The Revolution Times

Surveillance Court Is Seeking Answers

2006-01-06T05:39:00.000-08:00

The members of a secret federal court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases are scheduled to receive a classified briefing Monday from top Justice Department and intelligence officials about a controversial warrantless-eavesdropping program, according to sources familiar with the arrangements.

Several judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said they want to hear directly from administration officials why President Bush believed he had the authority to order, without the court's permission, wiretapping of some phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Of serious concern to several judges is whether any information gleaned from intercepts by the National Security Agency was later used to gain their permission for wiretaps without the source being disclosed.

The court is made up of 11 judges who, on a rotating basis, hear government applications for surveillance warrants. But only the presiding judge, currently Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, was notified of the government eavesdropping program. One judge, James Robertson, who also serves on the federal bench in Washington, resigned his seat on the surveillance court in protest shortly after the wiretapping was revealed by the New York Times in mid-December.

Kollar-Kotelly began pressing for a closed government briefing for the remaining members of the court on Dec. 19, the day she learned of Robertson's concerns. Other judges wanted to know, as Robertson had, whether the administration had misled their court about its sources of information on possible terrorism suspects.

Kollar-Kotelly had privately raised concerns in 2004 about the risk that the government could taint the integrity of the court's work by using information it gained via wiretapping to obtain warrants from judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

On Friday, an attorney for Seifullah Chapman, one of the men convicted as part of the "Virginia jihad network," formally asked federal prosecutors in Virginia to determine whether warrantless NSA wiretaps were used to gain information about his client. Chapman, who is serving a 65-year sentence for conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group, was the subject of a secret FISA warrant.

"My feeling is they are a very professional organization. They would be equally concerned that my client's rights are protected, and they'll want to find out themselves," said John Zwerling, Chapman's attorney.

Some judges who spoke on the condition of anonymity yesterday said they want to know whether warrants they signed were tainted by the NSA program. Depending on the answers, the judges said they could demand some proof that wiretap applications were not improperly obtained. Defense attorneys could have a valid argument to suppress evidence against their clients, some judges said, if information about them was gained through warrantless eavesdropping that was not revealed to the defense.

Yesterday, Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, sent a letter to Bush charging that the limited nature of congressional briefings on the monitoring program violated the National Security Act. The White House informed the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees and the two ranking Democrats about the program.

The National Security Act requires the president to keep all members of the two committees fully informed of intelligence activities with the exception of those conducted covertly overseas. "In my view, failure to provide briefings to the full congressional intelligence committees is a continuing violation of the National Security Act," Harman wrote.

Coal Miners Down :-(

2006-01-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

Let us all take a moment of silence for all those souls lost in the Coal Mining Accident in West Virginia ....

May God's mercy and strength pour down on their families and friends....

Gone But Back

2006-01-04T17:38:00.000-08:00

I AM BACK!!!!

Second Cheney aide cooperating in leak probe, those close to case sa

2005-10-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

A second aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with the special prosecutor's probe into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, those close to the investigation say.

Late Monday, several sources familiar with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s probe said John Hannah, a key aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and one of the architects of the Iraq war, was cooperating with Fitzgerald after being told that he was identified by witnesses as a co-conspirator in the leak. Sources said Hannah was not given immunity, but was likely offered a “deal” in exchange for information that could result in indictments of key White House officials.

Now, those close to the investigation say that a second Cheney aide, David Wurmser, has agreed to provide the prosecution with evidence that the leak was a coordinated effort by Cheney’s office to discredit the agent's husband. Her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was one of the most vocal critics of the Iraq war.

Wurmser, Cheney’s Middle East advisor and an assistant to then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, likely cooperated because he faced criminal charges for his role in leaking Wilson's name on the orders of higher-ups, the sources said.

According to those familiar with the case, Wurmser was in attendance at several meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a little-known cabal of administration hawks that formed in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Those who say they have reviewed documents obtained in the probe assert that the Vice President was also present at some of the group’s meetings.

Wurmser did not return a call seeking comment.

The investigation into who leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent to reporters is heating up, reaching deep into the White House and threatening to bring down key members of an administration not seen since the days of Watergate. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, may be indicted for his alleged role in the agent's outing, as well as discrepancies in his testimony provided to the grand jury.

The sources say that Hannah and Wurmser were given orders by senior officials in Cheney’s office in June 2003 to leak Plame’s covert status and identity in an attempt to muzzle Wilson. The former ambassador had been a thorn in administration’s side since May 2003, when he began questioning claims that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors in the Middle East.

That July, Wilson penned a New York Times op-ed calling into question the veracity of intelligence President Bush cited in his State of the Union speech six months prior that led the nation to war.

Specifically, Wilson said there was no truth to the claims that Iraq had tried to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Africa. Bush officials said Wilson’s trip was a boondoggle, and was set up by his wife, Plame Wilson, who worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction.

The White House Iraq group was founded by Bush chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the Vice President’s offices.

To spread its message that Saddam Hussein was a nuclear threat, WHIG relied heavily on New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who, after meeting with several of the organization’s members in August 2002, wrote an explosive story that many critics of the war believe laid the groundwork for military action against Iraq.

On Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002, Miller wrote a story for the Times quoting anonymous officials who said aluminum tubes found in Iraq were to be used as centrifuges. Her report turned out to be wrong.

Wurmser’s cooperation with Fitzgerald would certainly come as no surprise to those who have been following his career. Last year, he was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his possible role in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel.

According to a 2004 story in the Washington Post, the FBI interviewed officials in Cheney’s office and the Pentagon, including Hannah and Wurmser, former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, to determine if they were involved in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel, the former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The revelation that Hannah and Wurmser have become prosecution witnesses, as well as being identified as the original sources of the leak, indicates Fitzgerald now may be looking into the motive for outing Plame and how Administration officials sought to derail a vocal critic of Iraq intelligence.

The two administration hawks were instrumental in shaping the Bush administration’s agenda with Iraq prior to 9/11.

Wurmser was the lead author of a 1996 policy paper for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” It called for removing Saddam from power in Iraq as part of a broad strategy to transform the region and remove radical regimes. Eight months before 9/11, Wurmser called for joint U.S.-Israeli air strikes on Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya.

Hannah and Wurmser were first named as possible suspects in the Plame leak by Wilson, Plame’s husband, in his book, The Politics of Truth.

“In fact, senior advisers close to the president may well have been clever enough to have used others to do the actual leaking, in order to keep their fingerprints off the crime,” Wilson writes.

“John Hannah and David Wurmser, mid-level political appointees in the vice-president’s office, have both been suggested as sources of the leak …Mid-level officials, however, do not leak information without the authority from a higher level,” Wilson notes.

Today, The New York Times confirmed Hannah provided information to the prosecutor, writing, “Officials who testified or were questioned by investigators also included John Hannah, Mr. Cheney's principal deputy national security adviser.”

Halliburton's New Low in Treachery

2005-10-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

The Chicago Tribune produced an incredible story last week detailing how unsuspecting young men from poor countries are tricked into working in dangerous jobs for a Halliburton subsidiary in Iraq.

