Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the world faces "a new type of fascism" and likened critics of the Bush administration's war strategy to those who tried to appease the Nazis in the 1930s.

In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration's critics as suffering from "moral or intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security. His remarks amounted to one of his most pointed defenses of President Bush' war policies and was among his toughest attacks on Bush's critics.

Speaking to several thousand veterans at the American Legion's national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failure to confront Hitler. He quoted Winston Churchill as observing that trying to accommodate Hitler was "a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last."

"I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," he said.

"Can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?" he asked.

"Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world's troubles?"

Rumsfeld spoke to the American Legion as part of a coordinated White House strategy, in advance of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, to take the offensive against administration critics at a time of doubt about the future of Iraq and growing calls to withdraw U.S. troops.

 

 

With the Iran-Iraq war escalating, President Ronald Reagan dispatched his Middle East envoy, a former secretary of defense, to Baghdad with a hand-written letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a message that Washington was willing at any moment to resume diplomatic relations.

That envoy was Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld's December 19-20, 1983 visit to Baghdad made him the highest-ranking US official to visit Iraq in 6 years. He met Saddam and the two discussed "topics of mutual interest," according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. "[Saddam] made it clear that Iraq was not interested in making mischief in the world," Rumsfeld later told The New York Times. "It struck us as useful to have a relationship, given that we were interested in solving the Mideast problems."

Just 12 days after the meeting, on January 1, 1984, The Washington Post reported that the United States "in a shift in policy, has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the 3-year-old war with Iran would be 'contrary to U.S. interests' and has made several moves to prevent that result."

In March of 1984, with the Iran-Iraq war growing more brutal by the day, Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad for meetings with then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. On the day of his visit, March 24th, UPI reported from the United Nations: "Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers in the 43-month Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, a team of U.N. experts has concluded... Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, U.S. presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Foreign Minister Tarek Aziz (sic) on the Gulf war before leaving for an unspecified destination."

The day before, the Iranian news agency alleged that Iraq launched another chemical weapons assault on the southern battlefront, injuring 600 Iranian soldiers. "Chemical weapons in the form of aerial bombs have been used in the areas inspected in Iran by the specialists," the U.N. report said. "The types of chemical agents used were bis-(2-chlorethyl)-sulfide, also known as mustard gas, and ethyl N, N-dimethylphosphoroamidocyanidate, a nerve agent known as Tabun."

Prior to the release of the UN report, the US State Department on March 5th had issued a statement saying "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons."

Commenting on the UN report, US Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was quoted by The New York Times as saying, "We think that the use of chemical weapons is a very serious matter. We've made that clear in general and particular."

Compared with the rhetoric emanating from the current administration, based on speculations about what Saddam might have, Kirkpatrick's reaction was hardly a call to action.

Most glaring is that Donald Rumsfeld was in Iraq as the 1984 UN report was issued and said nothing about the allegations of chemical weapons use, despite State Department "evidence." On the contrary, The New York Times reported from Baghdad on March 29, 1984, "American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name."

 . . .  

Throughout the period that Rumsfeld was Reagan's Middle East envoy, Iraq was frantically purchasing hardware from American firms, empowered by the White House to sell. The buying frenzy began immediately after Iraq was removed from the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism in 1982. According to a February 13, 1991 Los Angeles Times article:

"First on Hussein's shopping list was helicopters -- he bought 60 Hughes helicopters and trainers with little notice. However, a second order of 10 twin-engine Bell "Huey" helicopters, like those used to carry combat troops in Vietnam, prompted congressional opposition in August, 1983... Nonetheless, the sale was approved."

In 1984, according to The LA Times, the State Department—in the name of "increased American penetration of the extremely competitive civilian aircraft market"—pushed through the sale of 45 Bell 214ST helicopters to Iraq. The helicopters, worth some $200 million, were originally designed for military purposes. The New York Times later reported that Saddam "transferred many, if not all [of these helicopters] to his military."

In 1988, Saddam's forces attacked Kurdish civilians with poisonous gas from Iraqi helicopters and planes. U.S. intelligence sources told The LA Times in 1991, they "believe that the American-built helicopters were among those dropping the deadly bombs."

In response to the gassing, sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the US Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most US technology. The measure was killed by the White House.

Senior officials later told reporters they did not press for punishment of Iraq at the time because they wanted to shore up Iraq's ability to pursue the war with Iran. Extensive research uncovered no public statements by Donald Rumsfeld publicly expressing even remote concern about Iraq's use or possession of chemical weapons until the week Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, when he appeared on an ABC news special.

 

 

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that.

Vashti McCollum, 93, Who Brought Landmark Church-State Suit, Is Dead

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Vashti McCollum, whose lawsuit to stop religious instruction on school property led to a landmark ruling by the United States Supreme Court in 1948 to protect the separation of church and state in education, died Sunday in Champaign, Ill. She was 93.

Her death was confirmed by her son James, whose refusal as a fifth grader to attend voluntary religious instruction led to the lawsuit.

Mrs. McCollum, who called herself an atheist in Illinois court proceedings but later preferred the word "humanist," said her son was ostracized and embarrassed by his schoolmates because she refused to let him attend the religion classes at his public school in Champaign. The classes for Protestants were on school premises; Jews and Roman Catholics went to religious buildings elsewhere.

She also contended that the classes were a misuse and waste of taxpayers' money, discriminated against minority faiths and were an unconstitutional merger of church and state.

After losing in two Illinois courts, Mrs. McCollum won an 8-to-1 decision by the Supreme Court. Justice Hugo L. Black, who wrote the majority opinion, said the practice in Champaign was "beyond all question" using tax-established and tax-supported schools "to aid religious groups to spread their faith," and, he added, "It falls squarely under the ban of the First Amendment."

A critical issue in the case was whether the Constitution's ban on establishing religion meant that all sects must be treated equally, as lawyers for Champaign argued was the case in their schools — or whether it required strict neutrality between belief and unbelief, Mrs. McCollum's contention. She won.

"The First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other in its respective sphere," Justice Black wrote.

The case was also important because it extended the First Amendment's protections to the states by using the due process clause of the much later 14th Amendment as justification. As such, all other cases that test Jefferson's wall of "separation of church and state" — including school prayer, aid to parochial schools and sectarian religious displays on public property — descend from this case.

The language used in comments immediately after the Supreme Court's ruling would percolate in debates for decades. The Catholic bishops, for example, accused the court of making a religion of secularism.

In 1952, the Supreme Court revisited the issue of religious instruction in Zorach v. Clauson. The 6-to-3 ruling in that case held that a New York program allowing religious education during the school day was permissible because it did not use public school facilities or public money.

Vashti Ruth Cromwell was born in Lyons, N.Y., on Nov. 6, 1912, and grew up in Rochester. She was named for the queen of the Persian King Xerxes depicted in Esther 1 in the Bible who refuses to obey her husband's order and is divorced for her spunk.

Her father, Arthur G. Cromwell, was an architect who read the works of atheists like Spinoza and Thomas Paine, then read seven versions of the Bible. After letting the conflicting ideas germinate for years, he had become a vocal atheist by the time his two daughters were in college, James McCollum said.

Mr. Cromwell was president of the Rochester Society of Free Thinkers and had persuaded the state education commissioner to end religious instruction in the schools of the one county in which it was permitted before his daughter filed suit to accomplish the same thing.

Vashti Cromwell received a scholarship to Cornell, but the money ran out during the Depression and she transferred to the University of Illinois, where she majored in political science and took courses at the law school. At the university, she met John Paschal McCollum, a professor of vegetable crops in the horticultural department, and they married in 1933.

After her children were older, Mrs. McCollum earned a master's degree in mass communications at the university.

She is survived by her sons James, of Emerson, Ark., Dannel, of Champaign, and Errol, of Moline, Ill.; her sister, Helen Curtis, who lives in a Rochester suburb; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

James McCollum, the oldest son, said that he at first had wanted to attend the religion classes, but that his mother objected. After a few months, he was allowed to go, but found the classes childish and "silly." The next year, he said, he told his parents he did not wish to attend.

His mother talked with the school system's superintendent, but he said there was nothing he could do. She was careful to say that she was making no criticism of religion, The New York Daily News reported in 1945.

She then sued with the help of a local Unitarian minister and financial support from a group of Jewish businessmen in Chicago. Her opponents, in addition to the City of Champaign, were church federations.

A dramatic moment during the initial trial of the case came when Mrs. McCollum's father said he did not believe in God, and a gasp went up from the crowd. Later, James McCollum said the same thing. Both "affirmed" that they would tell the truth instead of swearing by God. Mrs. McCollum called herself "a rationalist or an atheist."

Time magazine observed that the trial shared "features that made the Scopes 'monkey trial' a sideshow'' of the 1920's.

In the three-year legal battle, Mrs. McCollum received physical threats and was fired from her job as a dance instructor at the university. At Halloween, a mob of trick-or-treaters pelted the McCollum family with rotten tomatoes and cabbages. The family cat was lynched.

Mrs. McCollum wrote a book on the case, "One Woman's Fight," became a world traveler and served two terms as president of the American Humanist Association.

"We don't bother ourselves with the question of whether there is or isn't a God," she said in a speech in 1948.

The most comprehensive examination of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was conducted by the 9/11 Commission, chaired by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton. Now Kean, a former governor of New Jersey, and Hamilton, a former congressman from Indiana, have written "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission."  . . . The book offers little new information on the actual attacks, but provides a keyhole view of the commission's bureaucratic war with a White House obsessed with secrecy and control. Months after the commission's creation, the staff was still battling the White House and the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee to get a look at an earlier 9/11 investigation by Congress, the Joint Inquiry report, protected under a dubious claim of "congressional privilege." "This was frustrating," the exasperated Kean and Hamilton complain, "particularly since we were a creation of Congress." They add, "We were hung up with both Congress and the Bush administration over the documents that were mandated to be the starting point of our investigation." Things only got worse.

The man standing at the gate was Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel and now the attorney general. In public, George W. Bush was a president deeply concerned about getting to the bottom of the most deadly attack on American soil in the country's history. But in private, he ordered his lawyer to throw up every roadblock possible. In shirtsleeves behind the coffee table of his second-floor West Wing office, Gonzales spoke to the members of the commission as if they were bringing an insurance claim. "He never referred to the president by name or title," Kean and Hamilton report, "but rather always said 'client' — 'Let me take this back to my client,' or 'I've got to protect my client.'" The biggest battle came over access to the White House morning intelligence report, the President's Daily Brief, especially the one dated Aug. 6, 2001, barely a month before the attack. Titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," the document noted that the F.B.I. was investigating suspicious Qaeda activity on American soil "consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." When finally asked to provide the commission with his own testimony, the president said at first that he could spare only an hour of his time — and then with just the two chairmen. Later it was made clear that no recordings or transcripts would be permitted.

