Be as wary of Repubicans steppng into Democratic turf as you would be wary of Democrts stepping ino Repubican turf!
History's judgment not a concern, Bush tells group

Thu Apr 19, 6:02 PM ET

TIPP CITY, Ohio (Reuters) - If George Washington is still a subject of debate among historians, then it may be a long time before they reach a consensus on George W. Bush's presidency.


At least that is how Bush viewed it on Thursday in explaining how he is not bothered by the polls and his unpopularity among Americans tired of the
Iraq war.

"Everybody wants to be loved," Bush told a questioner. "But I believe, sir, in my soul, that I have made the right decisions for this country when it comes to prosperity and peace."

Bush went to Tipp City to drum up support for his war policy. He conducted a lengthy question-and-answer session with local citizens that sometimes bordered on the comical.

The location was Tippecanoe High School, a name that harkens back to William Henry Harrison's 1840 campaign slogan -- "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" -- when Harrison, a hero of the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe, ran for president with John Tyler as his running mate.

"I've been in politics long enough to know that polls just go 'poof' at times," Bush told the largely friendly audience.

As a White House resident for the past six years, Bush, president No. 43, has been reading up on some of his predecessors.

"I read three histories on George Washington last year. The year 2006, I read three histories about our first President. My attitude is, if they're still writing about one, 43 doesn't need to worry about it," he said to laughter.

What about Vietnam and Iraq, one questioner wanted to know.

"There are some similarities of course," Bush replied. "Death is terrible."

Later, he went into a long riff about the need for a temporary guest worker program for illegal immigrants, because they are doing jobs Americans will not do.

"If you've got a chicken factory, a chicken-plucking factory -- you know what I'm talking about. You've got starving families, and they want to come and work," he said.

As he usually does, Bush singled out his wife,
Laura Bush, for praise.

"Putting up with me requires a lot of patience," he said.

Rid our Congress of Racists!
House approves voting rep for Washington DC

By Thomas Ferraro Thu Apr 19, 8:16 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The capital of the United States would get its first full representative in the U.S. Congress under a bill approved on Thursday in defiance of a White House veto threat.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted 241-177 to expand its chamber and provide a representative for the District of Columbia, a city commonly referred to as Washington in honor of America's first president.

Mayor Andrian Fenty called the action "a great and historic day for the residents of the District of Columbia" and urged the Senate to give its needed concurrence.

"The United States is the only representative democracy that does not afford the citizens of its capital voting representation -- making this not only a national disgrace, but an international embarrassment," said House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland.

"We are fighting to ensure that the citizens of Baghdad have a full vote in a democratic system, while we are denying this same right to U.S. citizens," Hoyer said.

Foes charge that giving the District, capital of the United States for more than 200 years, a representative would violate the U.S. Constitution, which declares that House lawmakers be elected exclusively by the states.

"D.C. is not a state and the Constitution clearly limits representation in the House to states," said Rep. Lamar Smith (news, bio, voting record) of Texas, ranking Republican on the
House Judiciary Committee.

Accordingly, the White House has said if the bill was sent to Republican
President George W. Bush, he would veto it.

But backers argue the Constitution, adopted in 1789 as the nation's legal framework, provides Congress broad powers to regulate the district -- enough to give it a representative.

"This problem should be solved," said Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, who broke party ranks to co-sponsor the bill. "It's an outrage this situation has persisted for 200 years."

In an effort to attract bipartisan support, the measure seeks to provide a political balance. It would increase the House to 437 from 435 members, giving one new representative to the traditionally Democratic District and the other to the Republican-leaning state of Utah.

District residents pay federal taxes, prompting many to have on their car license plates the protest words: "Taxation without representation," reminiscent of the battle cry of American colonists when they won independence from Great Britain in 1776 and went on to create the United States.

It took until 1961 for District residents to win the right to vote in U.S. presidential elections. Since 1970, they have had a House delegate who can vote on legislation in committee, but not in the full House.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)

McCain lives in the same tiny cell today he lived in at the Hanoi Hilton. Not a very wide view of things there.
Oliver Stone rolling with new ad against war

By Andrew Wallenstein 1 hour, 18 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Filmmaker Oliver Stone will direct a TV commercial questioning the Bush administration's military strategy in
Iraq.

The Oscar-winning Vietnam veteran was hired by activist groups MoveOn.org and VoteVets.org to shoot a 30-second spot derived from video of U.S. soldiers and their family members speaking out against the war. Members of MoveOn will select one of 20 video interviews on its site, as well as on YouTube, for Stone to turn into a commercial.

"We have leaders in Washington who say they're 'supporting our troops' -- but the people who suffer most from their policies are the troops themselves," Stone said. "I decided to participate in this project because, as a veteran, I know that America needs to listen to our servicemen and women."

The videos under consideration can be viewed at http://www.pol.moveon.org/videovets. The commercial is expected to air in the coming weeks.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

NO! the truth is, we are ALL INSIDE THE MIND OF A KILLER, but refuse to look clearly at the sob! Grow up!
Gunman's video shocks families

By Andrea Hopkins Thu Apr 19, 5:56 PM ET

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - A videotaped diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman shocked victims' families and mesmerized television viewers, but police said on Thursday it yielded little for their investigation of the campus massacre.

Still grieving, students at the university expressed disgust at self-made photos and a disturbing video the killer mailed to NBC News on Monday when he paused during the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

Police handling the investigation criticized the airing from Wednesday evening of the images and rants by Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people and then himself at the sprawling campus in southwestern Virginia.