The two-part series retraced the journey of a group of Nepalese men who were lured to the Mideast with fraudulent paperwork that promised them jobs at a luxury hotel in Amman, Jordan, but instead wound up in Iraq working for the Halliburton subsidiary KBR, America's biggest private contractor there.

What was even more startling was the stories' revelation that the operation is financed with U.S. taxpayer money.

According to the Tribune, American tax dollars and the wartime needs of the U.S. military are fueling an illicit pipeline of cheap foreign labor into Iraq. Most of those falling for the fraudulent job offers are impoverished Asians who, the newspaper said, "often are deceived, exploited and put in harm's way with little protection."

The Tribune got on the story after 12 young civilians from Nepal were kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq and a few days later publicly slaughtered. The newspaper sent a reporter and photographer to Nepal, where they interviewed families and friends and soon discovered that thousands of men are routinely recruited for "good" Mideast jobs, but wind up in the most treacherous stretches of Iraq territory working in private jobs for the U.S. military.

A brother of one of the kidnapped men told Cam Simpson, the Trib reporter, that the last time he heard from his brother was when he called from his supposed job in Jordan. He was being sent against his will to Iraq, the brother said, and then blurted out, "I am done for." The phone then went dead. The next time the young Nepalese was seen was on a TV screen two weeks later, his hands tied behind his back and a gun pointed at his head.

Simpson reported that the trail of those dozen men from Nepal revealed a chain of brokers, middlemen and subcontractors along the way, all of whom stood to profit from the trade.

To maintain the flow of cheap labor that is key to the military support and reconstruction in Iraq, the U.S. military has allowed KBR to partner with subcontractors that hire workers from Nepal and other countries that prohibit their citizens from being deployed in Iraq, the story said. That means that the brokers operate illicitly and falsify documents that describe far different jobs near Iraq, which eventually turn out to be smack dab in the middle of the country.

"Even after foreign workers discover they have been lured to the Middle East under false pretenses, many say they have little choice but to continue into Iraq or stay longer than planned," the story continued. "They feel trapped because they must repay huge fees demanded by brokers."

KBR, which has a multibillion-dollar contract with the U.S. Defense Department, pays the subcontractors for finding it employees to do the cleanup and rebuilding work in Iraq.

The tentacles of this war keep getting this country deeper and deeper into places we shouldn't be, including this atrocious practice that the Chicago Tribune has uncovered.

The Fallen Legion: Casualties of the Bush Administration

2005-10-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

Since almost the day he assumed power, George W. Bush has left a trail of broken careers in his wake. Below is a listing of but a handful of the most familiar names on the rolls of the fallen:

Richard Clarke: Perhaps the most well-known of the Bush administration's casualties, Clarke spent thirty years in the government, serving under every president from Ronald Reagan on. He was the second-ranking intelligence officer in the State Department under Reagan and then served in the administration of George H.W. Bush. Under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, he held the position of the president's chief adviser on terrorism on the National Security Council -- a Cabinet-level post. Clarke became disillusioned with the "terrible job" of fighting terrorism exhibited by the second president Bush -- namely, ignoring evidence of an impending al-Qaeda attack and putting the pressure on to produce a non-existent link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. (His memo explaining that there was no connection, said Clarke, "got bounced and sent back saying, ‘Wrong answer. Do it again.'") After 9/11, Clarke asked for a transfer from his job to a National Security Council office concerned with cyber-terrorism. (The administration later claimed it was a demotion). Quit, January 2003.

Paul O'Neill: A top official at the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Nixon and Ford (and later chairman of aluminum-giant Alcoa), O'Neill served nearly two years in George W. Bush's cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury before being asked to resign after opposing the president's tax cuts. He, like Clarke, recalled Bush's Iraq fixation. "From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," said O'Neill, a permanent member of the National Security Council. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this.'" Fired, December 6, 2002.

Flynt Leverett, Ben Miller and Hillary Mann: A Senior Director for Middle East Affairs on President Bush's National Security Council (NSC), a CIA staffer and Iraq expert with the NSC, and a foreign service officer on detail to the NSC as the Director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs, respectively, they were all reportedly forced out by Elliott Abrams, Bush's NSC Advisor on Middle East Affairs, when they disagreed with policy toward Israel. Said Leverett, "There was a decision made… basically to renege on the commitments we had made to various European and Arab partners of the United States. I personally disagreed with that decision." He also noted, "[Richard] Clarke's critique of administration decision-making and how it did not balance the imperative of finishing the job against al Qaeda versus what they wanted to do in Iraq is absolutely on the money… We took the people out [of Afghanistan in 2002 to begin preparing for the war in Iraq] who could have caught" al Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri. According to Josef Bodansky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terror and Unconventional Warfare, Abrams "led Miller to an open window and told him to jump." He also stated that Mann and Leverett had been told to leave. Resigned/Fired, 2003.

Larry Lindsey: A "top economic adviser" to Bush who was ousted when he revealed to a newspaper that a war with Iraq could cost $200 billion. Fired, December 2002.

Ann Wright: A career diplomat in the Foreign Service and a colonel in the Army Reserves resigned on the day the U.S. launched the Iraq War. In her letter of resignation, Wright told then-Secretary of State Colin Powell: "I believe the Administration's policies are making the world a more dangerous, not a safer, place. I feel obligated morally and professionally to set out my very deep and firm concerns on these policies and to resign from government service as I cannot defend or implement them." Resigned, March 19, 2003.

John Brady Kiesling: A career diplomat who served four presidents over a twenty year span, he tendered his letter of resignation from his post as Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. He wrote:

"…until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer. The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security."

Resigned, February 27, 2003.

John Brown: After nearly 25-years, this veteran of the Foreign Service, who served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev and Belgrade, resigned from his post. In his letter of resignation, he wrote: "I cannot in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq. The president has failed to: explain clearly why our brave men and women in uniform should be ready to sacrifice their lives in a war on Iraq at this time; to lay out the full ramifications of this war, including the extent of innocent civilian casualties; to specify the economic costs of the war for the ordinary Americans; to clarify how the war would help rid the world of terror; [and] to take international public opinion against the war into serious consideration." Resigned, March 10, 2003.

Rand Beers: When Beers, the National Security Council's senior director for combating terrorism, resigned he declined to comment, but one former intelligence official noted, "Hardly a surprise. We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel[ligence] resources and the relationships with our allies." Beers later admitted, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure… As an insider, I saw the things that weren't being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out." Resigned, March 2003.

Anthony Zinni: A soldier and diplomat for 40 years, Zinni served from 1997 to 2000 as commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command in the Middle East. The retired Marine Corps general was then called back to service by the Bush administration to assume one of the highest diplomatic posts, special envoy to the Middle East (from November 2002 to March 2003), but his disagreement with Bush's plans to go to war and public comments that foretold of a a prolonged and problematical aftermath to such a war led to his ouster. "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption," said Zinni. Failed to be reappointed, March 2003.

Eric Shinseki: After General Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff, told Congress that the occupation of Iraq could require "several hundred thousand troops," he was derided by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Then, wrote the Houston Chronicle, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "took the unusual step of announcing that Gen. Eric Shinseki would be leaving when his term as Army chief of staff end[ed]." Retired, June 2003.

