslim advocacy group says Americans in Israeli army may violate Neutrality Act

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on President Bush to demand that Israel stop bombing civilian areas in Lebanon at least long enough to safely evacuate some 25,000 U.S. citizens in that nation.

Bush has rejected calls for a cease-fire despite the fact that Israeli attacks from land, sea and air have killed dozens of Lebanese civilians and severely damaged Lebanon's civilian infrastructure. Israel's attacks on Lebanon have been condemned as "disproportionate" by the international community, including the United Nations, the European Union and the Vatican.

Israel's bombing campaign has made it too dangerous for many U.S. citizens, both diplomatic personnel and Muslim and Christian Lebanese- Americans, to leave the areas under attack.

"If a call for the full cessation of attacks on the civilian population of an American ally is too much to ask for, at least we can demand that Israel stop its bombing campaign long enough to evacuate American citizens," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "The highest duty of any president is to protect the lives of Americans."

Awad also called on the State Department to issue an advisory to U.S. citizens in the Israeli armed forces that they risk violating the Neutrality Act by taking part in attacks on a friendly nation.

CAIR, America's largest Muslim civil liberties group, has 32 offices, chapters and affiliates nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

[Soldier4Christ]

Hispanics to play pivotal election role

WASHINGTON - Before California's Republican governor tried to get tough on illegal immigrants in the 1990s, the state had supported GOP candidates in all but two presidential elections since World War II.

California has been a solid blue state ever since the attempted crackdown, in part because of a backlash by the growing number of Hispanic voters.

Democrats hope to replicate that success nationally by using the current immigration debate to brand Republicans as anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic. But Latinos are showing signs they are dissatisfied with both political parties, making these voters pivotal players in the November election as Republicans fight to retain control of Congress.

"If the political parties use immigration as a wedge issue, there might be a very big backlash," said Marcelo Gaete, senior director of programs for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO.

"We might become the soccer moms of this election, but we will not become the Willie Hortons," Gaete said.

Former President Bush used images of Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a woman while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison, in a 1988 campaign ad designed to scare voters into thinking the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, was soft on crime.

Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the country, accounting for more than 14 percent of the population and about half the annual growth. But several factors diminish their political clout:

_About four in 10 adult Hispanics are not citizens, which means they are ineligible to vote.

_Hispanics are young, with a median age of 27, compared with 40 for white non-Hispanics. Turnout, in general, has increased among young voters, but they still vote at rates lower than for any other age group.

_Hispanics, as a group, earn less and have fewer years of education that than non-Hispanic whites, two more indicators of low voter turnout.

Hispanics "have bad demographics for voting," said Rodolfo de la Garza, a political science professor at Columbia University.

Still, a NALEO analysis concludes that Hispanic voters can prove critical in competitive Senate races in New Jersey and Washington, and House contests in Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas and Washington.

In each state, the number of Hispanics has grown much faster than the non-Hispanic population since the start of the decade.

"There is a sense that they are getting more political power within some states," de la Garza said. "In Texas right now, the Latino vote is important in local elections, but not as much in state elections. In California, they can influence state elections."

Most Hispanics — with the notable exception of Cuban-Americans — traditionally have supported Democrats. But President Bush captured about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, the most ever for a GOP presidential candidate.

It's unclear which political party will benefit from Hispanic voters in November.

A poll by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 16 percent of Hispanics support Republicans on immigration, down from 25 percent two years ago. Support for Democrats on the issue fell from 39 percent to 35 percent.

One out of four Hispanics said neither party has the best position on immigration, compared with 7 percent two years ago.

"Whatever risk there is for Republicans in these numbers is mitigated by the fact that Democrats are not making any gains," said Roberto Suro, director of the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

The poll of 2,000 Hispanic adults was taken June 5 to July 3 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In California in 1994, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson won re-election by championing an initiative that would have denied many public services to illegal immigrants. Democrats opposed the measure, which was approved by voters but struck down by the courts.

This year, Republicans across the country are divided on immigration and Democrats have failed to stake out a strong position, said Sergio Bendixon, a Hispanic pollster in Florida.

"The differences are not so clear this time," Bendixon said. "The Democrats have been very careful about their view."