State police chief Steve Flaherty said victims' families and the Virginia Tech community had been badly struck not only by tragedy but by the intense media attention surrounding it.

Cho's video manifesto brandishing guns and ranting at times incoherently drew wall-to-wall U.S. news coverage.

"The world has endured a view of life that few of us would or should ever have to endure," Flaherty told a news conference. "I'm sorry you all were exposed to these images."

Campus authorities have also faced questions after it emerged that they had become aware of Cho's troubled mental state 17 months before he went on his killing spree.

University officials insisted they had no responsibility for monitoring Cho's psychiatric care after he was said to have been suicidal in 2005 and was sent to a mental health center.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine announced the makeup of a panel, including former
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, to look into the university's response to the shootings, after it was criticized for being slow to warn students of the danger.

'LITTLE MORE THAN PORNOGPRAHY'

With Cho's imbalance displayed in his video manifesto, families of victims were so upset at NBC's decision to air the images that they canceled appearances on the network.

NBC insisted it acted responsibly. But the network and its rivals, ABC, CBS and Fox, said they would limit future use.

"Once you've seen it, its repetition is little more than pornography once that first news cycle is passed," said Jeffrey Schneider, ABC News senior vice president.

The package received by NBC News on Wednesday carried a time stamp showing Cho mailed it after he killed his first two victims in a dormitory but before he went on to slaughter 30 more in classrooms. NBC turned the material over to the
FBI.

"That's crazy. He kills two people and then goes to the post office and then he's ready for round two? It's creepy," said graduate student Nick Jeremiah, 34.

The dead included not only Americans but students from Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Egypt. A professor with dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship was also killed, hailed as a hero for barring the door to give students time to escape.

In a sign of exhaustion with the media spotlight, a hand-lettered sign on campus said "Media, stay away."

The university said Cho's victims would be awarded their degrees posthumously. Though classes resume on Monday, students can request an immediate end to their semesters with credit for work already done, Virginia Tech said.

The images and rambling monologue suffused with paranoia added to a chilling portrait of Cho, a 23-year-old student whose dark writings had worried professors and classmates.

NBC News President Steve Capus defended the broadcast of the material, saying: "This is I think as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer."

ADMIRATION FOR COLUMBINE KILLERS

Cho is shown railing against wealth and debauchery and voicing admiration for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. "You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and tortured my conscience," he says, speaking directly to the camera.

Cho immigrated from
South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, where his parents work at a dry cleaners.

Police disclosed on Wednesday that Cho had been accused of stalking women students and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in 2005 because of worries he was suicidal. That has raised questions whether his later actions had been foreshadowed.

Reflecting nationwide security jitters, schools in Yuba City, California, were ordered into a "lock-down" after police warned a man had threatened a killing spree in locals schools.

FACTBOX-Shootings at U.S. schools

FACTBOX-School shootings around the world

FACTBOX-Guns and gun ownership in the U.S.

FACTBOX-Police contacts with Virginia gunman

Debate over U.S. gun violence

NBC criticized over Va. Tech gunman video

(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington, Michele Gershberg in New York, Gina Keating in Los Angeles and Jim Christie in San Francisco)

McCain knows he has no chance and wants to go out in "Heroic" fashion...! LOSER!
Huffington Post Wires

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, answers questions at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Summerville, S.C., Wednesday, April 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Alice Keeney)
McCain Says He Backs No Gun Control

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate John McCain declared Wednesday he believes in "no gun control," making the strongest affirmation of support for gun rights in the GOP field since the Virginia Tech massacre.

The Arizona senator said in Summerville, S.C., that the country needs better ways to identify dangerous people like the gunman who killed 32 people and himself in the Blacksburg, Va., rampage. But he opposed weakening gun rights and, when asked whether ammunition clips sold to the public should be limited in size, said, "I don't think that's necessary at all."

GOP rival Rudy Giuliani, too, voiced his support for the Second Amendment on Wednesday, but not in such absolute terms. Once an advocate of strong federal gun controls, the former New York mayor said "this tragedy does not alter the Second Amendment" while indicating he favors the right of states to pass their own restrictions.

Other candidates in both parties have stayed largely silent on the issue in the immediate aftermath of the killings, except to express their sorrow.

McCain has opposed many gun controls in the Senate over the years but broke from most of his party _ and his past _ in supporting legislation to require background checks for buyers at gun shows. In one such vote, he relished taking a position at odds with the National Rifle Association.

In a speech Wednesday to a crowd of 400, McCain was unequivocal in support of the right to bear arms.

"I do not believe we should tamper with the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States," he said. A woman shouted that George Washington's troops used muskets, not automatic weapons.

"I hope that we can find better ways of identifying people such as this sick young man so that we can prevent them from not only taking action with guns but with knives or with anything else that will harm their fellow citizens," McCain said.

McCain reiterated that later with reporters.

"I strongly support the Second Amendment and I believe the Second Amendment ought to be preserved _ which means no gun control," McCain said.

The candidates' silence and discomfort may become insupportable once the nation finds its voice in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech murders.

Democrats have been deliberately muted for months on an issue that, by their own reckoning, contributed to and perhaps sealed their defeat in the 2000 presidential election. That's when Al Gore's call for gun registration cost him votes in rural America and dulled the party's appetite for taking on the gun lobby.