Karen Kwiatkowski: A Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who served in the Department of Defense's Near East and South Asia (NESA) Bureau in the year before the invasion of Iraq, she wrote in her letter of resignation:

"…[W]hile working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made… What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of ‘intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense."

Retired, July 2003.

Charles "Jack" Pritchard: A retired U.S. Army colonel and a 28-year veteran of the military, the State Department, and the National Security Council, who served as the State Department's senior expert on North Korea and as the special envoy for negotiations with that country, resigned (according to the Los Angeles Times) because the "administration's refusal to engage directly with the country made it almost impossible to stop Pyongyang from going ahead with its plans to build, test and deploy nuclear weapons." Resigned, August 2003.

Major (then Captain) John Carr and Major Robert Preston: Air Force prosecutors, they quit their posts in 2004 rather than take part in trials under the military commission system President Bush created in 2001 which they considered "rigged against alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.

Captain Carrie Wolf: A U.S. Air Force officer, she also asked to leave the Office of Military Commissions due to concerns that the Bush-created commissions for trying prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were unjust. Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor: He retired from the U.S. Army and stated: "I love the army and I was sorry to leave it. But I saw no possibility of fundamentally positive reform and reorgani[z]ation of the force for the current strategic environment or the future… It's a very sycophantic culture. The biggest problem we have inside the… Department of Defense at the senior level, but also within the officer corps -- is that there are no arguments. Arguments are [seen as] a sign of dissent. Dissent equates to disloyalty." Retired, June 2004.

Paul Redmond: After a long career at the CIA, Redmond became the Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. When, according to Notra Trulock of Accuracy in Media, he reported, at a congressional hearing in June 2003, "that he didn't have enough analysts to do the job… [and] his office still lacked the secure communications capability to receive classified reports from the intelligence community… [t]hat kind of candor was not appreciated by his bosses and, consequently, he had to go." Resigned, June 2003.

John W. Carlin: According to the Washington Post, Carlin, the "Archivist of the United States was pushed by the White House… to submit his resignation without being given any reason, Senate Democrats disclosed… at a hearing to consider President Bush's nomination of his successor." "I asked why, and there was no reason given," said Carlin, but the Post reported that some had "suggested Bush may have wanted a new archivist to help keep his or his father's sensitive presidential records under wraps." Although he had stated his wish to serve until the end of his 10-year term, and 65th birthday in 2005, Carlin surrendered to Bush administration pressure. Resigned, December 19, 2003.

Susan Wood and Frank Davidoff: Wood was the Food and Drug Administration's Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health and Director of the Office of Women's Health; Davidoff was the editor emeritus of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine and an internal medicine specialist on the FDA's Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee. Wood resigned in protest over the FDA's decision to delay yet again, due to pressure from the Bush administration, a final ruling on whether the "morning-after pill" should be made more easily accessible -- despite a 23-4 vote, back in December 2003, by a panel of experts to recommend non-prescription sale of the contraceptive, called Plan B. In an email to colleagues, Wood, the top FDA official in charge of women's health issues, wrote, "I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled." Days later, Davidoff quit over the same issue and wrote in his resignation letter, "I can no longer associate myself with an organization that is capable of making such an important decision so flagrantly on the basis of political influence, rather than the scientific and clinical evidence." Wood: Resigned, August 31, 2005. Davidoff: Resigned, September, 2005.

Thomas E. Novotny: A deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services and the chief official working on an international treaty to reduce cigarette smoking around the world, Novotny "stepped down," claimed Bush administration officials, "for personal reasons unrelated to the negotiations"; but the Washington Post reported that "three people who ha[d] spoken with Novotny… said he had privately expressed frustration over the administration's decision to soften the U.S. positions on key issues, including restrictions on secondhand smoke and the advertising and marketing of cigarettes." Resigned, August 1, 2001.

Joanne Wilson: The commissioner of the Department of Education's Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), she quit, according to the Washington Post, "in protest of what she said were the administration's largely unnoticed efforts to gut the office's funding and staffing" and attempts to dismantle programs "critical to helping the blind, deaf and otherwise disabled find jobs." On February 7, 2005 the Bush administration announced that it would close all RSA regional offices and cut personnel in half. Quit, February 8, 2005.

James Zahn: According to an article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the Nation magazine, Zahn, a "nationally respected microbiologist with the Agriculture Department's research service" stated that "his supervisor at the USDA, under pressure from the hog industry, had ordered him not to publish his study," which "identified bacteria that can make people sick -- and that are resistant to antibiotics -- in the air surrounding industrial-style hog farms"; and that "he had been forced to cancel more than a dozen public appearances at local planning boards and county health commissions seeking information about health impacts of industry mega-farms." As a result, "Zahn resigned from the government in disgust." Resigned, May 2002.

Tony Oppegard and Jack Spadaro: Oppegard and Spadaro were members of a "team of federal geodesic engineers selected to investigate the collapse of barriers that held back a coal slurry pond in Kentucky containing toxic wastes from mountaintop strip-mining." According to the Environmental Protection Agency, this had been "the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States." Oppegard, who the headed the team, "was fired on the day Bush was inaugurated… All eight members of the team except Spadaro signed off on a whitewashed investigation report. Spadaro, like the others, was harassed but flat-out refused to sign. In April of 2001 Spadaro resigned from the team and filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Labor Department… he was placed on administrative leave--a prelude to getting fired." Two months before his 28th anniversary as a federal employee, and after years of harassment due to his stance, Spadaro resigned. "I'm just very tired of fighting," he said. "I've been fighting this administration since early 2001. I want a little peace for a while." Oppegrad: Fired, January 20, 2001. Spaddaro: Resigned, October 1, 2003.

Teresa Chambers: After speaking with reporters and congressional staffers about budget problems in her organization, the U.S. Park Police Chief was placed on administrative leave. Then, according to CNN, just "two and half hours after her attorneys filed a demand for immediate reinstatement through the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent agency that ensures federal employees are protected from management abuses," Chambers was fired. "The American people should be afraid of this kind of silencing of professionals in any field," said Chambers. "We should be very concerned as American citizens that people who are experts in their field either can't speak up, or, as we're seeing now in the parks service, won't speak up." Fired, July 2004.

Martha Hahn: The state director for the Bureau of Land Management, "responsible for 12 million acres in Idaho, almost one-quarter of the state" for seven years, Hahn found her authority drastically curtailed after the Bush administration took office. She watched as the administration blocked public comment on mining initiatives and opened up previously protected areas to environmental degradation. After she locked horns with cattle interests over grazing rights, she received a letter stating she was being transferred from her beloved Rocky Mountain West to "a previously nonexistent job in New York City." "It's been a shock," she said. "I'm going through mental anguish right now. I felt like I was at the prime of my career." Hahn was told to accept the involuntary reassignment or resign. Resigned, March 6, 2002.

Andrew Eller: Eller "spent many of his 17 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protecting the [Florida] panther. But when his research didn't jibe with a huge airport project slated for the cat's habitat -- and Eller refused to play along--he was given the boot," wrote the Tucson Weekly. "I was fired three days after President Bush was re-elected," said Eller. "It was obviously reprisal for holding different views than [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] management on whether or not the panther was in jeopardy, and pointing out that they were using flawed science to support their view." Fired, November 2004.