The House passed a bill late last year that would make it a felony for illegal immigrants to be in the U.S. That sparked rallies by Latinos and others protesting for immigrants' rights.

The Senate, backed by the president, passed a bipartisan bill that would increase border security while also providing a path to citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda accused Republicans of "trying to scapegoat immigrants so they can win elections." But Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said the GOP simply wants "to uphold the rule of law, to protect our border, to oppose an amnesty and at the same time be a nation of legal immigrants."

For many Hispanics, this debate is about their future, Bendixon said, "about whether they are welcome in this country."

The Pew poll found that most Hispanics believe discrimination against them has increased because of the immigration debate.

"The way that immigrants are treated is sort of the proxy for how the Latino community is viewed," said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, state policy director for the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights group. "When you hear the vitriolic debate on immigration in this country, what do you think of? When you belong to that ethnic group, you feel it."

[Soldier4Christ]

Bush backs away from spat with Putin

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - President Bush backed away on Saturday from a public confrontation over Russia's democracy with President Vladimir Putin, adhering to a pledge not to lecture the Kremlin leader. At a joint news conference, the two made clear they discussed their differences privately on what critics say are declining civil liberties in Russia, and stepped gingerly around the issue in their public comments.

[Soldier4Christ]

US and Russia plan nuclear deal

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - The United States and Russia announced on Saturday they would negotiate a landmark atomic cooperation deal and sought to disarm potential critics by vowing to redouble efforts to combat nuclear terrorism. "We express our intent to develop bilateral cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy," said a joint statement by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who met ahead of a Group of Eight summit.

[Soldier4Christ]

Russian WTO entry bid talks falter

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russia and the United States failed on Saturday to strike a bilateral deal allowing Russia to join the World Trade Organization but agreed to set a deadline to wrap up talks within three months. Negotiators who have been discussing Russia's 13-year-old WTO bid virtually non-stop since Wednesday were unable to achieve a final breakthrough on a key "deliverable" ahead of the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg.

[Soldier4Christ]

Politics paved way for Big Dig -- and now underscores project


WASHINGTON --It took a dose of political hardball in Congress nearly two decades ago to launch the Big Dig.

The Massachusetts congressional delegation intensely lobbied colleagues to overturn a presidential veto by a single vote in the Senate, prying open the federal money spigot for the project in 1987.

Ever since, political maneuvering by lawmakers, state officials and private contractors has kept the problem-plagued project awash in public money -- despite critics who brand the Big Dig a $14.6 billion boondoggle.

"Politics created the Big Dig," said Jeffrey Berry, a Tufts University political science professor. "It was a highly political project from the very beginning."

Every major politician in Massachusetts seems to have a connection to the colossal project, creating a tangle of odd alliances across party lines.

Now, the question remains: If so many political leaders have ties to the contractors and project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, how difficult will it be to hold someone accountable for the deadly collapse this past week of 12 tons of ceiling panels from one of the Big Dig tunnels?

"The issue of the Big Dig has become a huge political football and it seems to get bigger and bigger all the time," said Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass.

The Republican ties of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. -- the lead name in the joint venture formed to manage the project -- were well-known when it was tapped in 1985 for the Big Dig, formally known as the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project. Former President Reagan turned to Bechtel for two Cabinet picks, George P. Shultz and Caspar Weinberger.

Over the years, the company and its Big Dig partners have forged strong ties to top state officials and lawmakers in both parties. Former Gov. William Weld's top fundraiser, Peter Berlandi, was also a lobbyist for Bechtel, sparking complaints from Democrats about his dual roles. Weld's campaign account swelled with contributions from Bechtel officials.

Bechtel later hired people like attorney Cheryl Cronin, who had ties to then-acting Gov. Jane Swift, a Republican, and then-House Speaker Thomas Finneran, a Democrat. It hired O'Neill and Associates, one of the state's leading lobbying firms, that was headed by Thomas P. O'Neill III, the son of legendary former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill. Bechtel also turned to veteran Democratic operative Andrew Paven, who could maneuver on Beacon Hill as well as Capitol Hill.

"They're well-connected in Washington and on Beacon Hill," Berry said of Bechtel. "They've been blamed for lots of failures, but the repercussions have been fairly minimal."