. . .

The White House gave in to the demand to meet with the full membership, but there was no way the president was going to testify publicly, or under oath. In fact, he insisted that he and Vice President Dick Cheney appear together, a move that led many skeptics to speculate that they wanted to ensure they kept their stories straight. Because of the insistence on secrecy, whatever was said in the room was largely lost to history.

 

Northwest's dumpster-diving tips crash

Associated Press
Published August 17, 2006

ST. PAUL -- Getting money advice from a bankrupt airline wasn't the thing that most offended some soon-to-be laid-off Northwest Airlines Corp. employees. It was the dumpster-diving tips.

Northwest is laying off its customer service workers and baggage handlers at many smaller airports as it reorganizes under bankruptcy protection.

Earlier this month, it sent workers in Bismarck, N.D.; Bozeman, Mont.; and Austin, Texas, a handbook with tips for handling their layoffs. It included 101 money-saving ideas such as, "Don't be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash."

Other tips included using old newspapers for cat litter, asking friends and family for hand-me-down clothes and asking a doctor for free prescription drug samples.

"I realize that some person probably thought they were doing a world of good," Bryan Dalzell, a Northwest customer service agent for 27 years and a union steward in Bismarck, N.D., told the St. Paul Pioneer Press Wednesday. "It came across to us, after losing our jobs after a lifetime of work, as patronizing and rather insulting."

Employee outrage prompted Northwest to change parts of its handbook, called "Restructuring Q&A and Employee Support," and remove the list of money-saving tips from its internal Web site. Northwest said an outside company assembled the information, which was first reported Saturday by the Bismarck Tribune.

"We do realize that some of the information in there might be a bit insincere and, for that, we do apologize," spokesman Roman Blahoski said. "There are some tips in there that are very useful and there are some tips that, looking back, were a bit insensitive."

Jackie Diebel, a Northwest worker in Bismarck, said she wept when faced with the reality of her pending layoff in November and the company's suggestions.

"How condescending to tell people to move to a cheaper place to live and if you go on a date to take a walk in the woods. Give me a break," said Bobby De Pace, president of the International Association of Machinists district that includes Northwest. "This is one of the worst things about how they treat their employees in the worst of times."

The layoffs are part of a labor contract ratified in June that also cut the wages of remaining ground workers by 11.5 percent. The deal saves Northwest $190 million a year in labor costs.

Marine didn't suspect Haditha wrongdoing

Sat Aug 19, 9:15 AM ET

The Marine officer in charge of troops suspected of killing 24 Iraqi men, women and children told investigators he did not initiate an inquiry into the carnage because he did not consider the deaths unusual, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

In a sworn statement given to military investigators in March, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani said: "I thought it was very sad, very unfortunate, but at the time, I did not suspect any wrongdoing from my Marines." Chessani was commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marines.

"I did not have any reason to believe that this was anything other than combat action," he added.

The Post said it obtained a copy of Chessani's statement.

Reached by telephone late Friday, Marine Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a spokesman on the Haditha case, said he had not seen the report and could not comment.

The Marine Corps has been investigating whether its troops deliberately killed the Iraqis in Haditha. The Marines also are looking into whether efforts were made to cover up the incident. Initially, the Marine Corps reported that 15 Iraqis had died in a roadside bombing or were caught in crossfire between Marines and insurgents. Survivors of the encounter and human rights groups, however, claimed that 24 Iraqi civilians had been deliberately shot to death by Marines.

The New York Times reported Thursday that military investigators have concluded that the Marines destroyed or withheld evidence.

 . . .

Because attacks were so common, Chessani told investigators he saw the incident as part of a "complex attack" staged by the enemy, according to the newspaper. "I did not see any cause for alarm," he said.

The Haditha case is among recent cases of alleged atrocities against Iraqi civilians. Five soldiers and a former solider have been charged with raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her relatives in Mahmoudiya. Seven Marines and one Navy corpsman have been charged with premeditated murder in connection with the killing of an Iraqi man in Hamdania on April 26.  

 

Civilian Killings Went Unpunished

Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai.

By Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson, Special to The Times
August 6, 2006

The men of B Company were in a dangerous state of mind. They had lost five men in a firefight the day before. The morning of Feb. 8, 1968, brought unwelcome orders to resume their sweep of the countryside, a green patchwork of rice paddies along Vietnam's central coast.

They met no resistance as they entered a nondescript settlement in Quang Nam province. So Jamie Henry, a 20-year-old medic, set his rifle down in a hut, unfastened his bandoliers and lighted a cigarette.

Just then, the voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He reported that he had rounded up 19 civilians, and wanted to know what to do with them. Henry later recalled the company commander's response:

Kill anything that moves.

Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the shooting began.

Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.

Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.

Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.

The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.

Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. About 9,000 pages, it includes investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass.

The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese — families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity.

Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units, a Times review of the files found. They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.

Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

"We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past," says Johns, 78.

Among the substantiated cases in the archive:

•  Seven massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died.

•  Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.

•  One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.

Investigators determined that evidence against 203 soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners was strong enough to warrant formal charges. These "founded" cases were referred to the soldiers' superiors for action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — A federal judge in Detroit ruled today that the Bush administration's eavesdropping program is illegal and unconstitutional, and she ordered that it cease at once.

District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor found that President Bush exceeded his proper authority and that the eavesdropping without warrants violated the First and Fourth Amendment protections of free speech and privacy.

"It was never the intent of the Framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," she wrote, in a decision that the White House and Justice Department said they would fight to overturn. A hearing will be held before Judge Taylor on Sept. 7, and her decision will not be enforced in the meantime.

In becoming the first federal judge to declare the eavesdropping program unconstitutional, Judge Taylor rejected the administration's assertion that to defend itself against a lawsuit would force it to divulge information that should be kept secret in the name of national security.

"Predictably, the war on terror of this administration has produced a vast number of cases, in which the states secrets privilege has been invoked," Judge Taylor wrote. She noted that the Supreme Court has held that because the president's power to withhold secrets is so powerful, "it is not to be lightly invoked." She also cited a finding in an earlier case by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that "whenever possible, sensitive information must be disentangled from nonsensitive information to allow for the release of the latter."

In any event, she said, she is convinced that the administration could defend itself in this case without disclosing state secrets. Judge Taylor's ruling came in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of journalists, scholars, lawyers and various nonprofit organizations who argued that the possibility of eavesdropping by the National Security Agency interfered with their work.

Although she ordered an immediate halt to the eavesdropping program, no one who has followed the controversy expects the litigation to end quickly. The White House issued a statement saying "we couldn't disagree more" with Judge Taylor's decision and crediting the surveillance program with saving American lives.

The Justice Department called the surveillance program "a critical tool" against Al Qaeda and said the parties to the suit have agreed to a stay of Judge Taylor's order until the Sept. 7 hearing. On that day, the judge will be asked to prolong the stay of her order pending further appeals, to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit or perhaps to the Supreme Court.

But for the moment, the ruling by Judge Taylor caused elation among the plaintiffs.

"It's another nail in the coffin of executive unilateralism," said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the plaintiffs with the A.C.L.U. And Anthony Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U., said Judge Taylor's ruling "confirms that the government has been acting illegally, in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment.''

The surveillance act was passed by Congress in 1978 in response to disclosures of previous government improprieties in eavesdropping. The act established a secret court to handle applications for surveillance operations, and set up procedures for them to take place while applications for warrants are pending in some limited circumstances and for limited times.

Judge Taylor said "the president has acted, undisputedly, as F.I.S.A. forbids," thus defying the express will of Congress, and she was unpersuaded by the government's stance that it could not defend itself in the lawsuit without doing the country harm.

"Consequently, the court finds defendants' arguments that they cannot defend this case without the use of classified information to be disingenuous and without merit," she wrote.

The judge, who heard arguments in the case in June, brushed aside several assertions made by lawyers for the National Security Agency. She held that, contrary to the N.S.A.'s assertions, the plaintiffs were suffering real harm, and had standing to sue the government.

"Here, plaintiffs are not asserting speculative allegations," she said.

Judge Taylor, appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, did not deal a total defeat to the administration. She dismissed a separate claim by the A.C.L.U. over data-mining of telephone records, agreeing that further litigation could indeed jeopardize state secrets.

But over all, Judge Taylor's decision was a rebuke to the administration, as she made clear in closing by quoting Chief Justice Earl Warren's words in a 1967 ruling: "Implicit in the term 'national defense' is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this nation apart."

 

 

July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new government has failed.

An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January.

The rising numbers suggested that sectarian violence is spiraling out of control, and seemed to bolster an assertion many senior Iraqi officials and American military analysts have made in recent months: that the country is already embroiled in a civil war, not just slipping toward one, and that the American-led forces are caught between Sunni Arab guerrillas and Shiite militias.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Officials in both parties said they viewed the arrests as critical in determining how they would approach the fall campaign, with Republicans saying it could be a turning point in a year in which they have been on the defensive over the war in Iraq and other issues.

The developments played neatly into the White House-led effort, after Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, lost on Tuesday to an antiwar primary challenger, to remind voters of the threats facing the nation and to cast Democrats as timid on national defense.

The arrests were announced less than 24 hours after Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republican officials suggested that Mr. Lieberman's defeat reflected the world view of a Democratic Party that was not prepared to lead the nation in such dangerous times.

Mr. Cheney, who a spokesman said had been kept abreast of the investigation, suggested in his remarks Wednesday that the outcome of a Democratic primary in Connecticut could embolden " Al Qaeda types."

In Connecticut, an anti-war newcomer ousted veteran U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, who has supported the Iraq War. This race got lots of attention around the country as a belle weather for the mid-term elections in 2006, but the primary election still generated a less than 50 percent turnout. The people who didn't vote: do they have children, or nieces or nephews in the army? Might their own kids be drafted to fight in some war 10 years from now as an outgrowth of the Bush's conflicts? Ignorance is death, and in this case, that's a literal statement.