Mike Dombeck: The chief of the Forest Service resigned after a 23-year government career. In his resignation letter, the pro-conservation Dombeck stated, "It was made clear in no uncertain terms that the [Bush] administration wants to take the Forest Service in another direction ...." Resigned, March 27, 2001.

James Furnish: A political conservative, evangelical Christian, and Republican who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 as well as the former Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service (who spent 30 years, across 8 presidential administrations working for that agency), Furnish resigned in 2002 due to policy differences with the Bush administration. "I just viewed [the administration's] actions as being regressive," said Furnish. In acting according to his conscience, instead of waiting a year longer to maximize retirement benefits, Furnish lost out on about $10,000 a year for the rest of his life. Resigned, 2002.

Mike Parker: In early 2002, Parker, the director of the Army Corps of Engineers testified before Congress that Bush-mandated budget cuts would have a "negative impact" on the Corps. He also admitted to holding no "warm and fuzzy" feelings toward the Bush administration. "Soon after," reported the Christian Science Monitor, "he was given 30 minutes to resign or be fired." In the wake of the devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Parker's clashes with Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, can be seen as prophetic. Parker remembered one such incident in which he brought Daniels, the Bush administration's budget guru, a piece of steel from a Mississippi canal lock that "was completely corroded and falling apart because of a lack of funding," and said, "Mitch, it doesn't matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates -- either way it's the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame." He recalled of the incident, "It made no impact on him whatsoever." Resigned, March 6, 2002.

Sylvia K. Lowrance: A top Environmental Protection Agency official who served the agency for over 20 years, including as Assistant Administrator of its Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance for the first 18 months of the Bush administration, Lowrance retired, stating, "We will see more resignations in the future as the administration fails to enforce environmental laws." she said, "This Administration has pulled cases and put investigations on ice. They sent every signal they can to staff to back off." Retired, August 2002.

Bruce Boler: An EPA scientist who resigned from his post because, he said, "Wetlands are often referred to as nature's kidneys. Most self-respecting scientists will tell you that, and yet [private] developers and officials [at the Army Corps of Engineers] wanted me to support their position that wetlands are, literally, a pollution source." Resigned, October 23, 2003.

Eric Schaeffer: After twelve years of service, including the last five as Director of the Office of Regulatory Enforcement, at the Environmental Protection Agency, Schaeffer submitted a letter of resignation over the Bush administration's non-enforcement of the Clean Air Act. He later explained:

"In a matter of weeks, the Bush administration was able to undo the environmental progress we had worked years to secure. Millions of tons of unnecessary pollution continue to pour from these power plants each year as a result. Adding insult to injury, the White House sought to slash the EPA's enforcement budget, making it harder for us to pursue cases we'd already launched against other polluters that had run afoul of the law, from auto manufacturers to refineries, large industrial hog feedlots, and paper companies. It became clear that Bush had little regard for the environment--and even less for enforcing the laws that protect it. So last spring, after 12 years at the agency, I resigned, stating my reasons in a very public letter to Administrator [Christine Todd] Whitman."

Resigned, February 27, 2002.

Bruce Buckheit: A 30-year veteran of government service, Buckheit retired in frustration over Bush administration efforts to weaken environmental regulations. When asked by NBC reporter Stone Phillips, "What's the biggest enforcement challenge right now when it comes to air pollution?," the former Senior Counsel with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, and then Director of EPA's Air Enforcement Division, was unequivocal: "The Bush Administration." He went on to note that "this administration has decided to put the economic interests of the coal fired power plants ahead of the public interests in reducing air pollution." Resigned, November 2003.

Rich Biondi: A 32-year EPA employee, Biondi retired from his post as Associate Director of the Air Enforcement Division of the Environmental Protection Agency. He stated, "We weren't given the latitude we had been, and the Bush administration was interfering more and more with the ability to get the job done. There were indications things were going to be reviewed a lot more carefully, and we needed a lot more justification to bring lawsuits." Retired, December 2004.

Martin E. Sullivan, Richard S. Lanier and Gary Vikan: Three members of the White House Cultural Property Advisory Committee, they all resigned from their posts to protest the looting of Baghdad's National Museum of Antiquities. In his letter of resignation, Sullivan, the Committee's chairman, wrote, "The tragedy was not prevented, due to our nation's inaction," while Lanier castigated "the administration's total lack of sensitivity and forethought regarding the Iraq invasion and the loss of cultural treasures." Resigned, April 14, 2003.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, eyes began to focus on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the political appointees running it. What had happened to the professionals who once staffed FEMA? In 2004, Pleasant Mann, a 17-year FEMA veteran who heads the agency's government employee union told Indyweek:

"Since last year, so many people have left who had developed most of our basic programs. A lot of the institutional knowledge is gone. Everyone who was able to retire has left, and then a lot of people have moved to other agencies."

Disillusionment with the current state of affairs at FEMA was cited as the major cause for the mass defections. In fact, a February 2004 survey by the American Federation of Government Employees found that 80% of a sample of remaining employees said FEMA had become "a poorer agency" since being shifted into the Bush-created Department of Homeland Security. What happened to FEMA has happened, in ways large and small, to many other federal agencies. In an article by Amanda Griscom in Grist magazine, Jeff Ruch, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, made reference to the "unusually high" rate of replacement of scientists in government agencies during the Bush administration. "If the scientist gives the inconvenient answer they commit career suicide," he said.

However defined, the casualties of the Bush administration are legion. The numbers of government careers wrecked, disrupted, adversely affected, or tossed into turmoil as a result of this administration's wars, budgets, policies, and programs is impossible to determine. Although every administration leaves bodies strewn in its wake, none in recent memory has come close to the Bush administration in producing so many public statements of resignation, dissatisfaction, or anger over treatment or policies. The aforementioned list of casualties includes among the best known of those who have resigned or left the administration under pressure (although not necessarily those who have suffered most from their acts). Perhaps no one knows exactly how many government workers, at all levels, have fallen in the face of the Bush administration. Those mentioned above are just a few of the highest profile members of this as yet uncounted legion, just a few of the names we know.

Join the Revolution

2005-10-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

If you would like to Join the Revolution... Please send me an Email at SoulRiderGBC@yahoo.com I will be sending out a weekly news letter to all that would like to join up.... And also you will be able to send in your stories and I will post them on my site and give full credit to you.

If you would like to post this button on your site

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Claim: Cheney's office opposed Miers nomination to court

2005-10-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

Veteran conservative columnist and pundit John Fund asserts in the Wall Street Journal today that the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to block the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

"A last minute effort was made to block the choice of Ms. Miers, including the offices of Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales," Fund claims. "It fell on deaf ears."
"Indeed, even internal advice was shunned," Fund adds. White House Chief of Staff Andrew "Card is said to have shouted down objections to Ms. Miers at staff meetings. A senator attending the White House swearing-in of John Roberts four days before the Miers selection was announced was struck by how depressed White House staffers were during discussion of the next nominee. He says their reaction to him could have been characterized as, "Oh brother, you have no idea what's coming."