The Big Dig highway project, which buried the old Central Artery that used to slice through the city, created a series of tunnels to bring traffic underground. Although it's been considered an engineering marvel, the most expensive highway project in U.S. history also has also been plagued by leaks, falling debris, delays and other problems linked to faulty construction.

The initial price tag for the project was $2.6 billion and it was supposed to be completed in seven years. Instead, it took nearly 15 years and repeated cost overruns until it had ballooned to $14.6 billion.

Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, which has defended its work on the project, declined to comment for this article.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., thinks Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has enjoyed a huge advantage over the state's overseers largely because of the Big Dig's sheer size and the firm's broad expertise.

"There was no one of comparable skill and ability on the other side to hold their feet to the fire and to make sure the state wasn't taken advantage of," Lynch said. "That's the fundamental problem."

The state's congressional delegation, all Democrats, has fought hard over the years to keep federal dollars flowing to the project, despite rising costs and scandals -- including a federal audit that found evidence officials had concealed $1.4 billion in cost overruns. Big Dig bucks kept their labor supporters in the construction trades, among others, happy.

Meanwhile, a succession of Republican governors, more closely aligned with business interests, has worked to keep the project moving forward as a boon to the state's economy.

Big Dig contractors, meanwhile, have been a virtual ATM for Massachusetts politicians.

A review in the early 1990s by The Boston Globe found that 77 executives of firms with Big Dig contracts showered more than $100,000 to Weld and Paul Cellucci, his lieutenant governor, during their days in power.

Sen. John Kerry's political action committee pocketed $25,000 checks from the founder and CEO of Modern Continental Construction, the late Lelio "Les" Marino, and another Big Dig contractor, Jay Cashman, as he was laying the groundwork in 2002 for his presidential run.

But controversy has often followed the cash.

Gov. Mitt Romney pulled the plug on one fundraising event involving Big Dig contractors as controversy over tunnel leaks flared. Capuano gave back $2,000 from two political action committees for Big Dig contractors during the leak controversy.

State Attorney General Tom Reilly, too, has taken heat for $35,000 in Big Dig-related contributions while pursuing project cost-recovery efforts.

Now, both Romney and Reilly -- two politicians with ambitions -- have taken central roles in the investigation into the collapse this past week of 12 tons of ceiling panels in one of the tunnels that killed 38-year-old Milena Del Valle of Boston as she and her husband, Angel, were driving through it late at night.

Inspectors looking for design or construction flaws have focused on bolts that hold the tunnel's ceiling panels in place.

The connector tunnel, a main route to Boston's Logan International Airport, remains closed. Romney, a Republican considering a run for president in 2008, has seized control over a massive inspection of the highway system and vows not to reopen it until he's assured it's safe to travel through it. Reilly, a Democrat running for governor this year, has launched a criminal investigation with an eye toward filing involuntary manslaughter charges.

Andrew Natsios, a Beacon Hill veteran who has trekked across the globe to oversee U.S. relief efforts for some of the world's most horrifying disasters, was called in several years ago to clean up a Big Dig accounting scandal. He was taken aback by the mess, the rampant profiteering, the endless politicking, the seeming lack of accountability.

"It was not a fun thing to do, believe me," he recalled in an interview earlier this year. "I had to fire a lot of contractors and I had to call the FBI once. I hired forensic auditors to come in. My heavens. Every week, something else we found."

[Soldier4Christ]

Federal Reserve: U.S.
headed for bankruptcy
Report: Coming $65.9 trillion fiscal gap
5 times GDP, twice size of national wealth

A newly published paper by a researcher for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warns that a ballooning budget deficit and pension and welfare timebomb is growing into a $65.9 trillion fiscal gap that will force the United States into bankruptcy.

In the view of Prof. Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University, the U.S. is already bankrupt – at least the government is.

"The U.S. government is, indeed, bankrupt," he writes, "insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds."

While the U.S. budget deficit, currently forecast to be 2.3 percent of the gross domestic product this year, is smaller than that of most European states, Kotlikoff argues the much debated number is not a particularly useful measure of U.S. economic health.

"The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy."