Published on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

Global Disaster Averted by a Forgotten Hero of Our Time

by Douglas Mattern

"I think that this is the closest we've come to accidental nuclear war." -- (Bruce Blair, Director, Center for Defense Information, Dateline NBC, Nov. 12, 2000) This month marks the 20th anniversary of an incident that could have resulted in nuclear war. The forgotten hero that singularly avoided this disaster through his cool judgment under incredible pressure is Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, formerly of the Soviet Army. It was the night of September 26, 1983, with Colonel Petrov in charge of 200 men operating a Russian early warning bunker just south of Moscow. Petrov's job was monitoring incoming signals from satellites. He reported directly to the Russian early warning-system headquarters that reported to the Soviet leader on the possibility of launching a retaliatory attack. It's important to note that this was a period of high tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. President Reagan was calling the Soviets the "Evil Empire." The Russian military shot down a Korean passenger jet just three weeks prior to this incident, and the U.S. and NATO were organizing a military exercise that centered on using tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Soviet leaders were worried the west was planning a nuclear attack. In an interview with the English newspaper Daily Mail, Colonel Petrov recalls that fateful night when alarms went off and the early warning computer screens were showing a nuclear attack launched by the United States. "I felt as if I'd been punched in my nervous system. There was a huge map of the States with a U.S. base lit up, showing that the missiles had been launched." For several minutes Petrov held a phone in one hand and an intercom in the other as alarms continued blaring, red lights blinking, and the computers reporting that U.S. missiles were on their way. In the midst of this horrific chaos and terror, the prospect of the end of civilization itself, Petrov made an historic decision not to alert higher authorities, believing in his gut and hoping with all that is sacred, that contrary to what all the sophisticated equipment was reporting, this alarm was an error. "I didn't want to make a mistake," Petrov said, "I made a decision and that was it." The Daily Mail wrote, "Had Petrov cracked and triggered a response, Soviet missiles would have rained down on U.S. cities. In turn, that would have brought a devastating response from the Pentagon." As agonizing minutes passed, Petrov's decision proved correct. It was a computer error that signaled a U.S. attack. In the Daily Mail interview, Petrov said,"After it was over, I drank half a liter of vodka as if it were only a glass, and slept for 28 hours," and he commented, "In principle, a nuclear war could have broken out. The whole world could have been destroyed." In our increasingly superficial societies that praise celebrities and all manner of fools as role models, many legitimate heroes go unnoticed and without reward. In the case of Colonel Petrov, he was dismissed from the Army on a pension that in succeeding years would prove nearly worthless. Petrov's superiors were reprimanded for the computer error, and in the Soviet system, all in the group were automatically subjected to the same treatment. The Daily Mirror found Petrov's health destroyed by the terrible stress of the incident. His wife died of cancer and he lives alone in a second-floor flat in a dreary town of Fyranzino about 30 miles from Moscow. "Once I would have liked to have been given some credit for what I did," said Petrov, "But it is to long ago and today everything is emotionally burned out inside me. I still have a bitter feeling inside my soul as I remember the way I was treated." There have been many incidents like September 26, 1983; just how many we may never know. We do know that little has changed as thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads remain on "hair-trigger alert" that could be launched in a few minutes notice destroying both countries in less than one hour -- perhaps initiated by a computer error. To end this utter madness all nuclear warheads must be removed from "hair-trigger" alert and placed in storage with continuous inspection by both sides and the United Nations. Only then will be daily threat of nuclear incineration by an accident missile launch or miscalculation be eliminated. In an interview with Stanislav Petrov on Dateline NBC (Nov. 12, 2000) reporter Dennis Murphy said: "I know you don't regard yourself as a hero, Colonel, but, belatedly, on behalf of the people in Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, thank you for being on duty that night." At the close of the Dateline NBC interview with Stanislav Petrov on Nov. 12, 2000, anchor Stone Phillips said, "Some of you may be wondering just how verifiable this story is. Well, a former CIA official we spoke to told us it is confirmed by Russian and other sources and that he believes it. He says Petrov's account is consistent with what we knew about the Soviet early warning system at the time and the way it was operated. He also notes that the Russian government has never challenged the story." Long overdue, the Association of World Citizens is recognizing Stanislav Petrov and the debt we all owe him with a Distinguished World Citizen Award to be presented in a public ceremony in Moscow.

Arthur Lee's band, Love, was the prototypical 1960's psychedelic rock group. Some bands preached peace and love, but only one band called itself Love. They looked the part. Publicity photos showed Love posing at Arthur's Los Angeles house, the Castle , former home to Bela Lugosi, who played Dracula in the movies. They wore granny glasses and psychedelic clothing. But unlike their counterparts in San Francisco (i.e., the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead), Love saw the world quite differently.

More broadly, the lyrics are straight out of the 1960's, but this album best conveys the yin-yang of that decade: beauty and hope surrounds us, but a dark side that cannot be ignored.  As the New York Times wrote over the weekend , "With eccentric songs that joined the jangly guitars of folk-rock with urgent, angry rhythms and yet also leaned toward sophisticated pop with delicate horn and string arrangements, Love was one of the defining groups of the psychedelic era in Los Angeles."

By the time that I'm through singing

 

 

Help!

 

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with George, Ringo and Eric Clapton)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw9CaPR1yho 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Generals Raise Fears of Iraq Civil War: U.S. Generals Say Iraq Sectarian Violence Worsening, American Casualties Could Increase

By ANNE PLUMMER The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Two of the Pentagon's most senior generals conceded to Congress on Thursday that the surge in sectarian violence in Baghdad in recent weeks means Iraq may be descending into civil war.

"Iraq could move toward civil war" if the violence is not contained, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it," he said, adding that the top priority in Iraq is to secure the capital, where factional violence has surged in recent weeks despite efforts by the new Iraqi government to stop the fighting.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the panel, "We do have the possibility of that devolving into civil war." He added that this need not happen and stressed that ultimately it depends on the Iraqis more than on the U.S. military.

"Shiite and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other," Pace said, before the tensions can be overcome. "The weight of that must be on the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government."

President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have steadfastly refused to call the situation in Iraq a civil war, although Rumsfeld at a news conference on Wednesday acknowledged that the violence is increasing.

The commanders' remarks about the threat of a civil war came just three months before congressional elections in which Bush administration policy in Iraq looms as a defining issue. Many voters have tired of the 3-year-old war, which has cost more than 2,500 U.S. lives and more than a quarter trillion taxpayer dollars.

 

 

 

During each interview, I asked detailed questions regarding the person's knowledge of Mr. Wallace's professional competence, judicial temperament, and integrity. Often, I asked open-ended questions, seeking any information that might bear on the professional qualifications of Mr. Wallace to serve on the court. If an interviewee raised concerns or provided adverse information regarding any of the three criteria vetted by the Standing Committee, I asked follow-up questions designed to elicit facts supporting the comments, including information on the names of cases, briefs or written materials, or the names of other persons who could corroborate any adverse concerns expressed.

The investigator found that Wallace is a brilliant lawyer with a quick legal mind but that he does not have the temperament necessary for a Federal judge. Here's what the report says: 

As discussed below, Mr. Wallace received substantial adverse comments on the issue of judicial temperament. Of the 69 lawyers and judges interviewed, over a third of them expressed grave concerns regarding Mr. Wallace's judicial temperament. People from a broad spectrum of the legal community expressed this concern, including judges who had presided over cases in which Mr. Wallace had appeared. While confidentiality prevents the Standing Committee from naming lawyers and judges who made negative comments, and none of them waived confidentiality, the Committee was presented with the fact that many of the persons who expressed these concerns had worked with Mr. Wallace for a long period of time, some spanning over two decades. Others who questioned his temperament stated that they had known Mr. Wallace since his childhood or from the earliest days of his practice in the District of Columbia and Mississippi. Indeed, many lawyers who believed Mr. Wallace "Well Qualified" on the criteria of professional competence and integrity nonetheless stated that he lacked the necessary 

temperament for judicial service.

This was a difficult investigation because of the conflicting and strongly held views of lawyers and judges on one aspect of the qualifications we review - Mr. Wallace's judicial temperament. On the one hand, many of those interviewed believe that Mr. Wallace possesses the professional competence and integrity that places him at the top of the profession. Many others, including some of those who believe him well qualified on the other criteria, are of the unwavering view that he lacks the temperament required for service on a federal court.

. . .  

Judicial temperament captures the important elements set forth in our Backgrounder. "In investigating judicial temperament, the Committee considers the nominee's compassion, decisiveness, open-mindedness, courtesy, patience, freedom from bias, and commitment to equal justice under the law." Importantly, lawyers who raised temperament concerns expressed familiarity with the Backgrounder and, without my explanation of the Committee's criteria, raised the very elements set forth in our temperament definition. Many noted that temperament went to the very essence of being a judge because it dealt with the issue of whether a judge would be fair to all litigants and follow the law. Lawyers and judges raised issues with Mr. Wallace's judicial temperament in the following respects:

1. Commitment to Equal Justice

One of the negative comments expressed over and over, and often with great emotion and concern for the system, was that Mr. Wallace had not shown a commitment to equal justice under the law. Lawyers and judges stated that Mr. Wallace did not understand or care about issues central to the lives of the poor, minorities, the marginalized, the have-nots, and those who do not share his view of the world. These concerns were most often discussed in the context of Voting Rights Act cases and other issues involving constitutional rights.

. . .

Lawyers other than those who involved in the civil rights litigation mentioned above based their concerns regarding Mr. Wallace's lack of commitment to equal justice on the overall dealings and interactions they have had with him over a period of years. Some had heard him give lectures on issues such as the Voting Rights Act and other constitutional issues and recounted follow-up personal conversations with him, which led them to question his commitment to equal justice. He is said to have a "blind-spot" with respect to certain issues as they relate to the certain issues affecting minorities. Several people commented that their concerns related to the "minority view" covered not just racial and ethnic minorities, but the manner in which Mr. Wallace reacted to any minority point of view.

The Standing Committee was concerned with the nature and number of statements about Mr. Wallace's lack of commitment to equal justice made by people who know the nominee, a sampling of which includes the following:

• He has "an instinctive contempt for the socially weak," including "the poor and minorities."

• "The poor may be in trouble; he is just not open to those issues."

• He does not "like poor people" or anyone "not just like him."

• "He can't see the plight of those who are socially advantaged."

• He would not only "not be open to issues involving minority rights," he would be "hostile" to them.

• He is "out of step with the modern world - he thinks this is the Mississippi of the past." He would turn "back the clock in Mississippi on issues related to race relations."