Top Republicans in the race are trying to close ranks with their party's conservative base on a variety of issues, making gun control an unusually sensitive one for them, too, thanks to their liberal views in the past.

With facts still unfolding, the killer was described as a creepy loner who had been accused of stalking two women, wrote violent schoolwork, been sent to mental health counseling for suspected suicidal tendencies, and scared some fellow students out of coming to class _ yet did not have a criminal record that might have stopped him from buying his guns.

Giuliani's emphasis on state-by-state solutions to gun control in the GOP primaries contrasts with his past enthusiasm for a federal mandate to register handgun owners _ an even stiffer requirement than registering guns.

Giuliani, as New York mayor and former Senate prospect, and Republican Mitt Romney, as Massachusetts governor and as a Senate candidate in the 1990s, supported the federal ban on assault-type weapons, background checks on gun purchases and other restrictions reviled by many gun-rights advocates.

The other New Yorker in this race, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also supported proposals for state-issued photo gun licenses, as well as a national registry for handgun sales, in positions laid out for crime-weary New Yorkers in 2000.

In this campaign, candidates in both parties who've ever taken a shot at a prey are playing up their hunting credentials. Others are highlighting their allegiance to the constitutional right to bear arms or avoiding the question altogether.

Democratic candidate John Edwards, despite recently highlighting his boyhood outings hunting birds, rabbits and deer as well as his respect for gun ownership rights, backed his party's main gun control measures when he was in the Senate.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, as a state lawmaker in the 1990s, supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tougher state restrictions on firearms.

Mass shootings have often been the catalyst for legislative action on gun control, with mixed results.

And with Democrats controlling Congress partly on the strength of new members from rural parts of the country, few lawmakers were expecting the Virginia Tech assault to revive the most far-reaching gun-control proposals of the past, such as national licensing or registration.

In 1999, after the Columbine High School killings in Colorado left 15 dead, lawmakers unsuccessfully introduced dozens of bills to require mandatory child safety locks on new handguns, ban "Saturday night specials," increase the minimum age for gun purchases and require background checks on weapons bought at gun shows.

A month after the Columbine shootings, then-Vice President Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to advance a juvenile crime bill that included gun show restrictions. But the bill died in negotiations with the House.

The Virginia Tech senior and South Korean native identified as the Blacksburg gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was a legal permanent resident of the U.S., meaning he could legally buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony. The campus killings were carried out with 9 mm and .22-caliber handguns.

___

Associated Press Writer Jim Davenport in Summerville, S.C., contributed to this report.

Justice Kennedy has a twisted understanding of Dignity. A lot like Bush's comprehension of the Sanctity of Life.
Justices Back Ban on Method of Abortion


Article Tools Sponsored By
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: April 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 18 — The Supreme Court reversed course on abortion on Wednesday, upholding the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5-to-4 decision that promises to reframe the abortion debate and define the young Roberts court.


Text of the Opinion
Court Ruling Catapults Abortion Back Into ’08 Race (April 18, 2007)

The most important vote was that of the newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr. In another 5-to-4 decision seven years ago, his predecessor, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, voted to strike down a similar state law. Justice Alito’s vote to uphold the federal law made the difference in the outcome announced Wednesday.

The decision, the first in which the court has upheld a ban on a specific method of abortion, means that doctors who perform the prohibited procedure may face criminal prosecution, fines and up to two years in prison. The federal law, enacted in 2003, had been blocked from taking effect by the lower court rulings that the Supreme Court overturned.

The banned procedure, known medically as “intact dilation and extraction,” involves removing the fetus in an intact condition rather than dismembering it in the uterus. Both methods are used to terminate pregnancies beginning at about 12 weeks, after the fetus has grown too big to be removed by the suction method commonly used in the first trimester, when 85 percent to 90 percent of all abortions take place.

While the ruling will thus have a direct impact on only a relatively small subset of abortion practice, the decision has broader implications for abortion regulations generally, indicating a change in the court’s balancing of the various interests involved in the abortion debate.

Most notable was the emphasis in the majority opinion, by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, on the implication of abortion’s “ethical and moral concerns.”

“The act expresses respect for the dignity of human life,” Justice Kennedy said.

The decision was a major victory for the Bush administration and its vigorous defense of the law, which President Bill Clinton had vetoed twice before President Bush signed it.

Mr. Bush welcomed the ruling, saying: “The Supreme Court’s decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life. We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law.”

It was also a vindication for the strategic choice the anti-abortion movement made 15 years ago, when the prospect of persuading the Supreme Court to reconsider the right to abortion seemed a distant dream. [Page A23.]

By identifying the intact procedure and giving it the provocative label “partial-birth abortion,” the movement turned the public focus of the abortion debate from the rights of women to the fate of fetuses. In short order, 30 states banned the procedure.

The decision on Wednesday came seven years after the court struck down one of those state laws, from Nebraska. Justice Kennedy was a strong dissenter from that decision. With Justice Alito’s vote, he was in a position this time to write not for the dissenters but for the new majority.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also voted in the majority. Justices Thomas and Scalia also filed a brief concurring opinion reiterating their opposition to the court’s abortion precedents and expressing their continued desire to overturn them.

Neither Chief Justice Roberts nor Justice Alito signed this statement. There was no way of knowing whether their silence meant they disagreed with it or whether, not having previously expressed their views as Justices Thomas and Scalia had, they had no need at this point to stake their ground.