The number that has Kotlikoff's attention is the U.S.'s long-term "fiscal gap" – the difference between all future government spending and all future receipts. Not only is the number immense, it will grow wider as the Baby Boom generation leaves the work world – and the burden of paying taxes on earned income – and stakes its claim on government health care and pensions. According to one study, the total fiscal gap could be $65.9 trillion.

"There are 77 million baby boomers now ranging from age 41 to age 59," Kotlikoff writes. "All are hoping to collect tens of thousands of dollars in pension and healthcare benefits from the next generation. These claimants aren't going away. In three years, the oldest boomers will be eligible for early Social Security benefits. In six years, the boomer vanguard will start collecting Medicare. Our nation has done nothing to prepare for this onslaught of obligation. Instead, it has continued to focus on a completely meaningless fiscal metric – 'the' federal deficit – censored and studiously ignored long-term fiscal analyses that are scientifically coherent, and dramatically expanded the benefit levels being explicitly or implicitly promised to the baby boomers."

How much is $65.9 trillion dollars?

"This figure is more than five times U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth," writes Kotlikoff.

"One way to wrap one's head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143 percent.

"Leaving our $65.9 trillion bill for today's and tomorrow's children to pay will roughly double their average lifetime net tax rates."

Given "the fiscal irresponsibility of both political parties," the professor sees the most likely scenario for maintaining solvency as the government simply printing money to pay its bills.

Kotlikoff explains: "This could arise in the context of the Federal Reserve 'being forced' to buy Treasury bills and bonds to reduce interest rates. Specifically, once the financial markets begin to understand the depth and extent of the country's financial insolvency, they will start worrying about inflation and about being paid back in watered-down dollars. This concern will lead them to start dumping their holdings of U.S. Treasuries. In so doing, they'll drive up interest rates, which will lead the Fed to print money to buy up those bonds. The consequence will be more money creation – exactly what the bond traders will have come to fear. This could lead to spiraling expectations of higher inflation, with the process eventuating in hyperinflation."

[Soldier4Christ]

 Judges allowed to pack gun under robes
New York judges still urged to be 'patient, dignified, courteous'

It's one way to assure order in the court.

The New York state Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics has ruled that it is permissible for judges to pack a pistol beneath their robes while on the bench.

"From an ethical standpoint, there is no prohibition ... barring you from carrying a firearm while performing your duties on the bench," the committee said in a decision published in this week's New York Law Journal.

Judges would have to comply with existing laws to bring a gun into court.

The committee was asked by one of the state's 3,400 judges whether it was "ethically permissible" to carry a pistol into the courtroom. And though it ruled in favor of pistol-packing jurists, the committee warned that judges must "be patient, dignified and courteous" to those appearing before the bench and behave in "a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary."

How to achieve that while armed?

"This committee believes that keeping your firearm concealed and safeguarded on your person while you are on the bench is advisable," the ruling said.

[Soldier4Christ]

China's empire-builders
sweep up African riches
'If the British were our masters yesterday,
Chinese have come and taken their place'

China’s empire-builders sweep up African riches
RW Johnson, Cape Town
IN the past seven months, Chinese dealers have bought 30 tons of ivory from Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Management Authority — representing the tusks of some 2,250 elephants.

“It’s an incredibly profitable trade,” said one game ranger. “They’ve not only run the parks’ stockpile right down, but elephants are now being poached across the border from Botswana and other neighbouring countries to fulfil the demand, which seems to be bottomless.”

The purchases are typical of China’s rapacious scramble for Africa, in which oil, minerals and all manner of raw materials are being eagerly snapped up. Opportunities for deal-making are swiftly exploited, sometimes with detrimental effects on the continent.

Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which controls the world’s ivory trade, President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has a special concession that allows it to sell lots worth £270 or less. This loophole has allowed the burgeoning trade to develop. Chinese money is now fuelling widespread poaching. Two months ago Zimbabwe police caught Chinese dealers with seven tons of ivory, of which four tons came from illegal sources.

“They deliberately mix legal and illegal stuff together as a disguise,” the ranger said. “Of course, the case hasn’t come to court and probably it never will, given President Mugabe’s ‘look east’ policy and his passionate enthusiasm for all things Chinese.”