• "It will be like 1965, not 2006."

• "If it is big business v. the little man, business usually wins."

• I am not sure the "have nots" will always get justice; I am sure "the haves" always will.

• "The civil rights laws might be trumped."

These are the words used by lawyers and judges who know Mr. Wallace; they have been involved in cases with him, and are active in the bar and community in which Mr. Wallace lives and works. The statements came from a cross section of the legal community and not just minority lawyers or lawyers who had been involved in civil rights or other constitutional cases. As I noted earlier, judges raised some of these concerns. They repeatedly focused on the fact that the Fifth Circuit may have more poor, more marginalized, and more minority individuals than any other circuit in the country. They were convinced that Mr. Wallace did not understand the plight and issues of so many of the people he would have to serve as a judge.

. . .

2. Open-Mindedness

Lawyers raised concerns regarding Mr. Wallace's open-mindedness and questioned whether he would be a fair judge. They emphasized the importance of fairness in the courts and the critical role of judges in maintaining fairness. Some lawyers believed Mr. Wallace would be fair as a judge and would "call it as he sees it." Other persons interviewed described the nominee as "narrow-minded in his views," "lacking in tolerance," "entrenched in his views," "intolerant," "insensitive," "high-handed – not willing to yield to logic or the facts," "rigid," "inflexible," "overly-opinionated," "one-dimensioned," "locked into a point of view – his," and not open to the positions of others.

Some lawyers stated that Mr. Wallace was so entrenched in his own personal views that they did not believe he could put them aside and fairly follow the law. There was said to be little "middle ground" with the nominee. He is said to be "argumentative" beyond the degree necessary for successful advocacy. An especially noted lawyer commented that Mr. Wallace's own views are "so intense," "so personal," and "so blinding to himself" that he may not understand that he is not being open or is closed to the views of others. These lawyers noted that Mr. Wallace's lack of personal awareness of these issues is particularly troublesome in one who will serve in a lifetime appointment to the bench.

Some expressed concerns over whether Mr. Wallace would be able to transition

from being an advocate to being a judge. They noted that Mr. Wallace only sees his point of view, and summarily rejects the views of others in a manner that suggests he has not fully listened to them. He is said to exhibit "hostility" to the views of others, especially if he disagrees with them. He has taken "harsh and unnecessary positions" in litigation that "may have resulted in undue burdens to the courts." While I cannot reveal the details of the cases, lawyers gave me specific examples of this in several recent high profile cases handled by Mr. Wallace.

Others stated a belief that Mr. Wallace would prejudge the outcome of cases "based on personal beliefs and not the law." He would "get the results he wants in a case regardless of law or facts." Another expressed the belief that Mr. Wallace would, based on his fast-held views, (1) make his mind ahead of time or (2) be locked into a particular view and simply not hear the other side.

. . .

3. Freedom from Bias

A substantial number of lawyers and judges stated that Mr. Wallace has taken positions that suggest he "may not follow the law." They explicitly stated that he "simply" or "just won't follow the law. Some judges even suggested that Mr. Wallace might not follow precedent or could "ignore the law if he disagreed with it" or if it suited his "personal agenda." A long-time judge noted, "The law will not get in his way." Many said his positions are sometimes "extreme." "You either agree with him or capitulate." "Mr. Wallace's point of view prevails or else." Some raised concerns that Mr. Wallace would follow his own interpretation of "what the law should be" rather than "what the law is." Many were concerned that Mr. Wallace would use his considerable skills as a legal writer, thinker, researcher, and skillful advocate to change or modify the law to reflect his personal views rather than rely upon and apply existing precedent. Lawyers and judges noted cases in which Mr. Wallace had filed pleadings and taken positions that certainly did little or nothing to advance the merits of the case and suggested that he was deviating from existing precedent in some of his positions.

This latter point raises yet another significant concern: many lawyers expressed the view that Mr. Wallace had an "agenda" in seeking the bench. Statements were made, such as: he will judge through "partisan eyes" he is "undoubtedly a doctrinaire" who is on a "quest;" he is a lawyer "on a mission to destroy the Voting Rights Act, other civil rights laws;" "and his "agenda" would "destroy the fabric of the bench."

4. Courtesy

Lawyers also criticized Mr. Wallace for failing to show common courtesy and respect to other lawyers and litigants. Some of the comments arose in the context of his service on the national Legal Services Board in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Lawyers who had attended Board meetings and watched the interaction between Mr. Wallace and members of the public and the Legal Services staff described him as treating staff and lawyers "like they were dirt on the floor." Many who had attended these meetings said 

he was "nasty," "dismissive," "abusive," "mean," "rude," "extremely arrogant," "egotistical," "condescending" and "extraordinarily impolite" to those who appeared before the Legal Services Board.

Concerns regarding Mr. Wallace's lack of common courtesy and respect continue to today. Persons who have worked with him well after he ended his service on the Legal Services Board raise similar issues. Lawyers and judges described him as "loud," "aggressive," "discourteous," "abrasive," "arrogant" and "condescending." Some lawyers who have known him for a long period of time describe him presently as a man who has become "hardened in his convictions" rather than becoming "more open" to the issues of those around him. Lawyers stated that Mr. Wallace was not patient and often did not listen to the arguments of others, and that he could be "sarcastic" and "strident" in his approach to dealing with issues and in his conversations with fellow lawyers. They stated their belief that Mr. Wallace would engage in this same behavior as a judge. If he did so, they questioned whether litigants would obtain a fair hearing and resolution of their issues and whether the essential dignity of the court would be maintained.

A large number of minority lawyers stated that Mr. Wallace has on occasion been particularly disrespectful to them and often did not treat them as equals or peers in the profession. They stated that he acted with an air of "superiority" and in a manner that was "demeaning" and "condescending" to them while he did not display this behavior to other lawyers in the cases on which they worked. Some non-minority lawyers who questioned Mr. Wallace's temperament stated that he "seemed" to treat non-minority lawyers "as peers" while his "demeanor, reactions and interactions" with minority lawyers suggested he did not treat these lawyers as equals. And some minority lawyers, 

especially those who had been actively involved in litigating civil rights cases, stated that Mr. Wallace often did not respect their views, – it was as if the arguments of minority lawyers "were not as worthy of being in court" and did not "carry the same weight" as other lawyers. We are certainly aware of comments from other prominent minority attorneys who do not share this view, but on balance, the Committee could not discount the number of lawyers who raised this concern, the nature of their comments or the expressed intensity of beliefs of these lawyers concerning Mr., Wallace's interactions with them.

Vietnam had one positive consequence: it made the American people more skeptical over war and it's now much harder to convince the public to support armed conflict. This is called the " Vietnam Syndrome."

 

I reject any notion that it's good manners to avoid dissent on matters of foreign policy. Good manners gets our children and friends and brothers and sisters maimed and killed. These are not usually the children of politicians who articulate an Ivory Tower notion of foreign policy holding that we all have united interests around the world. We do not. There may have been a day when we all agreed on foreign policy and no one second guessed the government on war and peace. If the presidency of George W. Bush has accomplished anything, it's that those days are behind us, praise the Lord.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I've laid out that very comprehensive initiative. I read the report put out by a -- put out by the bureaucracy. I do not support the Kyoto treaty. The Kyoto treaty would severely damage the United States economy, and I don't accept that. I accept the alternative we put out, that we can grow our economy and, at the same time, through technologies, improve our environment.

 

 

 

 

 

A doctor and his assistant toiled here on Thursday in the coroner's office, which recently grew to 50 beds from 25 after getting a bioterrorism grant but has rarely had 25 bodies. On Thursday morning there were 58. The morgue was converted from an eyeglass factory several years ago and has no air-conditioning in crucial areas. Decomposition has been a problem, Ms. Cervantes said, and bodies have piled up because of the lack of space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
July 26, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/36773

A bill to prevent the award of attorneys' fees in establishment-of-religion cases brought in federal courts faces its first key test today in Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the legislation, called the Public Expression of Religion Act.

The sponsor of the bill, Rep. John Hostettler, a Republican of Indiana, said yesterday that the measure is designed to prevent organizations that bring church-state cases from intimidating local governments with the specter of a massive award of attorney's fees.

"It's the Sword of Damocles, you might say, that hangs over every one of these entities,"Mr. Hostettler said. He said he believes that local officials are giving in to groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, despite indications that the Supreme Court would be amenable to the use of religious themes in public monuments and buildings.

"I believe it'll pass tomorrow," he told The New York Sun. "There's a lot of excitement about this bill."

A veterans' group, the American Legion, has pushed hard for the legislation in order to preserve war memorials that include religious symbols such as crosses. One monument, a mountaintop cross in San Diego, has been the subject of litigation for more than 15 years. Last month, Justice Kennedy blocked a lower court order that the cross be taken down immediately.

"I'm appalled at the notion that the ACLU or any other purported public interest law firm would be suing veterans' memorials and then seeking taxpayer-funded attorney fee awards," a lawyer and unit commander with the American Legion, Rees Lloyd, said. Mr. Lloyd, a former ACLU staff attorney, accused the group of seeking to profit from such cases.

"The ACLU has lost all moorings and common sense and rationality and proportionality," he said. "It's become the Taliban of American liberal secularism."

The ACLU did not return calls seeking comment for this article.

The executive director of Americans United, Rev. Barry Lynn, said the proposed law is a back-door effort to discourage lawyers from bringing cases under the Constitution's establishment clause. "That's why the religious right likes this. They can't win on the merits, so they're trying to keep us out of court," he said.

Rev. Lynn said the "fee-stripping" restriction would apply not only to litigation over religious symbolism, but also over the teaching of creationism in public schools. "No other professional people are expected to work for nothing to get people their fundamental rights," he said .

"Court stripping" is a nefarious practice in which ideologues try to prevent the courts from resolving an issue. The Federal laws rarely allow for this. For example, a routine slip and fall case cannot generally be heard in Federal court because it does not involve a federal or constitutional issue. Personal injury is usually for the state courts because it involves state laws. But most civil rights cases are heard in Federal court, where the judges have life tenure and will not bend their rulings to conform to popular will.

According to Associated Press, Davison Douglas, a professor at the William and Mary School of Law, said constitutional scholars are divided over whether such congressional restrictions on judicial review would pass constitutional muster. He noted that "past efforts to bar all federal court review of hot-button social issues have consistently failed. Hence, if this bill is enacted, it would be a highly significant landmark in terms of congressional efforts to control the actions of federal courts."