The court did not explicitly overturn any of its precedents, although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four dissenters, said the decision was “so at odds with our jurisprudence” that it “should not have staying power.” Justice Ginsburg called the decision “alarming” and said the majority’s “hostility” to the right to abortion was “not concealed.”

Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer signed Justice Ginsburg’s opinion, portions of which she read from the bench at a slow pace that caused every syllable to resonate.

Justice Kennedy took pains to describe the decision as faithful to the court’s earlier rulings, including the one in the Nebraska case. He said that by defining the prohibited procedure more precisely, the federal law avoided the vagueness the court had found in the Nebraska statute and thus did not place doctors at risk of violating it inadvertently.

Congress passed the law in response to the court’s ruling in the Nebraska case, responding specifically to the majority’s insistence in that case that the law must include an exception for circumstances when the banned procedure was necessary for the sake of a pregnant woman’s health. Congress provided an exception only to save a pregnant woman’s life, as Nebraska had, declaring that the procedure was never necessary for a woman’s health.

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...even More Vile than B-1 Bob, if you believe that is possible...
Thu Apr 19 2007
The Free Press

Departments
National Issues

"I hope it's your family members that die" - US Representative Dana Rohrabacker
by Ann Wright
April 19, 2007

"I HOPE IT'S YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS THAT DIE" said US Representative Dana Rohrabacker to American citizens who questioned the Bush Administration’s unlawful extraordinary rendition policies.

Congressional hearings provide a deep insight into the inner spirit of our elected representatives-and sometimes, the insight is not pretty.

On April 17, we witnessed Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) unleash his unbridled anger onto members of the European Parliament’s committee on Human rights who were invited guests and witnesses in the House Foreign Affairs European subcommittee hearing. The European Parliamentary human rights committee had issued a report in January, 2007 sharply critical of the Bush administration’s extraordinary rendition program in which persons from all over the world were detained by either CIA or local police and then flown by CIA jet (torture taxi) to other countries where they were imprisoned (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Libya, Djibouti, Morocco, Yemen. The report was equally critical of European governments for allowing the unlawful flights to take place.

From 2001 through 2005, the governments of fourteen countries in Europe allowed at least 1,245 CIA flights with illegally abducted terrorist suspects to be flown through their airspace or to land on their territory. Germany, Britain, Ireland and Portugal allowed the highest numbers of covert flights. As well as at least 1,245 flights operated by the CIA, there were an unspecified number of US military flights for the same purpose.

The European Parliament report differeniated between lawful extradition of criminal suspects for trial in another country and the unlawful abduction, sending to a third country usually noted for torture of prisoners and imprisoning for years without trial persons suspected of criminal terrorist acts.

The report acknowledged that terrorism is a threat to European countries as well as to the United States, but the European Parlimentary committee said that terrorist acts must be handled lawfully by both European countries and by the United States. The report said: "After 11 September 2001, the so-called 'war on terror' - in its excesses - has produced a serious and dangerous erosion of human rights and fundamental freedoms." The extraordinary rendidition program undercuts the exact liberties we are defending, the rule of law, the right for a fair and speedy trial, the right to know the evidence on which one is held and prosecuted.

Some who were kidnapped ended up in Guantanamo. Others were flown to prisons in other countries for interrogation and torture. Many of those who were subjected to extraordinary rendition are still in Guantanano. Many have been there for over 5 years. Over 400 of the 770 persons who have been imprisoned in Guantanamo over the 5 years it has been opened, have been released. Only 380 are left imprisoned in Guantanamo. Only 3 have been charged by the Military Commission and only one tried in Guantanamo. After five years of being held prisoner, Australian citizen David Hicks was convicted in March, 2007 of material support to terrorism and sentenced to only seven months further imprisonment which he is serving in Australia. The Bush administration has said it will try only 50-70 of the 380 remaining in Guantanamo. That means that of 770 who have been in Guantanamo, on 50-70 will be tried. The others eventually will be freed due to lack of evidence of a crime. Many will have spent five years or more in imprisonment.

According to virtually every prisoner that has been released, they were tortured while imprisoned in countries such as Syria, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some prisoners say they were tortured by police or interrogators. Some say they heard American voices in the background while they were tortured. None were charged with any crimes. None went to trial. They were abducted by CIA or local authorities at the request of the United States. The United States did not present evidence of criminal actions nor request extradition from the country where the person was detained. Nor did a central approving authority look at the rationale for spiriting a person to the control of a third country for interrogation. Persons were “rendered” many times on the say-so of junior CIA officials.

Back to the Congressional hearing. With eyes narrowed and mouth in a contorted grimace, Congressman Rohrabacker attacked the two British and one Italian members of the European Parliament who testified before the committee. Reminding one of Joe McCarty in tone and substance, Rohrabacker demeaned and degraded the report and chastised, belittled and berated the Parliamentarians. Remarkably, Rohrabacker said the most of the CIA private flights that landed in Europe were to transport CIA agents all over the world, not to move prisoners. Yet the logs of the 1245 flights have been tied by date and location to the movement of specific individual prisoners from one location to another.

Rohrabacher railed against anyone who questioned the right of the Bush administration to do whatever it wanted, legal or illegal, to prevent terrorist acts and said that by not supporting the Bush policies was consigning their country to the terrorists. In particular he said that any Americans who questioned the extraordinary rendition were un-American.