In recent months Mugabe has been exhorting Zimbabweans to learn Mandarin and take up Chinese cuisine. Beijing’s voracious appetite for raw materials to sustain a fast-growing economy has seen Chinese trade and investment pouring into Africa in the past few years. In 2003 the total China-Africa trade was £6.6 billion. By 2005 it had reached £22 billion.

Human rights activists are appalled at the way Beijing has ignored scruples that have made many western investors wary of dealing with regimes like those of Zimbabwe and Sudan. “Wherever there are resources the Chinese are going to go there,” says Peter Takirambudde, head of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. “They see no evil. They hear no evil. That’s very bad for Africans.”

Indeed, the Chinese go out of their way to ingratiate themselves with dictators such as Mugabe, donating the blue tiles that adorn his new £7m palace in Harare. They have also decided to foot the bill for a large Namibian presidential palace in Windhoek.

The rhetoric of the China-Africa relationship is different, with China claiming to be the champion of all Third World countries, offering them a new relationship that will free them from their dependence on the northern powers of the G8.

They are adept at high-profile gestures such as a donation of four endangered white Siberian tigers to Zimbabwe for a captive breeding programme.

They have also succeeded in getting African states to accept large numbers of Chinese experts and workers as part of their investment packages: 28 “Baoding villages” have been established, each housing up to 2,000 Chinese workers, in various parts of Africa.

In Nigeria, a Chinese-language newspaper now serves 50,000 immigrants. At no stage in Britain’s colonisation of Nigeria did the British numbers reach such a figure. As one opposition figure in Zimbabwe observed: “If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have come and taken their place.”

At grassroots this is highly unpopular. Chinese goods sent to Africa are notorious for their poor quality. None of a shipment of 50 buses to Zimbabwe is still working and an order for 250 more has been suspended.

Of three MA60 passenger jets the Chinese sent to Mugabe, one has never managed to fly, one had to make an emergency landing at Victoria Falls, injuring many passengers, and the third caught fire on take-off in Harare last week. All are now grounded.

Moreover, as Eldred Masunungure, professor of political science at Harare University, puts it: “The resentment of the Chinese is not only widespread, it’s deeply rooted.”

The Chinese are generally viewed as loud, uncouth, prone to spitting and openly derogatory towards Africans. Worse, the copper mines they have opened up in Zambia and Zimbabwe are renowned for low wages, ferocious labour discipline and a sky-high accident rate. “That’s how they run things at home, after all — and on top of that, they despise blacks,” said one Zimbabwean engineer.

As with the ivory traders, many Chinese technical experts develop other ways of making money. In Harare, some are already a force in the drugs trade. In Botswana, Chinese workers brought in by construction companies now own hundreds of shops in the capital, Gaborone. Most worrying of all, however, is the way Chinese imports have largely wiped out budding African industries.

Professor Laurence Schlemmer of Witwatersrand University’s business school in Johannesburg, said: “In effect, China is forcing Africa back into the role of raw material suppliers — undermining its textile industry and importing raw cotton instead.”

Such concerns were raised with President Hu Jintao, who recently toured Africa. But for the moment the tidal wave of Chinese money is carrying all before it. “The Chinese are getting away with claiming that they aren’t like the other colonialists, but Africans aren’t fools,” a South African economist commented. “The Chinese are far more ruthless than the Brits ever were.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Hawaii National Guard to help Arizona Border Patrol

HONOLULU -- Hundreds of Hawaii National Guard volunteers will head to Arizona over the next few months to help mainland Guard troops fortify security along the Mexico border.

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the state adjutant general, said they will be assigned to remote desert areas far from Arizona cities but won't be near the border.

Lee said their job will be to notify border security of illegal immigrants making their way from Mexico and to provide humanitarian assistance until the immigrants can be taken into custody and sent back over the border.

"We'll be in some rough areas, places where very desperate people trying to get across often get stuck in a no man's land without any water or other help," he said.

The Hawaii Guard members will join some 6,000 soldiers helping with border duties over the next two years at the direction of President Bush. Guard units are being used until the U.S. Border Patrol can be built up enough to handle the job on its own.

One of the reasons Hawaii asked to send the volunteers to Arizona was because one of the three combat battalions in Hawaii's 29th Brigades is from the Southwestern state.