Though he has stumped for Bush's nominee, Cheney has taken a lower profile in recent days. Last week, he skipped out of the 50th anniversary party for the National Review, a conservative heavyweight in Washington.
Cheney's chief spokesman, Steve Schmidt, recently left for Iraq, and his chief of staff is under investigation for talking to reporters about a CIA agent who was later outed by conservative columnist Robert Novak.

Some believe Cheney and Bush are at odds surrounding the leak investigation.

"I was surprised at how poorly this story was done," a poster at RedState.org wrote. "Maybe I'm letting my prejudices show, because I've made no secret of the fact that I think it's a good nomination. However this story just seemed to be a series of gossip pieces that Fund had picked up here or there... Fund doesn't say that Cheney or Gonzales were opposed, only he heard a rumor that someone in their office opposed."
The buzz in Washington is that Miers could withdraw, but such reports have not been confirmed. No senator has publicly opposed Miers nomination, though two Republican senators -- Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KN)-- have publicly expressed concern about the nominee.

More Than 40 Killed in Pre-Vote Iraq Violence

2005-10-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

Baghdad - Insurgents determined to wreck Iraq's upcoming constitutional referendum killed more than 40 people and wounded dozens in several attacks Tuesday, including a suicide car bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near the Syrian border.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have repeatedly warned that the insurgents would step up their attacks to undermine Saturday's vote, a crucial step in Iraq's democratic transition.
In the deadliest attack in nearly two weeks, a suicide car bomb exploded at about 11 a.m. in a crowded open market in the northwestern town of Tal Afar, killing 30 Iraqis and wounding 45, said Brig. Najim Abdullah, Tal Afar's police chief. U.S and Iraqi forces routed insurgents in a major offensive there last month.
He said all the victims appeared to be civilians since no Iraqi or U.S. forces were in the center of Tal Afar, which is 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Nine Attacks in Baghdad
Insurgents also used two suicide car bombs, three roadside bombs and four drive-by shootings in the capital on Tuesday to kill a total of 14 Iraqis; 29 were wounded, police said. The worst attack involved a suicide car bomb that exploded about noon at an Iraqi army checkpoint in a busy area of western Baghdad, killing eight Iraqi soldiers and one civilian and wounding 12 soldiers, said police Capt. Qassim Hussein.
The violence came four days ahead of Iraq's key vote on the draft constitution, which Kurds and the majority Shiites largely support and the Sunni Arab minority rejects. Sunnis are campaigning to defeat the charter at the polls, although officials from all sides have been trying up to the last minute to decide on changes to the constitution to swing Sunni support.
Many Sunnis fear the document would create nearly autonomous Kurdish and Shiite mini-states in the north and south, where Iraq's oil wealth is located, and leave most Sunnis isolated in central and western Iraq under a weak central government in Baghdad. Whether the constitution passes or fails, Iraq is due to hold elections for a new parliament on Dec. 15.
Militants are demanding that Iraqis boycott the referendum and have killed at least 384 people in the last 16 days in a series of attacks.

ALERT ALERT ALERT!!!!

2005-10-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

New public school textbook about the Bible

An interfaith group is releasing a new textbook aimed at teaching public high school students about the Bible while avoiding legal and religious disputes.
The nonprofit Bible Literacy Project of Fairfax, Va., spent five years and $2 million developing “The Bible and Its Influence.” The textbook, to be introduced at a Washington news conference, won initial endorsements from experts in literature, religion and church-state law.
The textbook “shows that it can be done,” said American Jewish Congress attorney Marc Stern, an adviser on the effort. “And it will short-circuit people who would take religion entirely out of the public school curriculum.”
An interfaith group is releasing a new textbook aimed at teaching public high school students about the Bible while avoiding legal and religious disputes.
The nonprofit Bible Literacy Project of Fairfax, Va., spent five years and $2 million developing “The Bible and Its Influence.” The textbook, to be introduced at a Washington news conference, won initial endorsements from experts in literature, religion and church-state law.
The textbook “shows that it can be done,” said American Jewish Congress attorney Marc Stern, an adviser on the effort. “And it will short-circuit people who would take religion entirely out of the public school curriculum.”An interfaith group is releasing a new textbook aimed at teaching public high school students about the Bible while avoiding legal and religious disputes.
The nonprofit Bible Literacy Project of Fairfax, Va., spent five years and $2 million developing “The Bible and Its Influence.” The textbook, to be introduced at a Washington news conference, won initial endorsements from experts in literature, religion and church-state law.
The textbook “shows that it can be done,” said American Jewish Congress attorney Marc Stern, an adviser on the effort. “And it will short-circuit people who would take religion entirely out of the public school curriculum.”
An interfaith group is releasing a new textbook aimed at teaching public high school students about the Bible while avoiding legal and religious disputes.
The nonprofit Bible Literacy Project of Fairfax, Va., spent five years and $2 million developing “The Bible and Its Influence.” The textbook, to be introduced at a Washington news conference, won initial endorsements from experts in literature, religion and church-state law.
The textbook “shows that it can be done,” said American Jewish Congress attorney Marc Stern, an adviser on the effort. “And it will short-circuit people who would take religion entirely out of the public school curriculum.”

WHAT!!!!! Come on now .... Next it will be the Koran that will want a place in public schools, and then it will be the Shinto Scrolls. I can't believe that the government and my own RELIGION would stoop so low as to pressure students to learn the bible by just simply labeling it as a historical text book. I for one know plenty of parents and legal gurdians that will not only find this extremely offensive but also darn near unforgiveable. I think that if this is going to happen it should not be a required class. WOW!! This is going to cause such a problem that parents very well might pull kids out of school in protest, which hurts the children, but I guess that isn't who the government worries about they can't vote....Can't religion keep its dirty little fingers out of things that the FOUNDING FATHERS tried to keep seperate. STOP THE INSANITY

British and American leaders likened to Nazi war criminals

2005-10-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

10/08/05 "The Telegraph" -- -- Tony Blair and George Bush were compared to Nazi war criminals yesterday by Scott Ritter, the former UN chief weapons inspector."Both these men could be pulled up as war criminals for engaging in actions that we condemned Germany in 1946 for doing," he said.He said the Prime Minister and the US President were "guilty of the crime of planning and committing aggressive warfare". Speaking in London at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Mr Ritter said the two leaders would have been in a much stronger position if they had got a UN resolution explicitly authorising the invasion.He also said Britain gained very little from the "special relationship". "Britain gets nothing, other than to say they are America's closest ally in Europe," he said.Mr Ritter, who was a UN weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998, said intelligence services had been correct to say that Iraq's missile programme had been destroyed soon after the first Gulf conflict of 1991.He recalled how he delivered a report in 1992 stating that the programme had been eliminated. It was met with "stony silence" and he was told that Iraq still possessed 200 missiles. The inspectors returned to track down the weapons, which never materialised.