 

 

We should all have the choice whether to destroy ourselves and to kill or maim or torture others. How can we be forced to do this? This guy chooses not to. In my book, this guy is the real hero. Here's what I think: the ones who want to court-martial him are animals who belong in a cage.


    

 

President Bush addressed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People yesterday and commented on how blacks have all but abandoned the Republican Party. He said, "I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historic ties with the African-American community." He added, "For too long my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. He said nothing about the Iraq War. But what can he say? It's a disaster. According to the Times the other day:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 18 — An average of more than 100 civilians per day were killed in Iraq last month, the United Nations reported Tuesday, registering what appears to be the highest official monthly tally of violent deaths since the fall of Baghdad.

The death toll, drawn from Iraqi government agencies, was the most precise measurement of civilian deaths provided by any government organization since the invasion and represented a substantial increase over the figures in daily news media reports.

Contributing to the trend cited by the United Nations, a suicide car bomber killed at least 53 people and wounded at least 105 in the holy Shiite city of Kufa on Tuesday after he lured a throng of day laborers to his van with the offer of work.

The attack, one of the bloodiest this year, struck at the heart of Shiite Islam — Kufa is a stronghold of the powerful Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and the site of a major shrine — and aggravated sectarian fury.

United Nations officials said Tuesday that the number of violent deaths had climbed steadily since at least last summer. During the first six months of this year, the civilian death toll jumped more than 77 percent, from 1,778 in January to 3,149 in June, the organization said.

This sharp upward trend reflected the dire security situation in Iraq as sectarian violence has worsened and Iraqi and American government forces have been unable to stop it.

In its report, the United Nations said that 14,338 civilians had died violently in Iraq in the first six months of the year.

 

 

 

 

 

11:45 PM CDT on Wednesday, July 12, 2006

By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Doctors who perform illegal abortions in Texas could be subject to the death penalty because of the way the Legislature has strung together recent statutes, according to the state's top prosecutor association.

By defining a fetus as "an individual" in 2003, and then making it a criminal act in 2005 to perform certain abortions, legislators might have unintentionally created a scenario in which physicians could be charged with the death of a child younger than 6 – a crime subject to capital punishment, according to the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.

The group has traveled throughout the state to educate prosecutors about changes made in criminal laws in the last regular legislative session and has discussed the abortion situation in its materials as an "expansion of capital murder" and a new way "of committing capital murder."

On Wednesday, Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, asked Attorney General Greg Abbott for an opinion to help clarify the abortion laws and their punishment.

The chairman of the State Affairs Committee, which hears most abortion-related bills, said in his letter that he disagreed with district attorneys' group interpretation.

He stated that the Legislature intended that violations of parental consent procedures or late-term abortions should be punished under the medical Occupations Code. That provides for no greater than a third-degree felony charge.

The prosecutors' group looked to the state's Penal Code.

"We're not advocating one way or another," said Robert Kepple, executive director of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. "But we're going to talk about it because it's part of the law and people need to know about it."

The presentation on new laws was put together by Shannon Edmonds, a former prosecutor and former assistant general counsel to Gov. George W. Bush, and is based on a solid interpretation of the statutes, Mr. Kepple said.

"From what everyone's said, no one had the intention that the law read like this. But it's a pretty clear interpretation," he said.

The attorney general has 180 days to issue an opinion, but Mr. Abbott's decision is not binding on a court or a district attorney.

Last year, Mr. Abbott found that a law that extended certain protections to a fetus did not allow prosecutors to pursue pregnant women who abuse drugs or alcohol. Even so, a Potter County district attorney prosecuted and won convictions against two women under the same statute. Appeals are pending.

"This is the same connection. Any DA can go after physicians for not getting the right documentation on a parental consent form," said Peggy Romberg of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association.

She said with the looming possibility that a prosecutor could go after a doctor, women in Texas might find it more difficult to find a place that will perform abortions.

"The fallout will be to have physicians stop providing care if they believe that their actions might be called into question and fall under homicide statutes," Ms. Romberg said.

"We already have a dearth of physicians because of the scrutiny and harassment they receive in their personal and professional lives," she said. "I think it will have a chilling effect on doctors."

Steve Levine, director of communications for the Texas Medical Association, said his group welcomes an attorney general's opinion.

"Any physician who violates that law obviously should not be subject to capital punishment," Mr. Levine said.

He declined to comment on whether the potential for prosecution might deter doctors from performing abortions.

Joe Pojman, director of the Texas Alliance for Life, said his group asked Mr. Swinford to get an attorney general's opinion because of the harsh interpretation of the law by the district attorney's association.

"It's not something we would support," Mr. Pojman said.

"It may be strange hearing that a pro-life organization doesn't think abortion doctors should be prosecuted as much as conceivable, but we are very committed to the basic principle that the intent of the Legislature should be followed," he said.

Mr. Pojman pointed out that when abortion was illegal before Roe vs. Wade, the punishment for violations then was about five years.

"We've got to make sure that some rogue district attorney doesn't interpret the law in a way that the Legislature did not intend," he said.

Mr. Pojman said that a prosecution of a doctor might produce the chilling effect feared by Ms. Romberg, but that the existence of "an esoteric publication just for prosecutors" is unlikely to stop the abortion practice in Texas.

Part of the murkiness of the law is that abortion opponents were unable to move a separate bill to outlaw almost all third-trimester abortions – except in cases where the mother's life is in danger – and tighten the parental notification law to require written consent.

And so Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, attached those provisions as amendments to a bill dealing with the licensing and oversight of doctors. The amendment did not address the state's criminal code, which prosecutors argue govern almost all criminal acts.

"We didn't write the law," Mr. Kepple said. "It appears from all accounts that the language in here was unintended, but it was something that was written that way."

E-mail choppe@dallasnews.com

The two laws that a prosecutors' group says could be taken together to charge a doctor with capital murder:

"Individual" definition: In 2003, the Legislature changed the definition of an "individual" to include an unborn child at any state of development and expanded capital murder to include the killing of that unborn child. But lawmakers also provided a defense against prosecution for doctors performing "a lawful medical procedure."

Third-trimester abortions: In 2005, the Legislature amended the Occupations Code governing doctors to make it illegal for them to perform an abortion on a minor without the written consent of a parent or a valid court order. Also, it became illegal to perform a third-trimester abortion unless the life of the mother was endangered. By making these procedures unlawful, the Legislature might have removed any protection from criminal prosecution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For most of us, leading a full life includes establishing a family. Indeed, most New Yorkers can look back on, or forward to, their wedding as among the most significant events of their lives. They, like plaintiffs, grew up hoping to find that one person with whom they would share their future, eager to express their mutual lifetime pledge through civil marriage. Solely because of their sexual orientation, however-- that is, because of who they love--plaintiffs are denied the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage. This State has a proud tradition of affording equal rights to all New Yorkers. Sadly, the Court today retreats from that proud tradition.

Under both the State and Federal Constitutions, the right to due process of law protects certain fundamental liberty interests, including the right to marry. Central to the right to marry is the right to marry the person of one's choice. . . .

Fundamental rights are those "which are, objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition . . . and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed." Again and again, the Supreme Court and this Court have made clear that the right to marry is fundamental. The Court concludes, however, that same-sex marriage is not deeply rooted in tradition, and thus cannot implicate any fundamental liberty. But fundamental rights, once recognized, cannot be denied to particular groups on the ground that these groups have historically been denied those rights. Indeed, in recasting plaintiffs' invocation of their fundamental right to marry as a request for recognition of a "new" right to same-sex marriage, the Court misapprehends the nature of the liberty interest at stake. . . .

An asserted liberty interest is not to be characterized so narrowly as to make inevitable the conclusion that the claimed right could not be fundamental because historically it has been denied to those who now seek to exercise it. . . .

Simply put, fundamental rights are fundamental rights. They are not defined in terms of who is entitled to exercise them.

Instead, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the fundamental right to marry must be afforded even to those who have previously been excluded from its scope--that is, to those whose exclusion from the right was "deeply rooted." Well into the twentieth century, the sheer weight of precedent accepting the constitutionality of bans on interracial marriage was deemed sufficient justification in and of itself to perpetuate these discriminatory laws -- much as defendants now contend that same-sex couples should be prohibited from marrying because historically they always have been.

Just 10 years before Loving v. Virginia (1967) declared unconstitutional state laws banning marriage between persons of different races, 96% of Americans were opposed to interracial marriage. Sadly, many of the arguments then raised in support of the anti-miscegenation laws were identical to those made today in opposition to same-sex marriage ( see e.g. Kinney v Commonwealth, 71 Va [30 Gratt] 858, 869 [1878] [marriage between the races is "unnatural" and a violation of God's will]; Pace v State, 69 Ala 231, 232 [1881] ["amalgamation" of the races would produce a "degraded civilization"]; see also Lonas v State, 50 Tenn [3 Heisk] 287, 310 [1871] ["(t)he laws of civilization demand that the races be kept apart"]).

To those who appealed to history as a basis for prohibiting interracial marriage, it was simply inconceivable that the right of interracial couples to marry could be deemed "fundamental." Incredible as it may seem today, during the lifetime of every Judge on this Court, interracial marriage was forbidden in at least a third of American jurisdictions. In 1948, New York was one of only 18 states in the nation that did not have such a ban. By 1967, when Loving was decided, 17 states still outlawed marriages between persons of different races. Nevertheless, even though it was the ban on interracial marriage--not interracial marriage itself--that had a long and shameful national tradition, the Supreme Court determined that interracial couples could not be deprived of their fundamental right to marry.

Under our Constitution, discriminatory views about proper marriage partners can no more prevent same-sex couples from marrying than they could different-race couples. Nor can "deeply rooted" prejudices uphold the infringement of a fundamental right . . .

The claim that marriage has always had a single and unalterable meaning is a plain distortion of history. In truth, the common understanding of "marriage" has changed dramatically over the centuries. Until well into the nineteenth century, for example, marriage was defined by the doctrine of coverture, according to which the wife's legal identity was merged into that of her husband, whose property she became. A married woman, by definition, could not own property and could not enter into contracts. Such was the very "meaning" of marriage. Only since the mid-twentieth century has the institution of marriage come to be understood as a relationship between two equal partners, founded upon shared intimacy and mutual financial and emotional support. Indeed, as amici professors note, "The historical record shows that, through adjudication and legislation, all of New York's sex-specific rules for marriage have been invalidated save for the one at issue here."