Citing historic examples of other countries kidnapping persons, Rohrabacker said Israel had every right to kidnap Nazi official Adolph Eichmann from Argentina, bring him to Israel and execute him. Rohrabacher conveniently forgot to mention that the Israeli government did put Eichmann on trial, a trial which none of those who have been extraordinarily rendered have had. Rohrabacher then attacked and belittled the European Community for outlawing the death penalty saying that “You in the European community won’t stand up to evil people, you won’t execute them. Eichmann deserved to be executed, just like these terrorists must be executed.”

Rohrabacher never once mentioned due process, the rule of law, right to a trial for anyone picked up in the extraordinary rendition program. Merely because persons were “rendered” and imprisoned by the US meant to Rohrbacker they were guilty.

Rohrabacher said if European countries did not cooperate with the United States and go along with whatever the Bush administration wanted, they were condemning their countrymen to death by not using extralegal methods to imprison terrorist suspects. When citizens attending the hearing, including members of Codepink Women for Peace and Veterans for Peace, heard Rohrabacher’s statement, they collectively groaned. Then, much to the shock and disbelief of everyone in the hearing room, Rorhbacker said to those who had expressed displeasure at his statements: "I hope it’s your family members that die when terrorists strike."

At that point, I had had enough of Rohrabacher. I stood up and said "I did not serve 29 years in the US military and 16 years in the US diplomatic corps to see demise of the rule of law and violation of our own laws. Rohrback’s statements are outrageous. No wonder the world hates us!"

Chairman Delahunt gaveled for me to stop speaking and I was escorted by the police out of the committee room. I was not arrested.

Remarkably, I do agree with one thing Rohrabacker said. "They hate us."

Rohrabacker finished his sentence with "They hate us because they hate our way of life." Unfortunately, many people do hate us, but it’s not for our way of life.

Its for exactly the talk and actions that Rohrabacker and the Bush administration represent: illegal and unlawful actions, an arrogant attitude that America is always right and everyone else is wrong, that the world’s resources are for the exclusive use of the United States and we have the right to invade and occupy any country.”

Until we change the manner in which Presidential administrations and the Congress operate and the way we approach our membership in the community of nations, the world will continue to question what America stands for.

---
Ann Wright retired as a Colonel after serving 13 years on active duty and 16 years in the US Army Reserves. After 16 years in the US diplomatic corps, she resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She had been assigned in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. She helped reopen the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December, 2001.

Poor Clueless George. Continuing the debate just murders more human beings. Cut the funding and get out!
Bush, Senate leader disagree over Iraq-Vietnam link

By Caren Bohan 1 hour, 18 minutes ago

TIPP CITY, Ohio (Reuters) -
President George W. Bush and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) debated from afar on Thursday whether the
Iraq war had turned into Vietnam as they sought the upper hand in a battle over war funding.

A day after a White House meeting that failed to resolve differences over Bush's request for $100 billion to fund wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the president argued his case for the money during a 90-minute session before a largely friendly audience in Ohio.

Asked to compare Iraq to Vietnam, a war that still weighs on the American psyche three decades after it ended, Bush said a premature U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could lead to chaos and death the same way war broke out between Vietnam and the
Khmer Rouge of Cambodia after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

"After Vietnam, after we left, millions of people lost their life. My concern is there would be a parallel there," Bush said, adding that "This time around, the enemy wouldn't just be content to stay in the Middle East, they'd follow us here."

Democrats want to attach a troop pullout timetable to Bush's war funding request, which Bush and his Republican allies reject, saying "surrender dates" are unacceptable.

In Washington, Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he told Bush on Wednesday that "this war is lost" and that his troop buildup plan "is not accomplishing anything" after insurgent bombs killed nearly 200 people that day in Baghdad.

Reid said his message for Bush was to recall a turning point in the Vietnam war, in the mid-1960s, when Reid said President Lyndon Johnson had decided to send thousands more troops to Vietnam despite knowing that the conflict was "not winnable."

"The (Iraq) war can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically, and the president needs to come to that realization," Reid said.

Bush conceded that Americans are concerned about whether the United States can succeed in stabilizing Iraq and said Democrats have a role to play but that he would veto their legislation when it gets to his desk, possibly as early as late next week.

His message to them, he said, was "please do it and hurry so I can veto it and we can get down to the business of getting the troops funded."

Many lawmakers believe serious talks toward a deal may not take place until after Democrats send Bush their version of a bill with timelines and he vetoes it. They would then consider the option of drafting fresh legislation, possibly considering "benchmarks" to gauge Iraq's progress instead of timelines.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland in Washington)

We have turned our Nation over to Pricks and Assholes! Does anyone NOT know who the Pricks and Assholes are?
Mar 27, 2007 11:05 pm US/Pacific
More Credit Reports Ruined By Feds' Terror List

(CBS 5 / AP) SAN FRANCISCO A little known Treasury Department terror watch list is causing trouble for people trying to buy homes and cars. CBS 5 Investigates first uncovered the problems last year. Now, a report released Tuesday by civil rights lawyers provides new evidence showing the problem is becoming more widespread.

The 250-page list, posted publicly on a Treasury Department Web site, is being used by credit bureaus, health insurers and car dealerships, as well as employers and landlords, according to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The list includes some of the world's most common names, such as Gonzalez, Lopez, Ali, Hussein, Abdul, Lucas and Gibson, and companies are often unsure how to root out mismatches. Some turn consumers away rather than risk penalties of up to $10 million and 30 years in prison for doing business with someone on the list, the group said.

"We have found that an increasing number of everyday consumers are being flagged as potential terrorists by private businesses merely because they have a name that's similar to someone on this government watch list," said the report's author, Shirin Sinnar, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus.

Many companies who encounter even a partial match are unsure how to root out mistakes, and prefer to turn away someone trying to get a loan or rent an apartment rather than risk penalties of up to $10 million and 30 years in prison, the lawyers said.

The Treasury Department is doing what it can to clarify the rules, Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said in a statement. This includes posting guidelines for businesses using its list, including a step-by-step tutorial on how to handle a potential hit, and hosting private-sector workshops across the country.

The 6,000-plus names on the list, managed by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, include people, companies or groups accused of supporting or financing terrorism. Most of them are foreigners. Any of their assets may be frozen by U.S. banks, and Americans are forbidden from doing business with them.

"Few people in the U.S. are actually on the OFAC list," said Sinnar. "But the list includes names shared by thousands of Americans that have nothing to do with U.S. sanctions."

The lawyers' group acknowledged that the screening may sometimes be legitimate, but encouraged greater government regulation to prevent the practice from getting out of control and ensnaring those who simply share a name with a listed individual.

Tom and Nanci Kubbany, from Arcata, were denied a home loan when his credit report came back with an alert saying his middle name, Hassan, was an alias for one of Saddam Hussein's sons.

"It's so surreal, I still can't believe it now," said Kubbany, a Kmart cashier of Syrian descent. "It was devastating for my wife. She worried and worried and worried."

The couple missed out on buying the house they'd had their eye on, but nearly a year later are again working on securing a loan.

San Francisco resident Guadalupe Ortiz went to a Concord Toyota dealership to buy a car but was told her name also was on the list.

"I felt humiliated," she said.

Another couple buying their first home in Phoenix, Ariz. was turned away from their closing with the title company when the man's first and last names—common Hispanic names—matched an entry on the list that had no additional details, like birth dates, that would allow them to easily clarify the mismatch.

The lawyers' group hoped these stories, detailed in their report, would encourage Congress to hold hearings on the issue and restore accountability and oversight to the process.

(? 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. )

Making it a so-called "failure" of the mental health system comes back on those who refuse to adaquately fund it!
Student gunman sent "disturbing" mail to NBC

By Andrea Hopkins and Patricia Zengerle 1 hour, 3 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - The gunman who went on a deadly rampage at Virginia Tech university this week paused between shootings to mail a rambling account of grievances to NBC, the network said on Wednesday.

The network turned over the material, which arrived on Wednesday and included video, photographs and a multi-page statement, to the
FBI. Virginia Police Superintendent Steve Flaherty said the development could be a "very critical component of this investigation."

The new details added to an already chilling portrait of Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student from
South Korea who massacred 32 people and then took his own life on Monday in the bloodiest shooting spree in modern U.S. history.

In the latest bizarre twist, NBC said the material appeared to have been sent sometime between Cho's killing of two people in a dormitory and his attack two hours later on a classroom building where he cut down 30 more people.

NBC officials would not disclose the contents of the material pending the FBI's review, except to say it was "disturbing."

The dispatch of the package to NBC was confirmed by Flaherty, who told reporters: "Earlier today NBC News in New York received correspondence that we believe was from Cho."

The disclosure followed word from university police that Cho had been accused of stalking women students and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in 2005 because of worries he was suicidal.

Still grieving for the victims, students and teachers have described a sullen loner whose creative writings for his English literature degree were so laced with violence and venom that they alarmed some of those around him.

University Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said his officers confronted Cho in late 2005 after two women complained separately that he had harassed them in person, through phone calls and with instant messages.

"I'm not saying they were threats; I'm saying they were annoying," Flinchum told a news conference at the sprawling rural campus in southwestern Virginia.

After the second incident in December 2005, Cho's roommate warned police he might be suicidal, prompting them to issue a "temporary detention order" and send him to a nearby mental health facility for evaluation, Flinchum said.

Officials would not say how long Cho stayed at the facility, but roommates said he was gone for a couple of days. The women declined to file charges against Cho. Neither was among his victims on Monday, police said.

History lives in artifacts! Preserve them!

Save us Kofi, you're our only hope...!
Global humanitarian forum in works: Kofi Annan

Mon Apr 16, 8:31 PM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan said on Monday he may have a new job soon.

He said he was involved in discussions to create a Switzerland-based global forum to discuss and improve humanitarian assistance.

"There is a discussion going on about this type of issue, a global humanitarian forum, working with the Swiss government, that will bring together once a year major players in the humanitarian world," Annan told reporters before a speech to the Brilliant Lecture Series of Houston.

Participants would "discuss visions on humanitarian assistance, humanitarian intervention" and share "experiences on how we've dealt with the mega-disasters from tsunami to Katrina to the Asian earthquake and, really, pool our efforts to have greater impact on these disasters," said the 69-year-old native of Ghana.

Recent news reports from Switzerland have said Annan, who left his U.N. post at the end of 2006, would head the organization and that it would be modeled after the
World Economic Forum that brings together major financial figures each year in Davos, Switzerland.

He did not discuss the project in detail but said planning was moving along.

"It's pretty advanced but the formal announcement hasn't been made," Annan said.

France warned (BUSH'S) CIA of hijack plot in 2001!
France warned CIA of hijack plot in 2001

By ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer Mon Apr 16, 5:11 PM ET

PARIS - Nine months before al-Qaida slammed airliners into the World Trade Center, French intelligence suspected the terror network was plotting a hijacking — possibly involving a U.S. airline — and warned the
CIA, former French intelligence officials said Monday.

But the French warning hinted at a plot in Europe, not the United States, and there was no suggestion of suicide attacks or multiple planes. One former official said al-Qaida may have leaked misinformation to divert intelligence agencies from the bigger, deadlier plot to come on Sept. 11, 2001.

The warning was another example of how intelligence agents sensed al-Qaida was hard at work in the months leading up to Sept. 11 but were unable to piece together fragmented warnings into a coherent plot.

Le Monde first reported the story Monday as it published excerpts of 328 pages of classified documents from France's main foreign intelligence agency, the DGSE. One note, dated Jan. 5, 2001, reported that al-Qaida was plotting a hijacking.

Details were vague.

"It wasn't about a specific airline or a specific day, it was not a precise plot," Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, the former chief of staff for the agency's director, told The Associated Press. "It was a note that said, 'They are preparing a plot to hijack an airplane, and they have cited several companies.'"

Le Monde printed a copy of part of the note. In early 2000 in Kabul,
Afghanistan,
Osama bin Laden met with Taliban leaders and armed groups from
Chechnya and discussed the possibility of hijacking a plane after takeoff in Frankfurt, Germany, the note said, citing Uzbek intelligence.

The note listed potential targets: American, Delta, Continental, and United airlines, Air France and Lufthansa. The list also mentioned a "US Aero," but it was unclear exactly what that referred to.

Two of the carriers, United and American, were targeted on Sept. 11.

CIA spokesman George Little said Le Monde's article "merely repeats what the U.S. government knew and reported before Sept. 11 — that al-Qaida was interested in airliner plots, especially hijackings."

"The article does not suggest that U.S. or foreign officials had advance knowledge of the details surrounding the Sept. 11 plot," he said. "Had the details been known, the U.S. government would have acted on them."

The Sept. 11 Commission and a joint congressional inquiry into the attacks have described vague warnings of potential threats in the months before Sept. 11, 2001.

The 9/11 commission said that, as the year began, the CIA started receiving "frequent but fragmentary" threat reports. Among other warnings, the intelligence community sent out a March 2001 terror threat advisory about a heightened threat of Sunni extremist attacks against U.S. facilities, personnel and other interests.

During that investigation George Tenet, CIA director at the time, told the commission that "the system was blinking red."

"Everyone knew that something was cooking, that these people were preparing something big and spectacular," Alain Chouet, former chief of the security intelligence service at the DGSE, told AP. "Our American colleagues knew, our European colleagues knew, everyone did. But nobody had a hint it would happen inside the United States — on the contrary."

The DGSE drew up nine reports about al-Qaida threats to U.S. interests in the year leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, Le Monde said. The agency gained experience fighting Islamist terrorism when Algerian insurgents set off deadly bombs in Paris in the mid-1990s.

The Sept. 11 Commission report mentions a 1994 Algerian plot with chilling similarities to Sept. 11 — the hijacking of an Air France flight by Algerian militants who threatened to blow it up over the Eiffel Tower. The hijackers were killed when French commandos stormed the plane.

Before drafting the January 2001 notice, the DGSE was tipped off by Uzbek intelligence. Chouet said Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord from the Uzbek community who was fighting the Taliban, had sent his men to infiltrate al-Qaida camps. Their information was passed to Western intelligence officials. Today, Dostum is chief of staff of the Afghan army.

The French certainly passed the note along to the CIA, Chouet said.

"We transmitted everything to our American counterparts, everything that could have posed a threat, and they did the same with us," Chouet said.

He suggested details of the plot — such as the European setting — may have been leaked by al-Qaida to confuse intelligence services. It would not be the first time, he said.

An alleged bin Laden associate named Djamel Beghal was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Investigators suspected he was the ringleader of a plot to send a suicide bomber into the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

Chouet says he has concluded that plot was a fake — "part of a misinformation operation by al-Qaida."

___

Associated Press writer Katherine Shrader in Washington contributed to this report.

Chicago '68, fascist display saved freedom by OVER playing its hand only until Gene McCarthy was defeated in '76.
Moscow police beat anti-Putin protesters

By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer 58 minutes ago

MOSCOW - Riot police beat and detained protesters as thousands defied an official ban and attempted to stage a rally Saturday against President
Vladimir Putin's government, which opponents accuse of rolling back freedoms Russians have enjoyed since the end of Soviet communism.

A similar march planned for Sunday in St. Petersburg has also been banned by authorities.

A coalition of opposition groups organized the "Dissenters March" to protest the economic and social policies of Putin as well as a series of Kremlin actions that critics say has stripped Russians of many political rights. Organizers said only about 2,000 demonstrators turned out.

Thousands of police officers massed to keep the demonstrators off landmark Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow, beating some and detaining many others, including Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who has emerged as the most prominent leader of the opposition alliance.

Police said 170 people had been detained but a Kasparov aide, Marina Litvinovich, said as many as 600 were — although about half were released quickly. Kasparov, whom witnesses said was seized as he tried to lead a small group of demonstrators through lines of police ringing the square, was freed late Saturday after he was fined $38 for participating in the rally.