The unit, 1st Battalion, 158th Infantry Regiment from the Arizona Army National Guard _ is already on the border, Lee said.

The Hawaii Guard plans to combine the mission with the 15 days of annual training all Guard members are required to have. Guard troops will fly to Arizona for two-week rotations, train in the desert, and then return to Hawaii.

"We have to do our annual training anyway, and we felt we may as well do it along the Arizona border as in Pohakuloa," Lee said, referring to a large training area on the Big Island.

"We'll be getting all our needed training under unique conditions and doing humanitarian work at the same time," he added.

About 2,200 Hawaii-based Guard members and reservists returned a few months ago after a year in Iraq.

"The heat and dust will remind a lot of them of Iraq, but at least nobody will be shooting at them," Lee said.

[Soldier4Christ]

Democrats hope minimum wage push pays off

House Democrats' election-year persistence in trying to force a vote on raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in almost a decade looks as if it could bear fruit.

The Democrats have seized on the issue, which polls show is overwhelmingly popular with voters, as a building block in their effort to retake both houses of Congress in November. Their effort in Washington is moving forward as organizers in several states push ballot initiatives for the fall election to adopt or increase state minimum wages, measures that the Democrats hope could boost turnout of voters likely to lean their way.

In California, one of 21 states with minimum wages above the federal level, the Legislature is considering bills that would raise the state minimum from $6.75 to $7.75.

Republican leaders in both houses of Congress oppose an increase, saying that mandating a higher minimum wage would hurt low-wage workers by destroying their jobs. They also say the Democrats are engaged in a cynical election-year ploy.

"Listen, I've been here 16 years. And you never hear one word out of Democrats in an odd-numbered year. I wonder why that is," said House Republican Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, a leading opponent of a wage increase.

Democrats counter that they have long been committed to an increase, but can only pressure the Republicans who control Congress to act in an election year.

In the House, the minority party doesn't have the power to call up legislation, but it can slow the procedures and repeat a message enough to try to embarrass the majority's leaders into acting.

Just last week the Democrats turned debates on such legislation as a crackdown on Internet gambling and regulation of credit rating agencies into attacks on the Republican leadership's refusal to permit a vote on boosting the hourly minimum from $5.15 an hour, a rate set in 1997, to $7.25 an hour over two years. An estimated 7 million Americans work for the federal minimum.

"What is wrong with your leadership?" Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, taunted the Republicans during a debate last week on a vocational education bill. "Name the time. Name the place. We will be there with our votes," added Miller, a top adviser to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

And Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, a former minimum wage worker who was forced onto welfare to support her family, mocked the Bush administration's economic priorities. "A rising tide should lift all boats, not just the yachts," she said.

Democrats were permitted a vote on what's called a motion to instruct, which is a move to order House members who eventually will confer with senators on reconciling the two bodies' versions of the vocational education bill. The motion said House conferees should push that any jobs created under the legislation pay at least $7.25 an hour.

The motion passed the House, 260-159, in a vote that many members said was a proxy on increasing the minimum wage.

The vote heartened Democrats, especially after four attempts in June to force House consideration of the minimum wage were defeated in mainly party line votes.

"I'm very proud to say that Democrats have made the issue of the minimum wage too hot to handle for the Republicans," Pelosi said. "The more we call it to the attention of the public, the more pressure there is on the Republicans."

Pelosi has joined with Senate Democratic leaders in threatening to block this year's scheduled congressional pay raise unless the minimum wage increase is passed.

The vote also came after 28 House Republicans sent Boehner a letter calling for the House to vote on a minimum wage increase this month, before Congress leaves for its long August recess. They noted that a person working for the minimum wage 40 hours a week would earn about $10,700 a year, an amount that falls below the federal poverty level for a family of three.

The signers, all Republicans from the Northeast or Midwest, included some of the Democrats' main targets for November such as Reps. Chris Shays and Rob Simmons of Connecticut and Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

At this point, the most likely vehicle for a minimum wage vote is the appropriations bill covering the Labor and Health and Human Services departments. It is the only one of the 11 annual appropriations bills not yet considered by the House. Democrats won a committee vote attaching the minimum wage increase to the spending bill.

Eventually, the House will have to take up the bill, but the GOP leadership may prefer to do that in a lame-duck session after Nov. 7.

Boehner has spoken frequently about his opposition to an increase, and he says he does so from a blue-collar background. One of 12 children, Boehner worked in his father's bar growing up. He went to college and entered the plastics business before politics.

"The marketplace will set better wages and more flexible wages for the American people than government ever could. And by taking away the first rungs of the economic ladder, you eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, especially for people who can't get on the ladder because we've taken the rung away," Boehner said.

There are better ways to help low-wage workers, a recent Heritage Foundation paper argued.

"Congress should resist the urge to try to fix the economy by increasing the minimum wage. ... It should focus on reducing counterproductive labor-market regulation, especially the many rules that make it expensive for employers to create jobs and hire employees," said researchers Rea Hederman Jr. and James Sherk at the conservative think tank.

While the issue boils in the House, the Senate has pushed forward, voting 52-46 in favor of Sen. Edward Kennedy's proposal for the $7.25 minimum wage. But the proposal by the Massachusetts Democrat required 60 votes to cut off debate.

Kennedy continues to hammer away. This week he released figures he said showed that since the minimum wage was last raised, members of Congress have boosted their pay 24 percent, in eight separate increases. The president's pay has doubled in the same time period.

Kennedy said he plans to offer the minimum wage increase as an amendment to the pending transportation appropriations bill, which includes the latest congressional pay raise of $3,300.

"The lives of minimum wage workers are becoming more difficult each and every day," Kennedy said. "In the nine years since Congress last raised the minimum wage, these workers have steadily fallen farther and farther behind the rest of the country."

[Shammu]

Muslim Group Wants Christian Leader Barred from Canada
By Alison Espach
CNSNews.com Correspondent
July 17, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - An Islamic advocacy group wants Rev. Franklin Graham barred from entering Canada because of allegedly hateful statements made towards Islam. Graham's spokesman says the Evangelical minister's comments have been "misconstrued" by some Muslims.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations of Canada (CAIR-CAN) claims allowing Graham into Canada would be evidence of a "double standard." British Muslim Riyad ul-Haq was denied entry into Canada in June after being accused of inciting hatred towards Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims - a violation of Canada's so-called "hate propaganda laws."

"We do not welcome hate-mongers," said Leslie Harmer, spokesperson for Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, the official who ordered that Canadian authorities block ul-Haq from entering the country.

CAIR-CAN noted that shortly after the 9/11 attacks Graham called Islam "a very evil and a very wicked religion." The group argues that, like ul-Haq, Graham should be forbidden to come to Canada for a scheduled visit later this year.

"The comments they have made are very widely available, and there isn't a great deal of difference between the two individuals," CAIR-CAN Communications Director Halima Mautbur told Cybercast News Service.

The group is further dismayed with the government's decision, because ul-Haq promised he would not speak about anything controversial while he was in Canada.

CAIR-CAN Executive Director Karl Nickner said in a news release Thursday that "some Canadian Muslims are wondering whether a double standard is being applied."

"As Muslims and as Canadians," Nickner added, "we stand firmly against any hateful religious speech by representatives of all faiths."

But Graham, who is president of his father's Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), previously explained that he does not hate Muslim people and only wants to speak out about crimes committed in the name of Islam.

Jeremy Blume, a spokesman for the association, said Graham would not comment further on the matter because he already responded in an opinion-editorial piece for the Wall Street Journal, clarifying statements he said the Muslim community misconstrued.

"It is not what he is about. He is about relief work, about spreading hope of Jesus Christ," Blume said. "People misconstrue when he talks about it. They think he is against Islam and people of Islam. That is why he wrote this, so people could refer to it and just be done with it so he can get back to relief work.""

In his essay, Graham said that he does not believe Muslims are evil people because of their faith, adding that he has many Muslim friends.

"While as Christians we disagree with Islamic teachings, if we obey the teachings of Jesus, we will love all Muslims," Graham wrote.

"But I decry the evil that has been done in the name of Islam, or any other faith - including Christianity," Graham continued. "I believe it is my responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."

Despite Graham's explanation, CAIR-CAN is demanding that the Canadian government clarify its position on freedom of speech.

"We have sort of entered into an area which is creating a lot of confusion for our community given the differential treatment of these two clerics," said Mautbur. "It is incumbent on the government to provide some information to Canadians about how exactly this sort of policy of censorship is going to be used, and when it is going to be used."

Canadian officials have not responded to CAIR-CAN's complaints. Graham is still scheduled to visit Winnipeg in October.

Muslim Group Wants Christian Leader Barred from Canada

[Soldier4Christ]

 Stem cell bill nears Senate approval
By Carl Hulse The New York Times


WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate has moved toward approval of expanded federal spending on medical research using embryonic stem cells, but the immediate results of the legislation were likely to be more political than scientific.
 
President George W. Bush on Monday reiterated his intention to use the first veto of his presidency to kill the measure. Though the legislation has broad bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and the Senate, lawmakers said the House would be unable to override the veto, meaning the bill would not become law this year.
 
But Democrats, citing public opinion surveys showing that almost three out of four Americans back such research, say the issue is particularly potent with independent and more moderate Republican voters who could decide some of the most contested congressional races this year.
 
But Republicans say the issue also helps motivate their conservative base.
 
Bush and other Republican opponents of the proposal say the potential medical advances being promised by its backers will offer false hope to some suffering Americans while encouraging the destruction of embryos that will provide the stem cells.
 
"The fact is, there is not one cure in this country today from embryonic stem cells," said Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and a physician.
 
But Coburn and other conservatives were clearly in the minority as Republicans and Democrats said the expansion of research using stem cells could create new treatments for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries.
 
Supporters said they were confident that they had the necessary 60 votes for approval but were uncertain that they could reach the 67 required to overturn a veto because of an intense lobbying campaign by conservative activists.
 
Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and a chief supporter of the legislation, compared resistance to stem cell research to the skepticism that confronted Columbus and Galileo.
 
Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and the majority leader who brought the measure to the floor, said he believed the current administration policy was too restrictive.
 
"We have to work together to allow science to advance," said Frist, who is also a physician.
 
The White House issued a formal statement promising a veto on the ground that the "bill would compel all American taxpayers to pay for research that relies on the intentional destruction of human embryos for the derivation of stem cells, overturning the president's policy that funds research without promoting such ongoing destruction."
 
Under the proposal, the federal government would be allowed to support research on stem cells obtained from embryos donated for in vitro fertilization. Backers of the legislation say only those embryos that would otherwise be destroyed would be used and that the donors would have to provide written consent for the use of the embryos, now numbering about 400,000, that are stored at fertility clinics.
 
"So the choice is this," said Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, "throw them away or use them to ease suffering and, hopefully, cure diseases."
 
The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on two related measures, one that would encourage the creation of lines of stem cells without the destruction of human embryos and another to prohibit the use of tissue from fetuses gestated for research, which the legislation described as "fetus farming."
 
 

[Soldier4Christ]

Senate Panel Considers Funding Boost for Amtrak

WASHINGTON — The financially challenged Amtrak passenger railroad would see its federal subsidy increased by 8 percent under a bill ready to advance in the Senate.

Amtrak would receive a $1.4 billion federal subsidy for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The figure is contained in an as-yet-unreleased bill slated for a vote Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee.

Amtrak received a $1.3 billion subsidy for the current year, but the White House proposed cutting that figure to $900 million in its February budget. Amtrak supporters in the House increased the figure to $1.1 billion.

The Senate also approved $1.4 billion for the money-losing railroad last year but ultimately settled for the lower figure in talks with the House.

The development cheered Amtrak and its many supporters on Capitol Hill. Amtrak runs trains through almost every state, which gives it great support among lawmakers despite criticism from the Bush administration and some lawmakers for excessive subsidies on its cross-country trains, high labor costs and questionable management practices.

Amtrak sought $1.6 billion when presenting its budget request to the White House. An Amtrak spokesman said the $1.4 billion would not affect operations but would mean deferring some investments such as track upgrades.

"We consider that a very strong number," said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. "We'd have to make some decisions about some capital projects, but we consider that a very strong number."

Last year, Bush proposed eliminating Amtrak's operating subsidy entirely, setting aside funds for the Northeast Corridor and for some capital improvements.