That restrictions on same-sex marriage are prevalent cannot in itself justify their retention. After all, widespread public opposition to interracial marriage in the years before Loving could not sustain the anti-miscegenation laws. "[T]he fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice." The long duration of a constitutional wrong cannot justify its perpetuation, no matter how strongly tradition or public sentiment might support it. . . .

By virtue of their being denied entry into civil marriage, plaintiff couples are deprived of a number of statutory benefits and protections extended to married couples under New York law. Unlike married spouses, same-sex partners may be denied hospital visitation of their critically ill life partners. They must spend more of their joint income to obtain equivalent levels of health care coverage. They may, upon the death of their partners, find themselves at risk of losing the family home. The record is replete with examples of the hundreds of ways in which committed same-sex couples and their children are deprived of equal benefits under New York law. Same-sex families are, among other things, denied equal treatment with respect to intestacy, inheritance, tenancy by the entirety, taxes, insurance, health benefits, medical decisionmaking, workers' compensation, the right to sue for wrongful death, and spousal privilege. Each of these statutory inequities, as well as the discriminatory exclusion of same-sex couples from the benefits and protections of civil marriage as a whole, violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws.

Correctly framed, the question before us is not whether the marriage statutes properly benefit those they are intended to benefit--any discriminatory classification does that--but whether there exists any legitimate basis for excluding those who are not covered by the law. That the language of the licensing statute does not expressly reference the implicit exclusion of same-sex couples is of no moment (see Domestic Relations Law § 13 ["persons intended to be married" must obtain a marriage license]). The Court has, properly, construed the statutory scheme as prohibiting same-sex marriage. That being so, the statute, in practical effect, becomes identical to--and, for purposes of equal protection analysis, must be analyzed as if it were--one explicitly providing that "civil marriage is hereby established for couples consisting of a man and a woman," or, synonymously, "marriage between persons of the same sex is prohibited."

The Legislature could find that this rationale for marriage does not apply with comparable force to same-sex couples. These couples can become parents by adoption, or by artificial insemination or other technological marvels, but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse. The Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples, and thus that promoting stability in opposite-sex relationships will help children more. This is one reason why the Legislature could rationally offer the benefits of marriage to opposite-sex couples only.

There is a second reason: The Legislature could rationally believe that it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and a father. Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like. It is obvious that there are exceptions to this general rule -- some children who never know their fathers, or their mothers, do far better than some who grow up with parents of both sexes -- but the Legislature could find that the general rule will usually hold.

In other words, reckless sex between heterosexual couples can produce children. The State wants to prevent children from growing up without a mom and pop, so we induce the lovers to get married to save the children. The State can deny the same marriage right to gays and lesbians because although they can adopt children, they cannot naturally reproduce. The State Legislature can thus distinguish between same-sex marriage and heterosexual marriage. And, the Court ruled, the Legislature can rationally decide that children are better off with a mother and father rather than a father and father.

This is what counts for legal reasoning in New York. Lost in this equation is the irrational basis for regulating marriage in an "either-or" fashion. As Judge Judith Kaye wrote in her dissenting opinion, there are enough marriage licenses to go around. Why deny same-sex couples the right to marry just because heterosexual couples after a one-night stand might forego marriage and produce a child without a loving father?

Moreover, the justifications advanced by the Court of Appeals in speculating why the Legislature wants to prohibit same-sex marriage are academic. Do you really think that State legislators even give the issue extended thought? I doubt it. My sense is that they make it illegal for same-sex marriage because they are repulsed by homosexuality and cannot imagine lifestyles other their own. Or their religious biases force them to follow the Bible and punish homosexuals for who they are.

Let's cut through the crap here: same-sex marriage is illegal not because we want to help the children but because society as a whole does not like gays and lesbians and the prejudices that motivated many states years ago to prohibit interracial marriage are plainly at work in the same-sex context. We allow our prejudices to deny other people their rights and then we jump through intellectual hoops to justify those prejudices. It's a sad day that New York is a party to this horror. Yesterday's decision is a disgrace and an embarrassment and New Yorkers deserve better. More importantly, gays and lesbians deserve better.

 

 

 

 

Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

Fatih Tas, the Turkish publisher of a book by the American intellectual Noam Chomsky, said yesterday that he and two of his colleagues were facing prison sentences as long as six years on charges of "denigrating national identity" and "inciting hatred," Agence France-Presse reported.

Mr. Tas, owner of the Aram Publishing House, said that he and his colleagues Omer Faruk Kurhan and Taylan Tosun had been charged over the book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media," written by Mr. Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, which argues that corporate and government pressures distort news coverage.

Mr. Tas said that Ender Abadoglu, the translator of the book, published in Turkey in March, was also likely to be indicted. Mr. Tas was tried and acquitted in 2002 for publishing "American Interventionism," a collection of essays by Mr. Chomsky that included criticism of the Turkish government's treatment of its Kurdish minority and of American arms sales to Turkey. The European Union has warned Turkey that prosecution of intellectuals and writers is harmful to its bid for membership.

Scary stuff. Here in the United States, we would never do such a thing, would we? Maybe we would. Read on. The below story is from www. mediamatters.com:

On the June 29 broadcast of Fox News Radio's Brian & The Judge, co-host Brian Kilmeade, who also co-hosts Fox News' Fox & Friends, suggested that the U.S. government should "put up the Office of Censorship," in the wake of reports in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal detailing a Treasury Department program designed to monitor international financial transactions for terrorist activity. Similarly, during the June 29 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host E.D. Hill wondered if it would be appropriate for the U.S. government to create an "Office of Censorship." During an interview with Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) about The New York Times report, Hill asserted that such an office, previously established during World War II by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, could screen news reports to determine whether they "hurt the country" or are of "news value." The New York Times has been singled out for criticism by numerous conservative media figures, including many on the Fox News Channel, as Media Matters for America has documented.

"That the press wouldn't have better sense than to leak critical information on terrorists so that they know what we're doing -- that scares the devil out of me," Bunning told reporters in a conference call.

The Kentucky Republican said Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez should empanel a grand jury to decide whether the New York Times' publisher, editors and writers who were involved in the story should be indicted for treason.

Bunning also said prosecutors should examine whether to charge those who leaked the story and journalists involved in earlier stories on the existence of a National Security Agency program involving eavesdropping on Americans' telephone calls.

But anyone who knows baseball history knows where I'm going with this. Senator Jim Bunning is a former Major League Baseball player who pitched a perfect game in 1964 and is now in the Hall of Fame. That makes him an expert on national security and the First Amendment. We rely on dumb jocks for analysis and policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, the world is changing. There was a time not too long ago when some people up North wondered about the South. The South supported racially-charged political candidates for many years. When LBJ won the presidency in a 1964 landslide, Republican honchos noticed that the deep South went with the reactionary Republican candidate, signaling that racial politics was a good way to revive the Republican party, thereby triggering the Southern Strategy: win elections by feeding to white racism. American politics has never been the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---66
Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Allen (R-VA) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burns (R-MT) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID) Dayton (D-MN) DeMint (R-SC) DeWine (R-OH) Dole (R-NC)	Domenici (R-NM) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Feinstein (D-CA) Frist (R-TN) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johnson (D-SD) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) Menendez (D-NJ)	Murkowski (R-AK) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Reid (D-NV) Roberts (R-KS) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Santorum (R-PA) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH) Talent (R-MO) Thomas (R-WY) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA)

 

Beatles fans just want the Beatles. They want things they haven't seen or heard, and they want the music they have heard to sound better than it does on the available CD's. They want Apple to remaster the classic albums, and they want those albums in surround mixes. Some fans would like to see the recordings available for download. (In court papers filed during the company's lawsuit against Apple Computer, Neil Aspinall, the Beatles former road manager who now runs Apple's daily operations, said a remixing project was under way, and that the group's recordings wouldn't be made available online until that process was finished. He said nothing about when that might be.)

They also want Apple to release projects that have long sat on its shelf, like the revamped video of the Beatles' 1965 Shea Stadium concert, and an expanded, bonus-packed DVD of the group's last film, "Let It Be." And how about a collection of the promotional films the group made in the 1960's? Or DVD's of Beatles concerts that were televised in Paris, Munich and Tokyo? Or the CD version of the 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl concerts? Or the fabled 27-minute outtake of "Helter Skelter" and the avant-garde "Carnival of Light" collage, created for a London "happening" in 1967? For Beatles fans an extravaganza like "Love" looks like an unnecessary sideshow.

But they are in for a tremendous surprise.

A couple of weeks ago Giles Martin stopped in New York on his way to London, and invited me to hear his "Love" mixes on a five-channel surround system at Magno Studios. I was knocked out by some, but I was absolutely floored by the pristine quality and fine definition of the sound. With the compression of the original 1960's productions stripped away, voices and instruments seem real, as if they were in the room. The new mixes wrap you in the group's arrangements and let you hear long-buried interplay that illuminates the Beatles' brilliance. This is a level of detail that simply hasn't been heard outside the Abbey Road studios until now.

On "Yesterday" you can hear Paul McCartney's pick hitting the strings of his guitar and the strings snapping against the neck. The guitar solo and the orchestral strings on "Something" had similar clarity and presence, and in the surround version of "I Am the Walrus" the whole kaleidoscope of textures — including an extraordinarily crisp drum sound — made the song quirkier than ever.

The mixes of "Revolution" and "Come Together" are incomparably more powerful than the familiar versions. Mr. Starr's childlike "Octopus's Garden" gets a fantastic restructuring that begins with the string introduction to "Good Night" and then places Mr. Starr's vocal, unaccompanied, in a foggy ambience (using effects from "Yellow Submarine" and drums from "Lovely Rita") before the full band kicks into the more familiar arrangement. And a juxtaposition of the drum figure from "Tomorrow Never Knows" and the vocal line from "Within You, Without You" creates a link between those mystical songs, recorded nearly nine months apart.

The new recordings were made under the close watch of Apple. Sir Paul, Mr. Starr, Ms. Ono and Mrs. Harrison occasionally dropped in on the Martins to hear the mixes. "It was a little terrifying," said the younger Mr. Martin, who is 36, born a few months before the Beatles broke up. (His father is 80.) "When Ringo came in, the first thing he said was, 'Have you done "Octopus's Garden" yet?' Paul said he liked what he heard, but that we could go even farther out than we have, and we've gone pretty far. And we were very concerned that Yoko and Olivia feel we were treating John's and George's songs well, but they were both very pleased."