"It is no longer a country ... where the government tries to pretend it is playing by the letter and spirit of the law," Kasparov said outside the court building, appearing unfazed by his detention.

"We now stand somewhere between Belarus and Zimbabwe," he said.

It was the fourth time in recent months that anti-Putin demonstrations — all called Dissenters Marches — have been broken up with force or smothered by a huge police presence.

The weekend's marches were being closely watched as a barometer of how much of a threat, if any, opposition forces pose to the Kremlin as Russia prepares for parliamentary elections in December and a presidential vote next spring.

Putin, whose second and last term ends in 2008, has created an obedient parliament and his government has reasserted control over major television networks, giving little air time to critics.

TV newscasts on Saturday reported the protests, but gave as much or more time to a pro-Kremlin youth rally held near Moscow State University.

Later, police charged into a crowd of about 200 demonstrators outside the police precinct where Kasparov was being held, beating protesters with nightsticks and fists.

Kasparov and his allies mustered, by their own reckoning, about 2,000 people — far fewer than the 30,000 people who patronize the McDonald's restaurant at Pushkin Square on an average day.

But some protesters said they were not discouraged by the small turnout or intimidated by the overwhelming force marshaled to block the rally.

Andrei Illarionov, a former Putin economic adviser who has become a Kremlin critic, pointed out that in 1968 only six people appeared in Red Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

"This is a crime against the Russian constitution," he said. "This country is not free anymore and the main criminal in Russia right now is the authorities."

About 100 of the detained protesters belong to the ultranationalist National Bolshevik Party, party spokesman Alexander Averi said. But he said Eduard Limonov, the novelist who heads the party known for street theater and political pranks aimed at Putin, evaded a detention attempt.

Organizers sought permission to gather on Pushkin Square, a traditional site for protests, but city officials rejected the request. Instead, they approved Turgenev Square, about a mile east and away from the city's commercial and cultural hub.

Organizers refused to cancel plans for the Pushkin Square rally and protesters started to arrive before 11 a.m. Police began seizing them a few at a time.

A 23-year-old woman, who gave her name only as Maria, said she and her husband, Andrei, were coming out of the subway when officers grabbed him.

"We didn't do anything," she said, tears rolling down her face as she watched her husband being hustled into a police truck. "We just wanted to see what would happen."

Viktor Vinokourov, a 67-year-old pensioner, watched the detentions from a nearby sidewalk, holding a hand-scrawled sign declaring: "I Don't Agree." A young man in a leather coat, apparently a plainclothes security officer, snatched it out of his hands.

Around noon, several hundred protesters headed away from Pushkin Square toward the sanctioned demonstration site, marching past startled motorists while chanting "Putin get out!" and "We need a new Russia!"

As they walked arm-in-arm down a main thoroughfare, a police cordon blocked their path. Some in the crowd ran forward and police charged, their truncheons flailing.

A Japanese journalist suffered a gash on the head and was treated by a policeman in a riot helmet. Eventually the crowd of protesters melted into side streets, and joined about 1,000 demonstrators at the authorized site.

Hundreds of police and soldiers surrounded the square, but let demonstrators in after checking them for weapons.

Mikhail Kasyanov, Putin's first prime minister but now a leading opponent, denounced the arrests and beatings in a speech at Turgenev Square.

"Everyone should ask the question: What is happening with our authorities — are they still sane, or have they gone mad?" he said, as the crowd chanted "Shame on the government."

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who observed the march, said authorities were only trying to maintain order, not to interfere with the exercising of political rights.

"We live in a democratic country, a free country, and we give the possibility to everybody to express their agreement or disagreement," he said, in remarks carried on Russia's Channel 1 television.

___

Associated Press writer Mike Eckel contributed to this report.

Make Charles Grassley head of The World Bank. Give him a thrill at the end of his career and let Iowa elect new blood!
Web site revived to speculate on World Bank chief

By Sumeet Desai Sat Apr 14, 7:35 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has so far offered no indication he may resign but Internet chatter is already speculating over a possible successor to the former Bush administration official.

Web site www.worldbankpresident.org first came to prominence in 2005 airing speculation over who would replace former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, making available to all the backroom gossip around the capital.

The Web site was revived this week as the scandal over Wolfowitz's pay rise and promotion for his girlfriend escalated and many commentators predicted it was only a matter of time before he would be forced to quit his post.

Web-site contributors are touting South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and Nigeria's former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as possible successors to Wolfowitz.

Either of those would break the unwritten tradition that the head of the World Bank is an American, just as the boss of the
International Monetary Fund is always a European.

But Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq, was a controversial choice even before the current scandal broke of his approval of a whopping pay rise and big promotion for his girlfriend -- a World Bank staffer.

"If they're smart, they'll cut the loss, give up on putting one of their own into the president's seat this time around, but preserve the prerogative for choosing the person who sits there," wrote one blogger on the Web site.

"They could get enormous credit for choosing a non-American, and someone from the global south at that, to head the World Bank."

Wolfowitz's fate is still being decided by the World Bank's board but some European countries appear to have the knives out.

"This whole business has damaged the bank and should not have happened," Britain's development minister, Hilary Benn, said shortly after arriving in Washington.

His German counterpart, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, told Reuters that Wolfowitz had to decide whether he still commanded the credibility to run the World Bank.