Dems Chant 'Shame! Shame!' as GOP Bullies House Vote

2005-10-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Republican House members DeLay, Barton, Hastert and Blunt held the vote open on a controversial energy bill until they were able twist enough arms for the bill to pass.
Although only 5 minutes are allotted for voting, Republicans refused to close the voting for 40 minutes until enough votes had switched to pass the energy bill which will gut environmental standards in favor of building more oil refineries.

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Sunnis bury dumped bodies, blame Shiite death squads

2005-10-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

AP count shows 539 bodies in five months

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The 22 bodies, lined up in coffins in a mosque courtyard Friday, are as shriveled as ancient mummies after lying a month in the desert where they were dumped, bound and bullet-ridden. They were Sunni Arabs, rounded up from their Baghdad homes one night by men in police uniforms.Relatives and neighbors in mourning are convinced they were killed by government-linked Shiite death squads they say are behind corpses that turn up nearly every day in and around the capital — two more on Friday. Now some Sunnis are vowing to take action to protect themselves.At least 539 bodies have been found since Iraq’s interim government was formed April 28 — 204 in Baghdad — according to an Associated Press count. The identities of many are unknown, but 116 are known to be Sunnis, 43 Shiites and one Kurd. Some are likely victims of crime — including kidnappings — rampant in some cities and as dangerous to Iraqis as political violence.The count may be low since one or two bodies are found almost daily and are never reported.
Both minority-Sunnis and Shiites accuse one another of using death squads — and the accusations are deepening the Sunni-Shiite divide at a time when mistrust is already high over a new constitution that Iraqis will vote on in eight days. Shiites overwhelmingly support the charter, Sunnis oppose it, saying it will fragment Iraq.Shiite deaths are generally attributed to Sunni insurgents, who hit Shiite sites with suicide attacks, bombings and shootings, but also carry out targeted slayings, leaving groups of Shiite bodies to be found later. Insurgents have disguised themselves as police — most recently in an attack last week south of Baghdad in which they dragged five Shiite teachers and their driver into a school and shot them to death.But there have been several cases of Sunni Arabs who turn up dead in large groups after being taken by men claiming to be Interior Ministry forces. The largest group of bodies found outside Baghdad was 36 Sunnis discovered Aug. 25 in a dry riverbed near Badrah, close to the Iranian border, after being kidnapped in Baghdad.The grisly finds have led Sunnis to believe that Shiite Muslims who dominate the government and the Interior Ministry are waging a quiet, deadly campaign against them. But the Interior Ministry denies any role and blames insurgents using stolen police equipment.On Friday, in Baghdad’s Umm al-Qura mosque, mourners for the 22 men shouted slogans against the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia linked to one of the main parties in the government, accusing them in the slayings.The desiccated, unrecognizable bodies lay in wooden coffins, each with a photo of the victim attached. Mourners wept. ‘‘Why were they killed? They had done nothing wrong,’’ wailed one man.The bodies were found Sept. 27 in the same Badrah region near the Iranian border outside the southern town of Kut, where they had lain for weeks exposed to the sun. They had been shot, some in the head. Some were blindfolded. All had their hands bound by ropes, plastic or shiny metal handcuffs. The site was 100 miles from where the men had last been seen.On Aug 18, some 50 vehicles full of men in Interior Ministry uniforms swept into Baghdad’s Iskan neighborhood just after dawn and surrounded several streets, going into houses and grabbing the 22 young men — some of them pairs of brothers, said Jamal Amin Mustafa, 60, who lives nearby and was at Friday’s funeral service.‘‘They took them from their bedrooms,’’ said Mahmoud al-Sumeidaie, the cleric who delivered prayers during the service. ‘‘We blame the government, which came to save us from Saddam’s terrorism but has brought terrorism worse than Saddam.’’The story is echoed by Tahir Dawood, who on Sept. 28 went to the Baghdad morgue to identify his two younger brothers and five of his cousins whose bodies — bound, blindfolded and shot — were found that morning dumped in a lot near his neighborhood of Hurriya.The seven, all construction worker, had been taken from their homes the previous day before dawn, by a large force of men in police uniforms who told families they were from the Interior Ministry, Dawood told AP. He has since fled Baghdad with most of his immediate family.At a three-day wake held last weekend, a cousin of the victims, Khaled al-Azawi, fumed. He accused the Interior Ministry of waging ‘‘genocide against the Sunni Arabs in Iraq with the knowledge of the American forces.’’ He and Dawood said the slain men had no connection to Sunni insurgents — or any link to the government or U.S. forces that might make them insurgent targets.‘‘We have no other choice but to take up our rifles and protect ourselves,’’ al-Azawi said.

The Shoot First Law

2005-10-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

Staring on Monday, volunteers from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence have distributed leaflets to tourists arriving at the Miami airport: "In Florida, do not argue unnecessarily with local people. Be particularly careful about disputes with other motorists." The reason for this warning: the entry into force on October 1st of a new law that extends the concept of self-defense considerably. Baptized by its adversaries as the "Shoot First Law," supercedes the older provisions of the penal code, which said that an individual [carrying a concealed weapon can use it] if there is a threat, "when the avoidance of injury is otherwise not possible." From now on, "a person who is not pursuing illegal activity, who is attacked in a place that they have a legal right to be, has no duty to retreat ... and can stand his or her ground and use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another person or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”

Read the Shoot First Law Warning Letter from the Brady Campaign
Read More About the Law

McCain passes amendment to end torture of detainees; Bush threatens veto

2005-10-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

If you look at the Army Field Manual's section on interrogation techniques, you will find an enlightening little passage on the subject of "coercive" interrogation, which says in part:

"The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."

Here is the short version of the article which follows from this point: Early in the "War on Terror", the Bush Administration made a decision that the U.S. military would not be bound by the Geneva Convention in the fights that were to come. When the fights came, the "detainees" that the military picked up were met with treatment that some supporters of the Bush Administration called "coercive" and some other persons called "torture".
Yesterday evening, John McCain passed an amendment to the next military appropriations bill which if followed would end such practices by simply requiring the treatment of detainees to be held to the standards in the Army field manual. Bush claims he's going to veto it. This would mean the first, and so far only, veto of Bush's entire presidency would be performed in support of torture.

Separation of Church and State

2005-10-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

Separation of Church and State has been popping up everywhere lately in the news. It comes in many forms, such as, church campaign contributions, denial of communion to certain politicians, over abortion rights, and in the ever- present debate about Evolution and Intelligent Design. The abortion rights debate is being beat to death, and, well, I am not sure anyone is going to see eye to eye about this. I, for one, believe it is every women’s right to chose, but like I said, this is one argument that is going to be around for a long while. I am sure I will be blogging it soon enough. What I would like to focus on is the theories of Evolution and Intelligent Design.

First off, let me explain each one in more detail. Intelligent Design is a theory put forth by Christians that GOD created the earth in seven days, and then from dust created man (ADAM) in his very image. Adam grew lonely in the Garden of Eden, so God took a rib from Adam and created Eve. Then, as we most likely all know the story, Eve is swindled by the snake into eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge, and then gets Adam to eat from it also. God became angry, and expelled them both from Eden.... They then mated and populated the earth. Evolution is a scientific explanation of how we came about, presented by Charles Darwin. Darwin theory is that we all, meaning everything in existence, started out as a single cell. Through eons of natural selection (being that only the strong survive), we eventually evolved into what you see today. Basically, we are all mutations formed by continual evolution.

Now, must of us learned about Evolution in our biology class in public school, and Intelligent Design in church, which is how I always saw things being. I went to Sunday school, and continue to go to church, to further my spiritual growth, and go to college to continue my education of the mind. From what I see, it isn’t enough for it to be like that anymore. Christian organizations have been lobbying Congress for a while now to include Intelligent Design in biology books as a scientific theory. NOW WAIT A SECOND.... does that mean in Sunday school they are going to have to include the Evolution theory?..... NO! This is not a give and take relationship. It is there way, or they go CRAZY. Sorry, that was mean of me to say, but a lot of the RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS see things one way and are forever unable to compromise. I remember when they wanted to bring prayer to public school. I was confused because during my moment of silence, I always prayed for a blessed day in school. No one had to hold my hand and lead me in prayer. See, that is the way it should be, because let’s face it, this country is not one religion. For me to be ready for life, I need schooling in knowledge of the world. For me to be ready for the after life I need schooling for the soul. I find these things in separate places, which is okay. Why do we have to mix them? The Founding Fathers escaped persecution of the Roman Catholic Church government by moving here and separating the two. Now look at us! We are doing it all over again, except now we have no where left to run. For this melting pot to succeed we need to relax a bit, take it down a notch, and really just live. I am all for a moral, just society, but at the expense of my own freedom to practice my religion? Well that’s just to much, and it’s down right wrong. Church beliefs need to stay within the church, and science in the classroom. If this doesn’t happen, then guess what? The other religions are going to want a piece of the pie, bringing their theories in, and, well, that is just going to be unnecessary. Separation of Church and State is a founding principle of this country.

Let’s FIGHT to keep it that way.

Unauthorized Reproduction

2005-10-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant “by means other than sexual intercourse.”
According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation and egg donation must first file for a “petition for parentage” in their local county probate court.
Only women who are married will be considered for the “gestational certificate” that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the “gestational certificate” will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.
As the draft of the new law reads now, an intended parent “who knowingly or willingly participates in an artificial reproduction procedure” without court approval, “commits unauthorized reproduction, a Class B misdemeanor.” The criminal charges will be the same for physicians who commit “unauthorized practice of artificial reproduction.”
The change in Indiana law to require marriage as a condition for motherhood and criminalizing “unauthorized reproduction” was introduced at a summer meeting of the Indiana General Assembly’s Health Finance Commission on Sept. 29 and a final version of the bill will come up for a vote at the next meeting at the end of this month.
Republican Sen. Patricia Miller is both the Health Finance Commission chair and the sponsor of the bill. She believes the new law will protect children in the state of Indiana and make parenting laws more explicit.
According to Miller, the laws prohibiting surrogacy in the state of Indiana are currently too vague and unenforceable, and that is the purpose of the new legislation.
“But it’s not just surrogacy,” Miller told NUVO. “The law is vague on all types of extraordinary types of infertility treatment, and we wanted to address that as well.
“Ordinary treatment would be the mother’s egg and the father’s sperm. But now there are a lot of extraordinary things that raise issues of who has legal rights as parents,” she explained when asked what she considers “extraordinary” infertility treatment.
Miller believes the requirement of marriage for parenting is for the benefit of the children that result from infertility treatments.
“We did want to address the issue of whether or not the law should allow single people to be parents. Studies have shown that a child raised by both parents — a mother and a father — do better. So, we do want to have laws that protect the children,” she explained.
When asked specifically if she believes marriage should be a requirement for motherhood, and if that is part of the bill’s intention, Miller responded, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

To see a copy of the current draft of this legislation go to http://www.in.gov/legislative/interim/committee/prelim/HFCO04.pdf

Free speech on campus loses to political correctness

2005-10-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

The 1st Amendment has been getting a workout in recent weeks on two college campuses - the University of Florida and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - where students are learning that free speech is a messy business.
The two cases, one involving a colunminst at UNC and the other a political cartoonist at UF, have inflamed minority groups, provoking and debate. That's the good news insofar as protest and debate are the currency of free speech.
What's not such good news is that the columnist was fired, while the Florida cartoonist has been condemned and threatened. Both students have been virtually abandoned by university officials, some of whom apparently are more concerned about burnishing their multiculti self-images than in demonstrating the importance of a founding principle.
Exhibit A is Jillian Brandes, a former columnist for UNC's The Daily Tar Heel. Her column, which was intended to make a case for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, began hyperbolically: "I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport."
Then she proceeded to quote several Arab students and a professor who said they wouldn't mind being searched. Some of them subsequently claimed their remarks had been taken out of context, and unprecedented development in jounalism history. Brandes was Fired!!!
In Gainesville, Fla., cartoonist Andy Marlette drew an image that has angered some black groups.

Marlette's cartoon in the Independent Florida Alligator was a commentary on rapper Knaye West's remarks following Hurricane quatrain that : "George Bush doesn't care about black people." His cartoon to the left.
The N-Word makes me cringe .... Especially every time I hear West say it. His spicy songs are liberally seasoned with the epithet, often couched in violence and obscenity.
This cartoon hit the mark. It was sophisticated, irreverent and funny. Yet, certain campus groups and administrators were outraged. This, despite the fact that the same student government that pulled ads from the Alligator is paying West to drop the N-bomb in concert at the university.
A recent study but the Foundation for individual Rights in Education found that one of four college students couldn't name any of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
It's down right disturbing, however, when faculty and administrators' understanding is little better. While some journalism professors have embraced the cartoon debate as a teaching opportunity, other - including UF President Bernie Machen - have behaved like church ladies, pursing lips and wagging fingers instead of brandishing swords in defense of liberty. Not so long ago minority groups where lynched in the streets of this very country for trying to voice there opinions.
Which is why African Americans especially - and now Arab Americans troubled by the specter of discrimination - should be the loudest voices in supporting the freedoms that permit even speech they find offensive. It's a messy job, but everybody's got to do it.

Israeli Aircraft Dropped Thousands of Leaflets

2005-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

Gaza, Al-Watan, September 27, 2005 -- Israeli warplanes last night dropped thousands of leaflets directed at residents of the Gaza Strip. This is the the text of the Israeli army statement:

To the residents of the northern Gaza Strip:
The terrorist actions originating from your areas are forcing the Israel Defense Forces to respond harshly to those who are subjecting the citizens of the State of Israel to danger.
We call on the Palestinian Authority to shoulder its responsibility to prevent these criminal acts.
We warn you of the danger of remaining in the areas which are being used to launch terrorist actions and we advise you to leave your homes. We are not responsible for the consequences if you ignore our warning.
Israel Defense Forces

The Israel Defense Forces which are ignoring the Geneva Convention Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War act but on the other hand I can't say I blame them. I mean you have a country that is surrounded by opposition, is always under a state of fear of terrorist attack and THEY STILL refuse to move. I can't imagine the balls on the inhabitants that will deal with that kinda fear.
I mean look at it real close, they just made a peace accord and moved the Jewish people out of the settlements in Gaza. Look at what the Palestinian people do, they burn the left behind Jewish Temples. Come on that is unnecessary, if not down right cruel. Those building could have been used for something not wasted in an act of defiance. These people are not just cruel and petty, but they are also horrible to perpetrate acts of terrorism on innocent women, men, and children. I think it is about time that Israel stopped playing nice and just dropped the gauntlet and whooped some butt.

Look at this Moron!!!!

2005-10-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

Shooting of reporter in Iraq was justified, U.S. report says

2005-10-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

By Tom LasseterKnight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. military investigation of the June 24 shooting death of Yasser Salihee, a Knight Ridder Iraqi correspondent, confirmed that he was killed by an American soldier and then left dead in his car, splattered with blood and shattered glass in the middle of the street.
The 3rd Infantry Division's report concluded the shooting was justified because the soldiers thought Salihee could have been a suicide bomber or attempting to run them over as he approached an intersection in western Baghdad.
An investigator, Maj. Andre Vige, spent about a month examining the incident and found that the shooter was acting within the Army's rules of engagement, a conclusion that was affirmed by his superiors.
The neighborhood where the shooting took place, Amariyah, is known as an insurgent hotspot in Baghdad. The day before Salihee was shot, a U.S. patrol was shot at by a sniper in the area, and troops there operate with the constant threat of car bombs. Indeed, government officials in Baghdad have said insurgents now control parts of that area.
Salihee, a soft-spoken 30-year-old doctor and Knight Ridder correspondent, was on his way to get gasoline for his car to take his toddler daughter to the swimming pool. It was his day off.
There are no reliable numbers of Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. forces in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a release last month that American troops had killed at least 13 journalists in Iraq, and in most cases the military has either not investigated or not made its reports public.
In Salihee's case, there were no disciplinary measures meted out. The only action taken was to send an unspecified number of soldiers to "remedial training on consequence management." Vige noted that the troops' decision to leave Salihee's body "in plain view and leaving the area ... could not have had a positive impact on the local populace."
The military made $2,500 in payment to Salihee's family for his death and an additional $2,500 for property damage to the car.
A joint patrol of American and Iraqi soldiers had stopped there on June 24 after hearing a gunshot. They hastily set up blocking positions and ran into a building looking for a man they'd spotted on the roof, thinking he could be a sniper.
The troops blocked three of the roads into the intersection with Humvees, but on the fourth road there was no Humvee. According to diagrams included in the 3rd Infantry Division report, troops blocking the fourth road stood to the side and not in the middle of the street to warn oncoming traffic.
Salihee was driving on that fourth road.
U.S. troops told Vige that they and the Iraqi troops waved and shouted warnings. It appears, from the U.S. diagram of the incident, that Salihee might not have seen the troops standing to the side of the street as he drove around a car that had stopped in front of him. As soon as he passed that car the shooting began.
A witness statement from an Iraqi man, included in the report, said of Salihee that, "the driver was asked to stop and he did but the American soldier fired at the car killing the driver."
An Iraqi eyewitness, interviewed by a Knight Ridder correspondent in Amariyah, supported the Army's version of events. Sabah Hassan Jasim, a 27-year-old man who works in a nearby plumbing-supply store, rushed outside his shop when he heard Iraqi troops yelling. He said the U.S. soldiers fired warning shots and that the car in front of Salihee stopped, but that Salihee apparently did not realize what was happening until it was too late.
"The ING (Iraqi soldiers) tried to shout at them. One of them (the Iraqi soldiers) got almost to the middle of the street, waving his hands to warn them, and the Americans shot at them," Jasim said.
"The other car stopped, but Yasser kept on. His windows were closed and his air-conditioning was on, and I think he was making a phone call because we found his phone in his lap after they shot him."
A second eyewitness interviewed in Amariyah, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that while he did not hear any warning shots from the Americans it was clear to him that Salihee was not paying attention to what was happening in front of him.
Statements by U.S. soldiers at the scene said that Salihee ignored repeated verbal warnings and then continued driving toward them even after warning shots had been fired.
The U.S. sniper who killed Salihee said that he and another soldier were positioned on a side road where they could watch the street. The two soldiers said in their statements that they fired three warning shots.
According to the military's report and the soldiers' statements, Salihee was driving at about 40 miles per hour - characterized by soldiers on the ground as "a high rate of speed" - when he came around the stopped car about 100 meters away from the intersection.
At that point, the first warning shot was fired in front of the car, according to the report. An inspection of Salihee's car after the shooting revealed a hole in the undercarriage of the vehicle, something that the military investigator pointed to as proof that a warning shot had been fired in front of Salihee's car before ricocheting underneath.
Then at about 70 meters from the intersection, the second warning shot, at the front right tire, and third warning shot, at the engine block, were fired, according to the report. An inspection of the car showed a bullet hole in the tire but there was no evidence of a shot to the engine block.
At about 40 meters out, the sniper shot Salihee in the head with a single bullet through the windshield, the report concluded. U.S. troops said that an Iraqi soldier then ran up to Salihee's car and shot point blank through the driver's side window, a charge that the soldier apparently denied.
The American sniper, whose name was blacked out, detailed the events in a document included in the report.
"I fired my third round into the front windshield. The vehicle slowly came to a stop," he wrote. "I could tell the driver had been hit in the head. Myself and (name blacked out) then continued our mission of over-watching the area."
Salihee left behind a wife, Raghad, also a physician, and 2-year-old daughter, Danya

Story from http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12793539.htm

Alarming Security Flaws in DieBold Voting Systems

2005-10-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

by Brad Friedman.
September 15, 2005
A "Diebold Insider" is speaking out for the first time about the alarming security flaws within Diebold, Inc's electronic voting systems, software and machinery. The source is acknowledging that the company's "upper management" -- as well as "top government officials" -- were keenly aware of the "undocumented backdoor" in Diebold's main "GEM Central Tabulator" software well prior to the 2004 election. A branch of the Federal Government even posted a security warning on the Internet.Pointing to a "Cyber Security Alert" issued by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the source inside Diebold is charging that Diebold's technicians, including at least one of its lead programmers, knew about the security flaw and that the company instructed them to keep quiet about it."Diebold threatened violators with immediate dismissal," the insider explained recently. "In 2005, after one newly hired member of Diebold's technical staff pointed out the security flaw, he was criticized and isolated."Our source confirmed that the matters were well known within the company, but that a "culture of fear" had been developed to assure that employees, including technicians, vendors and programmers kept those issues to themselves.We asked our source for evidence that the security flaw described by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security was actually exploited in the 2004 election. The source told us only: "I wouldn't say I have evidence that it was exploited....only that it was known. To the feds, to state officials and to Diebold. They all knew. In spite of the gap they moved forward as normal...As if it didn't exist."

Read the whole article at http://tinyurl.com/a822g

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Revolution Times

2005-10-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

WELCOME.... I am really excite about doing my part in the exposing of Injustice in our own goverment and abroad. I would love to hear your comments and questions. Also if you like email me a story of relavents at SoulRiderGBC@yahoo.com I will post it and give you credit. Thanks again

Ghost Writer