Why do these recordings sound so immensely better than the standard CD's? The Martins made the "Love" soundtrack directly from the original unmixed master tapes of the Beatles' sessions. Because of the way recordings were made in the 1960's, the Beatles' music as we know it, both on LP and CD, come from tapes that were several generations removed from those session tapes, and electronically processed to make up for the limitations of 1960's audio technology. When the Beatles' CD's were released, in 1987, these processed tapes were used for all but two of the albums. (Sir George Martin remixed "Rubber Soul" and "Help!")

At the time CD mastering was in its infancy and yielded a sound that seems harsh when compared with more recent CD's, which often rely directly on the session tapes. The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Byrds and even the Monkees have seen their catalogs remastered to take these improvements into account. But not the Beatles. Their CD's, priced at top dollar and running only about 30 harsh-sounding minutes apiece, look more squalid every year.

Collectors endlessly debate what the ideal series of remastered Beatles albums would be. Until 1999 the answer seemed clear: upgraded versions of the British albums and singles in their original stereo and mono mixes (there are often notable differences in instrumentation, edits or vocal takes), along with the handful of variant mixes released in Japan, Australia, Germany and other countries.

But the release of the "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" in 1999 made some listeners reconsider. Produced by Peter Cobbin, they were updated remixes of the session tapes. The resulting version of "Nowhere Man" was telling: in the original stereo mix, the vocals are on one channel, the instruments are on the other. Mr. Cobbin spread the sweetly harmonized vocals that open the song across the stereo image, to stunning effect. Maybe, listeners began to argue, an upgraded Beatles catalog should take the flexibility of modern mixing into account.

The "Yellow Submarine" and "Beatles Anthology" DVD's added another complication. Some of the surround mixes were so revelatory that tech-savvy fans, knowing how long it takes Apple to do things, began creating their own surround mixes. Even though these amateur remixers don't have access to the session masters, their versions are often surprisingly effective.

Apple should, of course, get in there with its own surround series, now that it has dangled teasers in "Yellow Submarine," the "Beatles Anthology" and "Love."

But if the Beatles really want to be revolutionary — and counteract Apple's reputation for slowness and litigiousness — they should take a truly bold step: release the component tracks of their unmixed session tapes on DVD's, with a Creative Commons copyright license that would allow fans to create their own remixes, mash-ups and recompositions for noncommercial use.

Not that they'd be the first to move in that direction. Two years ago David Bowie offered the component tracks for songs from his "Reality" album for download on his Web site and even offered prizes — including a car — to fans who created the most original mash-ups. Wired magazine has offered unmixed tracks by several bands for similar use.

The Beatles, though, could be the first major group to open its archives freely. And if Apple was really meant to be, as Paul McCartney described it in 1968, "a kind of Western Communism," what could be a more natural expression of that ideal?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But Judge Smith, who was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Mario M. Cuomo, a Democrat, is hoping to remain a while. He has filed papers seeking reappointment to a second term, which would allow him to serve until the end of next year, when he will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 — and when a new governor will be in office.

It is an unusual situation. On one hand, Governor Pataki, a Republican who leaves office at the end of this year, is expected to try to continue shifting the court to the right by appointing the fifth of its seven judges. On the other hand, Judge Smith, the only black judge on the court, is a respected former trial judge and law professor. And some legal figures are already pushing quietly for his reappointment.

On top of that, the death penalty ruling continues to reverberate. In writing the decision that struck down the death penalty for a 4-to-3 majority of the court in 2004, Judge Smith cited a flaw in the law's sentencing provisions.

His decision was denounced as "wrong" by Governor Pataki, who will make the decision on whether to reappoint him, and lambasted by the Republican-led State Senate, which would have to confirm him.

If the political landscape is fraught with uncertainty, Judge Smith is undeterred. "I'd like to stay on the court," he said recently in his chambers here, overlooking the State Capitol just up the street. "I think that there's no better job than being a judge. On this court, the work is extremely interesting and meaningful, and has an effect on people's lives."

The article makes clear that Judge Smith truly has the background of someone you'd want on the court. Read his background, as taken from the New York Times and ask yourself who in their right mind would contemplate denying this guy another term on the bench:

Long before he sat as a judge on the Court of Appeals, Judge Smith was preoccupied by questions of justice and law.

As a child, he bristled at being excluded from segregated schools in his Washington neighborhood simply because he was black. As college students, he and his twin sister, Inez Smith Reid, who also went on to become a judge, rose early one morning and got in a long line outside the United States Supreme Court to make sure they could get in to hear Thurgood Marshall argue a Little Rock school-desegregation case.

And as a law student at Yale , he took time out during finals week (with special permission from the dean) in 1961 to go on a Freedom Ride to Alabama with a group led by the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., Yale's outspoken chaplain. As they pulled into the Montgomery bus depot, there were men armed with bats. When Dr. Coffin asked the future Judge Smith how he could keep reading one of his law books, he told the chaplain, "Sticks and stones can break my bones — but law exams can kill me."

The group was unharmed, and dined that night with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The next day, they were arrested at the bus depot for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter, where they ordered coffee. Their subsequent convictions were overturned by the United States Supreme Court.

After graduating from Yale, Mr. Smith became a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. He moved to New York and worked for several judges , and eventually became a judge himself, moving up from New York City Civil Court to New York State Supreme Court to that court's Appellate Division to the Court of Appeals.

 

 

 

Q: At what moment do you know that the war on terror is about to take a turn to Baghdad?

A;  I think we knew prior to 9/11 that there was serious interest in having something happen with Iraq. People would joke around the water cooler in the West Wing Situation Room, that "We're flying all these planes over Iraq every day, blowing up their radar sites. Maybe ... they'll shoot one down, and that will give us the provocation we need to do war."

Beginning on the night of 9/11, we have the secretary of defense and others talking about going to war with Iraq. I think we knew pretty much that week that the probability of finding a justification for going to war with Iraq was high on their agenda.

Q:  The president, in fact, talks to you about it.

A:  Well, the president wandered into the Situation Room, totally unscheduled, just to say, "Hi. Keep it up! Good work!"-- raise everybody's morale. [He] saw me and dragged me and a few others into the conference room and started talking about Iraq, and having me go through all the evidence that we had piled up from the weeks and months before to see if there was a connection between what had happened on 9/11 and Iraq.

And he said: "Saddam! Saddam! See if there's a connection to Saddam!" And this wasn't "See if there's a connection with Iran, and while you're at it, do Iraq, and while you're at it, do the Palestinian Islamic group." It wasn't "Do due diligence." It wasn't "Have an exhaustive review." It was "Saddam, Saddam." I read that pretty clearly, that that was the answer he wanted.

I said to him, "We have already done that research prior to the attack" -- in fact, we'd done it a couple of times -- "and there's nothing there." And the facial expression back was, "That wasn't the right answer."

So I said, "Well, but we will do it again." And we asked CIA to do it again. CIA did it again, came up with the same answer. That answer was written up and handed to the president by George Tenet in one of his morning meetings, and it said, "For the third or fourth time, we've gone back to look at the relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and there is no real cooperation between those two."

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the court, this device was developed by Czech psychiatrist Kurt Freund to study sexual deviance, and it was also once used by the Czechoslovakian government to identify and "cure" homosexuals. The testing today is routine in adult sexual offender treatment programs, with one survey noting that approximately one-quarter of adult sex offender programs employ the procedure.

The defendant objected to the test, claiming that it is too physically and mentally intrusive as it measures his thoughts and physical reaction to sexual images. One commentator notes that this is more intrusive than cavity searches which "do not involve the minute monitoring of changes in the size and shape of a person's genitalia. Nor do such searches last anywhere near the two or three hours required for penile plethysmography exams. Nor do cavity or strip searches require a person to become sexually aroused, or to engage in sexual selfstimulation. The court also noted that the "accuracy and reliability of penile plethysmograph testing have been severely questioned" and that "a predominant concern with plethysmograph testing is its susceptibility to manipulation via faking. Several studies have acknowledged that subjects can control their sexual arousal during the test, thereby posing a threat to the validity of plethysmograph testing."

One of the judges rejected this procedure as a legitimate monitoring tool because it is simply too intrusive. This judge wrote, and I quote:

I would . . . the Orwellian procedure at issue to be always a violation of the personal dignity of which prisoners are not deprived. The procedure violates a prisoner's bodily integrity by affecting his genitals. The procedure violates a prisoner's mental integrity by intruding ably related to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant. . . . The procedure violates a prisoner's moral integrity by requiring him to masturbate. By committing a crime and being convicted of it, a person does not cease to be a person.

A prisoner is not a mere tool of the state to be manipulated by it to achieve the purposes the law has determined appropriate in punishment. The prisoner retains his humanity and therefore has purposes transcending those of the state. A prisoner, for example, cannot be forced into prostitution to aid the state in securing evidence. A prisoner, for example, cannot be made to perjure himself in order to assist a prosecution. Similarly, a prisoner should not be compelled to stimulate himself sexually in order for the government to get a sense of his current proclivities. There is a line at which the government must stop. Penile plethysmography testing crosses it.

 

 

This book augments the portrait of Mr. Bush as an incurious and curiously uninformed executive that Mr. Suskind earlier set out in "The Price of Loyalty" and in a series of magazine articles on the president and key aides. In "The One Percent Doctrine," he writes that Mr. Cheney's nickname inside the C.I.A. was Edgar (as in Edgar Bergen ), casting Mr. Bush in the puppet role of Charlie McCarthy, and cites one instance after another in which the president was not fully briefed (or had failed to read the basic paperwork) about a crucial situation.

During a November 2001 session with the president, Mr. Suskind recounts, a C.I.A. briefer realized that the Pentagon had not told Mr. Bush of the C.I.A.'s urgent concern that Osama bin Laden might escape from the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan (as he indeed later did) if United States reinforcements were not promptly sent in. And several months later, he says, attendees at a meeting between Mr. Bush and the Saudis discovered after the fact that an important packet laying out the Saudis' views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation had been diverted to the vice president's office and never reached the president.

Keeping information away from the president, Mr. Suskind argues, was a calculated White House strategy that gave Mr. Bush "plausible deniability" from Mr. Cheney's point of view, and that perfectly meshed with the commander in chief's own impatience with policy details. Suggesting that Mr. Bush deliberately did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was delivered to the White House in the fall of 2002, Mr. Suskind writes: "Keeping certain knowledge from Bush — much of it shrouded, as well, by classification — meant that the president, whose each word circles the globe, could advance various strategies by saying whatever was needed. He could essentially be 'deniable' about his own statements."

"Whether Cheney's innovations were tailored to match Bush's inclinations, or vice versa, is almost immaterial," Mr. Suskind continues. "It was a firm fit. Under this strategic model, reading the entire N.I.E. would be problematic for Bush: it could hem in the president's rhetoric, a key weapon in the march to war. He would know too much."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some people are addicted to drugs. Others are addicted to alcohol. Or food. As for me, I am addicted to reading court decisions and listening to psychedelic folk music. What's George W. addicted to? September 11.

 

 

 

 

 

A National Security Agency program that listens in on international communications involving people in the United States is both vital to national security and permitted by the Constitution, a government lawyer told a judge here on Monday in the first major court argument on the program.

But, the lawyer went on, "the evidence we need to demonstrate to you that it is lawful cannot be disclosed without that process itself causing grave harm to United States national security."

The only solution to this impasse, the lawyer, Anthony J. Coppolino, said, was for the judge to dismiss the suit before her, an American Civil Liberties Union challenge to the eavesdropping program, under the state secrets privilege. The privilege can short-circuit cases that would reveal national security information, and it is fast becoming one of the Justice Department's favorite tools in defending court challenges to its efforts to combat terrorism.

The Detroit case was filed in January on behalf of journalists, scholars, lawyers and nonprofit organizations who argued that the possibility of government eavesdropping interfered with their work. In remarks to reporters after the 90-minute argument, Anthony D. Romero, the A.C.L.U.'s executive director, called the government's invocation of the state secrets privilege "Orwellian doublespeak." "They argued essentially that the N.S.A. program was off limits to judicial review," Mr. Romero said.

The second article looks at a court hearing yesterday in the United States Court of Appeals in New York City. Again, the programs are so secret that one party to the case is not even allowed to look at the government's legal arguments.

A federal appeals court panel in Manhattan questioned a lawyer for the federal government yesterday as to whether the Central Intelligence Agency had a legitimate national security interest in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of documents authorizing it to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects overseas.

The tough questioning came in oral arguments by the American Civil Liberties Union and lawyers for the C.I.A. before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The civil liberties group is trying to force the C.I.A. to disclose how much authority it has been given to interrogate detainees since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

. . .

The A.C.L.U. seeks disclosure of two documents. One is said to be a Justice Department memorandum "specifying interrogation methods that the C.I.A. may use against top Al Qaeda members." The second is the directive said to be signed by Mr. Bush authorizing the agency to set up detention facilities outside the United States "and/or outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees."

Although oral arguments in the appeals court are often delivered in legal shorthand, yesterday's seemed even more opaque than usual. Almost apologetically, Mr. Skinner told the judges he was "somewhat constrained" in his ability to explain his argument and "connect the dots" because some of the C.I.A.'s reasoning in the case was classified.

The agency has submitted papers to the court that even the plaintiffs have not been allowed to see.

 

 

 

 

Fanning the flames of content includes Ann Coulter, the most controversial right-winger in the media today. Coulter operates on the principle that no opinion is too outrageous or irresponsible for public consumption, and that even the most despicable commentary is worth defending. For a summary of Coulter's nauseating commentary which has unfortunately made her a rock star among conservative college students and opinion-makers, click here,  here and here.

 

More recently, in her latest book, Coulter has attacked 9/11 widows. According to www.MediaMatters.org ,

 

 

Let's face it. Some artists do not have that definitive compilation album, you know, that one greatest hits CD which truly encapsulates a recording artist's career. One greatest hits album that I always thought comes close to perfection was Sly and the Family Stone Greatest Hits , where every song is a knockout and I am aware of no Sly Stone songs not on that album. But I also know that Sly Stone had several five star albums, so maybe I am cheating myself when I ignore his studio recordings.

At the other end of the spectrum, Bob Dylan's 3 CD compilation, Biograph, from the mid-1980's, attempts to cover his career but does so at the expense of his best stuff. That is, the album includes lesser songs from the 1970's and 1980's at the expense of two of his greatest songs, Gates of Eden and It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's people like this who put Bush in the White House. All the campaign strategies, the position papers, the debate preparation -- they just don't matter to people who don't pay attention to the issues. Their vote counts just as much as ours.

So with no agenda to run on, with the economy in bad shape, Iraq in a quagmire, etc., etc., etc., the "values" platform always works. But you need a scapegoat. The gays are the scapegoat. Here's what some Republicans are doing around the country, a sign of things to come:

Today's New York Times reports that conservatives will exploit for political gain the divisions created by the anti-gay marriage amendment. The paper reports, "'It is true what this vote will do will be to help the voters identify who is and is not supportive of the family,' Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in an interview on Monday. 'And I think those that are not are going to have to answer for it.' Dr. Dobson's group is already running advertisements against senators who do not plan to support the amendment, including one against Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, that says, 'Why doesn't Senator Salazar believe every child needs a mother and a father?'"

The Times adds, "Republican officials are hoping that the marriage debate will help them as it did in 2004, when 13 state ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage or civil unions were credited with drawing many conservative voters to the polls and propelling Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans to victory."

In a campaign in North Carolina , the Republican candidate is tar and feathering his opponent this way. According to the local paper, "Robinson has already run a radio ad that features mariachi band music playing in the background. 'If Miller had his way,' says the announcer, 'America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.'" The Democrat, Miller, said, "My wife was interviewed on three television stations last week about why we had not had children and what was my sexual orientation."

In Pennsylvania, Republican Senator Rick Santorum said that he wants a same-sex marriage amendment to the Constitution because gay marriage is "harmful to our country" and he mocked the term "alternative lifestyles" and described the amendment as a means "to counter what Hollywood is purveying to our young people." According to RawStory.com, "He pointed to the film Brokeback Mountain as an example of insidious homosexual influence in popular culture. While . . . Santorum acknowledged the FMA's bleak prospect of passing a full Senate vote, [talk show host] Parshall cast the bill as an attempt to "speak back to the culture." Santorum agreed, declaring that the debate over the FMA would be "an opportunity for us to get beyond, you know, 'We should treat people nicely.'"

That's right, according to a U.S. Senator, we have to get beyond treating people nicely. Conservative leaders think that opposition to a provision that will desecrate the U.S. Constitution is anti-family. Here's what I think: desecrating the U.S. Constitution by voting in favor of frivolous amendments banning gay marriage and flag burning is the lowest form of political life. These people have no business holding public office.

The news about New York City's terror funding only confirms what we were saying all along. This administration has no business being in Washington, and it's a disgrace that a punk like Bush is in the White House.  It's one thing to mangle the English language and to make an ass of yourself as the Commander in Chief . It's another thing to totally abdicate your responsibility to keep the largest terror target in the country safe.

 

Don't be put off by the hype that still accompanies Pepper. A great album, but not the best all-time, an important link in the Beatles' career, and the probably the last time they truly got along in the recording studio.

 

May 31, 2006

 

 

I said it before and I will say it again. One of the most far-reaching consequences of a presidential election is the Supreme Court. Presidents may come and go. And go they must. But Supreme Court rulings are here to stay. Long after Nixon was chased from office in 1974, we had to live with the rulings of arch-conservative William Rehnquist, who patiently went from being the lone right-wing dissenter in the 1970's to Chief Justice in 1986 to the pied piper of the counter-revolution of the 1990's and beyond. His death in 2005 closed the door on the Nixon legacy. Rehnquist was reportedly a hell of a guy, but his rulings reflected the reactionary urges of the Nixon administration.

 

The Bush legacy is a terrible one, and you only have to read the newspaper for the immediate consequences of the crown prince's reign of error. But much to the dismay of Supreme Court watchers and civil rights lawyers, not much attention was paid in the 2000 and 2004 elections to the fact that this anti-intellectual sub-literate might appoint two or more justices to the judicial body which has the last and final word on the meaning of the United States Constitution. It's like asking the president of the Bay City Rollers fan club to watch over the legacy of Pablo Picasso.

 

The chickens are now coming home to roost. Yesterday, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court curtailed the rights of public employees to speak on the job . Guess which justices were in the slim majority? Samuel Alito and John Roberts, appointed by Bush.

 

As a general matter, if you work for the government, you cannot be fired or punished for speaking out on matters of public concern. "Public concern" is a term of art which courts have to parse through, but basically it means that important matters not unique to yourself qualify as free speech in the public workplace. If I work for the Department of Health and complain publicly about the lousy air conditioning or a bad photocopier, that's not free speech. If I complain that the Department is not properly enforcing health regulations, that's free speech on a matter of public concern.

 

In yesterday's ruling, the Supreme Court further clarified the state of the law in this area. The case was brought after a supervising district attorney, Ceballos, raised questions about the accuracy of a search warrant in his office. It was his job to raise these questions which impacted someone's civil rights since a bad warrant can make your life miserable and the district attorney's office has to handle these things properly. Ceballos' objections rattled his superiors who punished him, a predictable consequence in our world which hates troublemakers and dissenters. Of course, the First Amendment was supposed to protect people like this, right?

 

Not quite. In this decision, the Court ruled that Ceballos' speech was not really free speech because it was his job to speak out like this. Since employers have free reign to regulate their workplace when employees behave in a manner deemed unsatisfactory or unacceptable, the First Amendment cannot protect him. Even if the employee raises a good point in speaking out. According to this ruling, Ceballos was not a citizen speaking out but a mere public employee doing his job, or at least attempting to do his job. And that is the new distinction.

 

On the other hand, if Ceballos did not raise his objections in-house and instead told the newspaper or held a press conference about the bad search warrant, the result arguably would have been different, because he would have been speaking out as a concerned citizen. But since he raised his objections in a clean and unobtrusive way, he gets screwed. If Ceballos was the janitor and publicly raised these questions, he could not be fired because then he would be speaking as a concerned citizen rather than speaking pursuant to his official duties.

 

These hypotheticals highlight to many ways that a Supreme Court ruling can be applied in the future. It is up to the lower courts to work out the various cases that arise under the First Amendment where public employees want to speak out on important matters. The identity and qualifications of the judges on the federal courts throughout the country makes a big difference in how yesterday's ruling will be applied and whether the Supreme Court's reasoning will truly stifle speech. With Bush appointing these judges to the federal courts, I am not optimistic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The police had no warrant, so how can they enter the house? Because the courts recognize an "emergency exception" to the Fourth Amendment.  Here are the facts in the case: