Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation

The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail: "The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail | Nonprofit Group Linked to Lawmaker Was Funded Mostly by Clients of Lobbyist | By R. Jeffrey Smith | Washington Post Staff Writer | Saturday, December 31, 2005; Page A01

The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay and claimed to be a nationwide grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and former associates of the group.

During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners would not identify the money's origins.
...

Two former associates of Edwin A. Buckham, the congressman's former chief of staff and the organizer of the U.S. Family Network, said Buckham told them the funds came from Russian oil and gas executives. Abramoff had been working closely with two such Russian energy executives on their Washington agenda, and the lobbyist and Buckham had helped organize a 1997 Moscow visit by DeLay (R-Tex.).

The former president of the U.S. Family Network said Buckham told him that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation the International Monetary Fund needed to finance a bailout of the collapsing Russian economy. ...

Bridge would help Young's son-in-law ... Critics and satirists ridiculed the spans as the bridges to nowhere .... [Young in land speculatation ...]

adn.com | alaska : Bridge would help Young's son-in-law: "KNIK ARM: Art Nelson, four partners hold 60 acres of bluff land on Point MacKenzie side. | By RICHARD MAUER | Anchorage Daily News | (Published: December 18, 2005)

To state Board of Fisheries chairman Art Nelson, Don Young's Way, the proposed Knik Arm crossing named after his father-in-law, is hardly a bridge to nowhere.

For Nelson and his well-connected partners in Point Bluff LLC, Rep. Don Young's span is in fact a bridge to somewhere: their 60 acres of unobstructed view property on the Point MacKenzie side of Cook Inlet. The land sits directly across from Elmendorf Air Force Base, north of the Anchorage port and downtown.

"It's beautiful property," Nelson said.

If a road were built to the land today, it would require about a two-hour commute to downtown Anchorage. But a bridge would change everything. Don Young's Way would mean a shorter drive to downtown than from the Anchorage Hillside -- and make the land much more valuable.

The five-member Point Bluff partnership, of which Nelson has a 10 percent share, was created in December 2002. That was a year before the first, unsuccessful version of Young's highway bill surfaced with money for the bridge. ...
...
But speculators on Point MacKenzie and Gravina Island had reason to cheer last summer when Congress passed Young's transportation bill. It earmarked $229 million for the Knik Arm bridge and $223 million for the Gravina Island bridge.

Critics and satirists ridiculed the spans as the bridges to nowhere, but the projects didn't get into real trouble until Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Young and Stevens resisted calls to return the money to help fund reconstruction, though they were eventually forced to give up the earmarks, leaving the Alaska Legislature to decide how to spend the combined $452 million.

On Friday, Gov. Frank Murkowski proposed spending a total of $185 million on both bridges, the most he could under federal-state spending formulas ...

Iraq: Depleted Uranium aka Baghdad Boils?! ...

Iraq: Depleted Uranium aka Baghdad Boils?! :: from www.uruknet.info :: news from occupied Iraq - it: "Iraq: Depleted Uranium aka Baghdad Boils?! | December 23, 2005

There’s a possibility that the US Department of Defense (DoD) is hiding the US casualties under a disguise of 'Baghdad Boils’, a disease plaguing the US troops in Iraq, claimed to be caused by the sand fly bites, but possibly by depleted uranium (DU) radiation. To explore this issue I’ve forwarded the following article to DU experts in the world to have it checked and I’m now publishing it as a preliminary announcement here in iraq-war.ru. I’ll keep you updated on this as soon as I hear of them (if confirmed you can’t miss the fat mainstream headlining).

Recent evidence proves that depleted uranium (DU) is the definite cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Fourteen years after its introduction, DU has revealed as a death sentence, lately brought forth by Leuren Moret (cf. e.g. http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml and the sources to this article).

The biological particulate effect targets the Master Code in the DNA and causes numerous diseases difficult to define, but in effect devastating the human body for example with multiple malignancies and developing cancers. Out of 580,400 soldiers in first Gulf War, 11 thousand have died and already by 2000 there were 325,000 permanently disabled, the number increasing by 43,000 every year.

Besides, DU has internally contaminated their sexual partners, who have developed endometriosis and have been forced to have hysteroctomies due to health problems. 67 percent of a test group of 251 soldiers have had babies with severe birth defects (missing members, organs, immune system diseases). ...

U.S. Plays 'I Spy' ... It was also almost certainly illegal and unconstitutional. Such snooping must be stopped.

U.S. Plays 'I Spy': "December 17, 2005 by Newsday | U.S. Plays 'I Spy' | Unauthorized eavesdropping in U.S. must be stopped | Editorial

George W. Bush's decision to authorize intelligence agents to electronically eavesdrop on people in the United States without court-approved warrants is a stunning example of the president's apparent disdain for the rights of ordinary people, the Constitution and the rule of law.

According to the New York Times, starting in 2002 Bush turned the National Security Agency loose to monitor the international phone calls and e-mail of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in this country. The president's green light marked a profound shift in the intelligence-gathering practices of the NSA, which has traditionally operated abroad. It was also almost certainly illegal and unconstitutional. Such snooping must be stopped.

The White House, tellingly, has not challenged the Times' account. Officials have instead attempted to justify the eavesdropping, citing the need to move quickly in the war on terror, while insisting that Bush would never order anything illegal.

That rings hollow coming from an administration under fire for abusing detainees and trying to legally redefine torture while insisting it would never torture anyone. It is an administration that placed itself above the law in claiming the power to indefinitely lock up American citizens whom it labeled enemy combatants, without criminal charges, legal representation or a day in court. It is an administration dogged by accusations of ghost detainees, secret prisons and delivering detainees for interrogation in countries known to use torture. "

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle

Excite News: "AP: Frist AIDS Charity Paid Consultants | Dec 18, 7:24 AM (ET) | By JONATHAN M. KATZ and JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit.

The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion's share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.
...
The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.

World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans - Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes' Esperanza USA, for example.

The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo. ...

Ethics questions dog California congressman; Owned cabin with Air Force Secretary

The Raw Story | Ethics questions dog California congressman; Owned cabin with Air Force Secretary: "Miriam Raftery |

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has come under fire from constituents for accepting nearly a quarter million dollars in campaign contributions from missile defense contractors over the past five years. Hunter has also drawn criticism for accepting $46,000 from un-indicted co-conspirators implicated in bribing Hunter’s friend and San Diego colleague, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who resigned from Congress after pleading guilty.

But Hunter’s ties to the defense industry go even deeper.

The Republican Congressman shares ownership in a Virginia cabin with Pete Geren – who served as Acting Secretary of the U.S. Air Force from August through early November, RAW STORY has learned. Hunter’s disclosure forms filed with the FEC indicate he built the cabin in 1996 along with Geren and a third partner, Al Tierney. ...

A decade ago the Democrats were thought to be shady. Now it is the turn of Mr Bush's party

America, United States, Times Online, The Times, Sunday Times: "December 10, 2005 | Republicans sinking in sleaze | By Tim Reid

A DECADE ago Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolutionaries seized control of Congress after 40 years of Democrat rule by promising to end the culture of graft and corruption on Capitol Hill.

Today, after a string of indictments, scandals and a criminal investigation that threatens to implicate dozens of politicians next year, the tables have turned full circle. It is now President Bush’s Republicans who are seen as the party of sleaze. ...

In September Tom DeLay, ... leader of the House of Representatives after being indicted for violating election finance laws. ...

Bill Frist, the Republican leader of the Senate, is also under investigation over insider trading allegations ....

... indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, for his role in the Valerie Plame CIA-leak affair....

...new grand jury to investigate further the role of Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s chief political adviser, in the Plame affair. ...

Randy “Duke” Cunningham resigned from the House of Representatives two weeks ago in one of the most spectacular cases of political corruption in recent years. ...

criminal investigation by the Department of Justice into a Republican lobbyist named Jack Abramoff that could lead to the indictment of several politicians — mostly Republican — next year. ...
..
... Michael Scanlon, an Abramoff business partner and former aide to Mr DeLay, pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials and defraud several Native American tribes. ...

Class Warfare With Taxes ... Cut more taxes on the super-rich and the middle class ... who ends up paying for Iraq, .... the poor and near-poor.

TomPaine.com - Class Warfare With Taxes: "Robert Reich | December 08, 2005

Tax bills now wending their way through the House and Senate would cut about $60 billion in taxes next year. But there’s a huge difference between the two. The biggest item in House bill is a two-year extension of the president’s tax cuts on stock dividends and capital gains. The House bill doesn’t touch what’s called the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). By contrast, the biggest item in Senate bill is temporary relief from the AMT. But the Senate bill doesn’t extend the dividend and capital gains tax cuts.

No legislative choice in recent years has so clearly pitted the super-rich against the suburban middle class. Most of benefits of the House’s proposed extension of the dividend and capital gains tax cuts would go to the top one percent of taxpayers, with average annual incomes of more than $1 million. Most of the benefits of the Senate’s cut in the AMT would go to households earning between $75,000 and $100,000 a year, who would otherwise get slammed.
...
The underlying question is, who ends up paying for Iraq, the Katrina cleanup, the Medicare drug benefit, homeland security, everything else? ...

That group is the poor and near-poor. Cut more taxes on the super-rich and the middle class, and the only way Congress can say it’s grappling with the soaring budget deficit is to cut more programs for the poor. That means fewer food stamps, less Medicaid and vanishing housing assistance.
...
In the end, it will be our kids and grandchildren who get the tab, because they’ll have to pay foreigners back. And our current political leaders? They couldn’t care less—because by then, they’ll be long gone.

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim - [a.k.a ...went to war based on false information from torture victims ?]

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim - New York Times: "By DOUGLAS JEHL | Published: December 9, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons. ...

Assurances by Condoleezza Rice ... that America did not send detainees abroad for torture were dismissed ... as "beyond belief".

Independent Online Edition > UK Politics: "December 2005 07:55 | MPs dismiss US denials as 'disingenuous' and 'beyond belief' | By Colin Brown Deputy Political Editor | Published: 06 December 2005

Assurances by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, that America did not send detainees abroad for torture were dismissed last night by a cross-party group of MPs as "beyond belief".

The group, which was launched yesterday to investigate the "extraordinary renditions" of prisoners by the CIA, claimed that Ms Rice had confirmed that Britain had been told about the nature of the secret CIA flights to UK airports. Andrew Tyrie, the group's Tory chairman, said: "There has been so much smoke on this issue, it's very unlikely that there is not a fire somewhere. I think it's likely they have been tortured."

Downing Street was challenged over photographs produced at the weekend of CIA planes landing and taking off at UK airports. It denied British airports had been used for torture flights, "so far as we aware". ...

Keep quiet about secret flights to secret jails, Rice tells Europe

America, United States, Times Online, The Times, Sunday Times: "December 06, 2005 | Keep quiet about secret flights to secret jails, Rice tells Europe | From David Charter in Washington

CONDOLEEZZA RICE challenged European leaders to back controversial American anti-terrorism tactics yesterday as she robustly defended the CIA’s extrajudicial seizure, transportation and interrogation of thousands of suspects.

In a defiant statement delivered before flying to Berlin, the US Secretary of State responded to European demands for explanations of secret CIA flights from EU territory by insisting that aggressive US actions had “prevented attacks in Europe” and “saved innocent lives”.

Despite the uproar in Europe over America’s “extraordinary rendition” of suspects to countries such as Afghanistan, and claims that secret CIA prisons are located in Romania and Poland, Dr Rice said that she expected American allies to co-operate and keep quiet about sensitive anti-terrorism operations.

Abandoning the emollient tone that she has adopted towards Europe during her 11 months in office, she pointedly reminded European governments that they had helped the US for years in a “lawful” policy of rendition — the removal of suspects to third countries for interrogation.
...
While Dr Rice denied that the CIA used torture, she refused to address the allegations of covert prisons that have caused consternation across Europe and not least in Romania, where she is due today. ...

Republican operative admitted collecting identity data from a political Web log - a practice the state Republican Party earlier blamed on Democrats

Rocky Mountain News: Government & politics: "Republican fesses up to blog ID raid | By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News | December 3, 2005

A Republican operative has admitted collecting identity data from a political Web log - a practice the state Republican Party earlier had blamed on Democrats.

This week, the GOP warned state party members that someone was compiling the online identities of visitors to the Web site coloradopols.com. The site is a popular political blog that invites comments from its readers, who can post their thoughts using nicknames.

The warning pointed the finger at Democrats, but e-mail records show that Laura Teal, a Republican, and two acquaintances actually were the ones involved.

Teal is a campaign staffer for gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman. She said her efforts occurred prior to taking that post and had nothing to do with Holtzman's campaign. ...

U.S. forces deployed more than 1,000 tons [of depleted uranium] during the 2003 invasion: "soon be seeing the second wave of cancer and birth defects"

Sound off: Where the views and opinions of our staff and others are expressed on various topics that relate to Bush: "An Arab-American Priest, Depleted Uranium, and Iraq | by Robert Hirschfield | Washington Report on Middle East Affairs | November 2005

TRAVELING around southern Iraq in the late 1990s to investigate the effects of U.N. economic sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, Jesuit Father Simon Harak stopped at a hospital in Basra. Meeting with him and his colleagues from the anti-sanction group Voices in the Wilderness, Dr. Jenan Hassan briefed them about the medical horrors she and other doctors were confronting as a result of the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons by the U.S. Army in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war. There was a fivefold increase in cancer, especially leukemia, she said, and a five- to eightfold increase in children born with genetic defects.

Dr. Hassan showed the Voices group some of the newborns.

"We saw a baby with a head growing out of his head," recalled Harak. "We saw babies with intestines growing outside their bodies."

Sitting in his spartan cubicle in Lower Manhattan, where he works as the anti-militarism coordinator for the War Resisters League, Harak, a 57-year-old Arab-American whose parents are from Lebanon, emphasized that, in comparison to the 300 tons of DU weaponry used against Iraq in the first Gulf war, U.S. forces deployed more than 1,000 tons during the 2003 invasion.

"Given the fact that there is an incubation period involved here," he pointed out, "we shall soon be seeing the second wave of cancer and birth defects as a result of that war." ...

Abramoff used DeLay to fund anti-intifada militia: "This is almost like outer-limits bizarre," ... "The tribe would never have given money for this."

Abramoff used DeLay to fund anti-intifada militia: "By Joshua Frank | Online Journal Contributing Writer | Nov 25, 2005, 22:23

It shouldn't come as much of a shock that Jack Abramoff, the infamous Washington, DC, super-lobbyist who has been accused of ripping off millions from his Native American clients, is a rabid Zionist.

Abramoff, in the late 1990s, set up a pro-Israel charity front called the Capital Athletic Foundation. Sounds jovial enough. "The pitch . . . was hard to resist," Michael Isikoff reported for Newsweek last summer, "a good way to get access on Capitol Hill, he told his clients . . . was to contribute to [his] worthy charity . . . [which] was supposed to provide sports programs and teach 'leadership skills' to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay."

So Abramoff dangled a carrot in front of his clients, advising them to donate to his philanthropic venture. Why not, it was for a good cause. Plus, he boasted, it would buy them access to Rep. Tom DeLay. It may indeed have bought them access, but what Abramoff's customers didn't realize was that a large portion of their money would never be spent on gearing up inner city kids to shoot some b-ball -- rather, their dollars were shipped overseas to help arm Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.

More than $140,000 of the foundation's funds, reports Newsweek, was used to purchase sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, camouflage suits, thermal imagers and other materiel which Abramoff's foundation called "security" equipment.

Newsweek also reports "these payments are part of a larger investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his Indian tribe clients." Not surprisingly Abramoff's ex-clients are fuming.

"This is almost like outer-limits bizarre," Henry Buffalo, a lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indians, who contributed $25,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation, told Newsweek. "The tribe would never have given money for this." ...

Shake and Bake - Army's own publications talked about using white phosphorus against insurgent positions ... They can burn for hours inside human body

Shake and Bake - New York Times: "Published: November 29, 2005

Let us pause and count the ways the conduct of the war in Iraq has damaged America's image and needlessly endangered the lives of those in the military. First, multilateralism was tossed aside. Then the post-invasion fiasco muddied the reputation of military planners and caused unnecessary casualties. The W.M.D. myth undermined the credibility of United States intelligence and President Bush himself, and the abuse of prisoners stole America's moral high ground.

Now the use of a ghastly weapon called white phosphorus has raised questions about how careful the military has been in avoiding civilian casualties. It has also further tarnished America's credibility on international treaties and the rules of warfare.

White phosphorus, which dates to World War II, should have been banned generations ago. Packed into an artillery shell, it explodes over a battlefield in a white glare that can illuminate an enemy's positions. It also rains balls of flaming chemicals, which cling to anything they touch and burn until their oxygen supply is cut off. They can burn for hours inside a human body.

The United States restricted the use of incendiaries like white phosphorus after Vietnam, and in 1983, an international convention banned its use against civilians. In fact, one of the many crimes ascribed to Saddam Hussein was dropping white phosphorus on Kurdish rebels and civilians in 1991.

But white phosphorus has made an ugly comeback. Italian television reported that American forces used it in Falluja last year against insurgents. At first, the Pentagon said the chemical had been used only to illuminate the battlefield, but had to backpedal when it turned out that one of the Army's own publications talked about using white phosphorus against insurgent positions, a practice well known enough to have one of those unsettling military nicknames: "shake and bake."

The Pentagon says white phosphorus was never aimed at civilians, but there are lingering reports of civilian victims. The military can't say whether the reports are true and does not intend to investigate them, a decision we find difficult to comprehend. Pentagon spokesmen say the Army took "extraordinary measures" to reduce civilian casualties, but they cannot say what those measures were. ...

Congressman Resigns After Admitting He Took Bribes - received cash, cars, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees, moving expenses and vacations

Congressman Resigns After Admitting He Took Bribes - New York Times: "By JOHN M. BRODER | Published: November 28, 2005

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 28 - Representative Randy Cunningham resigned from Congress today, hours after pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes to help friends and campaign contributors win military contracts.
...
"The truth is, I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office," said Mr. Cunningham, who has had a political reputation for emotional outbursts and combative conservatism. "I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions and, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family."

Mr. Cunningham, 63, pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, tax evasion, wire fraud and mail fraud. He faces up to 10 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures.

Prosecutors said he had received cash, cars, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees, moving expenses and vacations from four co-conspirators, who were not named in the indictment, in exchange for his assistance in winning military contracts. ...

Shift on Suspect Is Linked to Role of Qaeda Figures - Mr. Mohammed had been subjected to excessive use of a technique involving near drowning

Shift on Suspect Is Linked to Role of Qaeda Figures - New York Times: "By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC LICHTBLAU | Published: November 24, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 - The Bush administration decided to charge Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior members of Al Qaeda who had been subjected to harsh questioning, current and former government officials said Wednesday.

The two senior members were the main sources linking Mr. Padilla to a plot to bomb targets in the United States, the officials said.

The Qaeda members were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter, who gave their accounts to American questioners in 2002 and 2003. The two continue to be held in secret prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency, whose internal reviews have raised questions about their treatment and credibility, the officials said.

One review, completed in spring 2004 by the C.I.A. inspector general, found that Mr. Mohammed had been subjected to excessive use of a technique involving near drowning in the first months after his capture, American intelligence officials said.

Another review, completed in April 2003 by American intelligence agencies shortly after Mr. Mohammed's capture, assessed the quality of his information from initial questioning as "Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies." ...

Padilla is proof the government is fallible and needs the checks of the judicial system. If is innocent, he wvictim of a terrible injustice

Um, About That Dirty Bomb? - New York Times: "Um, About That Dirty Bomb? | Published: November 23, 2005

Almost three and a half years ago, the Bush administration announced that it had arrested a Chicago-born man named Jose Padilla while he was entering the United States to explode a 'dirty bomb' and blow up apartment buildings. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, said Mr. Padilla was a Qaeda-trained terrorist so dangerous that he was being tossed into a Navy brig and the key was being thrown away.

The administration hotly defended its right to hold Mr. Padilla without legal process because he was declared an unlawful enemy combatant, one of the new powers that President Bush granted himself after 9/11. The administration fought the case up to the Supreme Court. Mr. Padilla's plot was thwarted, the Justice Department claimed, only because of the government's ability to hold suspected terrorists in secretive prisons where they were sweated, to put it mildly, for information. The 'dirty bomb' plot supposedly was divulged by a top Qaeda member who had been interrogated 100 times at one such location.
...
Never mind. As of yesterday, Mr. Padilla stopped being an unlawful combatant, and the new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, refused even to talk about that issue. Mr. Padilla is not going to be charged with planning to explode bombs, dirty or otherwise, in the United States. Just in time for the administration to prod Congress on extending the Patriot Act and to avoid having to argue the case before the Supreme Court, Mr. Padilla was charged with aiding terrorists in other countries and will be turned over to civilian authorities.

Mr. Padilla was added late in the game, and in a minor role, to a continuing case against four other men....
..
...If he was only an inept fellow traveler in the terrorist community, he is excellent proof that the government is fallible and needs the normal checks of the judicial system. And, of course, if he is innocent, he was the victim of a terrible injustice.

The same is true of the hundreds of other men held at Guantánamo Bay and in the C.I.A.'s secret prisons. This is hardly what Americans have had in mind hearing Mr. Bush's constant assurances since Sept. 11, 2001, that he will bring terrorists to justice.

PADILLA CHARGED: There years after being detained ... All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law [!!!]

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: "Tuesday, November 22, 2005 |
PADILLA CHARGED: There years after being detained. I like this detail:

An indictment is merely an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law.

I have no brief for Padilla or any other al Qaeda mass-murderers. But he is an American citizen, presumed innocent, and it took the government three years even to charge him. Anyone who cares about liberty - which obviously does not include many members of the Bush administration, should be appalled by what has occurred and what it means for the future of freedom in this country."

Bush during which the latter suggested attacking the headquarters of the Arab satellite television channel al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, a key Gulf ally

: "Warning over leaked secrets | By Neil Tweedie | (Filed: 23/11/2005)

The Attorney General sought yesterday to squash further reports concerning the leaked record of a conversation between the Prime Minister and President Bush during which the latter suggested attacking the headquarters of the Arab satellite television channel al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, a key Gulf ally.

Lord Goldsmith warned media organisations that they might face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if they published the contents of the top secret document.

According to the Daily Mirror, Mr Blair reportedly managed to talk Mr Bush out of the operation, which appeared to have been prompted by the station's broadcasting of statements by Osama bin Laden and pictures of dead Americans.

Last week, two men were charged under the Official Secrets Act for leaking the five-page transcript. David Keogh, 49, an official in the Cabinet Office, is alleged to have passed the document to Leo O'Connor, 42, last year."

US intelligence classified white phosphorus as 'chemical weapon' ... [when used by Iraq, not when used by US]

Independent Online Edition > Americas: "23 November 2005 19:41 | US intelligence classified white phosphorus as 'chemical weapon' | By Peter Popham and Anne Penketh |
Published: 23 November 2005

The Italian journalist who launched the controversy over the American use of white phosphorus (WP) as a weapon of war in the Fallujah siege has accused the Americans of hypocrisy.

Sigfrido Ranucci, who made the documentary for the RAI television channel aired two weeks ago, said that a US intelligence assessment had characterised WP after the first Gulf War as a "chemical weapon".

The assessment was published in a declassified report on the American Department of Defence website. The file was headed: "Possible use of phosphorous chemical weapons by Iraq in Kurdish areas along the Iraqi-Turkish-Iranian borders."

In late February 1991, an intelligence source reported, during the Iraqi crackdown on the Kurdish uprising that followed the coalition victory against Iraq, "Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorous chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil and Dohuk. The WP chemical was delivered by artillery rounds and helicopter gunships."

According to the intelligence report, the "reports of possible WP chemical weapon attacks spread quickly among the populace in Erbil and Dohuk. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled from these two areas" across the border into Turkey.
...
In the television documentary, eyewitnesses inside Fallujah during the bombardment in November last year described the terror and agony suffered by victims of the shells . Two former American soldiers who fought at Fallujah told how they had been ordered to prepare for the use of the weapons. ....
...
The US State Department and the Pentagon have shifted their position repeatedly in the aftermath of the film's showing. After initially saying that US forces do not use white phosphorus as a weapon, the Pentagon now says that WP had been used against insurgents in Fallujah. The use of WP against civilians as a weapon is prohibited. ...

Junior Republican Congresswoman calls Democratic Semper Fidelis Award Winner a coward ... Republicans can sink no lower?

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: "SHE CALLED MURTHA A COWARD: Republican Congresswoman Jean Smith called Jack Murtha a coward this afternoon, unworthy of the Marines, on the House floor. Money quote:

The fiery, emotional debate climaxed when Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, the most junior member of he House, told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel. 'He asked me to send Congress a message - stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message - that cowards cut and run, Marines never do,' Schmidt said.

She later withdrew her remarks from the record. But those words linger as a reminder of what these Republicans have become. For the record: Murtha served 37 years in the Marines, and has Purple Hearts to his name. He visits wounded soldiers at Walter Reed every week. Three years ago, he won the Semper Fidelis Award of the Marine Corps Foundation, the highest honor the Marines can confer. Every time you think these Republicans can sink no lower, even after their vile smears against Kerry's service last year, they keep going. They make me sick to my stomach."

... he has been visiting our wounded troops weekly at Walter Reed Army Medical Center since the war began. I reported this last year in Wired, in a story about a new kind of battlefield anesthesia pioneered in Iraq that was funded by Murtha. This man walks the talk, and Cheney and McClellan should hang their heads in shame." I couldn't agree more. I have to say the right-wing's attempt to belittle, marginalize and even question the patriotism of Mutha is one of the most disgusting things I've yet seen from people who get more shameless by the day.

Admiral Stansfield Turner, former CIA director, labelled Dick Cheney 'a vice president for torture'. ... Bush on torture: 'I do not believe him'.

'Cheney is vice president for torture': "9.02AM, Fri Nov 18 2005

A former CIA director has claimed that torture is condoned and even approved by the Bush government.

The devastating accusations have been made by Admiral Stansfield Turner who labelled Dick Cheney 'a vice president for torture'.

He said: 'We have crossed the line into dangerous territory'.

The American Senate says torture should be banned - whatever the justification. But President Bush has threatened to veto their ruling.

The former spymaster claims President Bush is not telling the truth when he says that torture is not a method used by the US.

Speaking of Bush's claims that the US does not use torture, Admiral Turner, who ran the CIA from 1977 to 1981, said: 'I do not believe him'."

''We do not torture,'' President Bush said on Monday.... Never mind all those torture pictures, stories, memo, rendition, Cheney lobbbying ...

Sound off: Where the views and opinions of our staff and others are expressed on various topics that relate to Bush: "We've slipped from the moral high ground | by Leonard Pitts Jr. | Miami Herald | November 11, 2005

Well, I guess that settles that.

''We do not torture,'' President Bush said on Monday.

Never mind all those torture pictures from Abu Ghraib.

Never mind all those torture stories from Guant�namo Bay.

Never mind the 2002 Justice Department memo that sought to justify torture.

Never mind reports of U.S. officials sending detainees to other countries for torture.

Never mind Dick Cheney lobbying to exempt the CIA from rules prohibiting torture.

''We do not torture,'' said the president. And that's that, right? I mean, if you can't believe the Bush administration, who can you believe? No torture. Period, end of sentence."

Criticism of [Georgia] Voting Law Was Overruled ... requires card from motor vehicle offices in only 59 of the state's 159 counties

Criticism of Voting Law Was Overruled: "By Dan Eggen | Washington Post Staff Writer | Thursday, November 17, 2005; Page A01

Justice Dept. Backed Georgia Measure Despite Fears of Discrimination

A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents.

The Justice Department has characterized the 'pre-clearance' of the controversial Georgia voter-identification program as a joint decision by career and political appointees in the Civil Rights Division. Republican proponents in Georgia have cited federal approval of the program as evidence that it would not discriminate against African Americans and other minorities.
...
The program requires voters to obtain one of six forms of photo identification before going to the polls, as opposed to 17 types of identification currently allowed. Those without a driver's license or other photo identification are required to obtain a special digital identification card, which would cost $20 for five years and could be obtained from motor vehicle offices in only 59 of the state's 159 counties.

Proponents said the measure was needed to combat voter fraud, but opponents charged that Republicans were trying to keep black voters, who tend to vote Democratic, away from the polls. ...

Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force ... denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress

Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force: "By Dana Milbank and Justin Blum | Washington Post Staff Writers | Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A01

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know....

Iraq Intelligence Phase II Report Being Stonewalled, Senators Charge

Think Progress � Phase II Report Being Stonewalled, Senators Charge: "Phase II Report Being Stonewalled, Senators Charge

Yesterday was the deadline for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to report its progress on Phase II of the investigation into the administration’s use of pre-war intelligence. The prognosis is not good, according to Senators Rockefeller, Levin and Feinstein. They have released a letter, and here is its main finding:

At this time, we are unable to provide an estimated completion date of the Phase II investigation given the substantial amount of work that remains to be done.

This assessment differs greatly from the one offered by Sen. Pat Roberts on November 1st: “It isn’t like it’s been delayed. As a matter of fact, it’s been ongoing. As a matter of fact, we have been doing our work on Phase 2.” In reality, as the letter makes clear at various points, the work of the committee has been stonewalled by an unwillingness on the part of conservatives to investigate the administration. The Senators report that the investigation has been unable to proceed due to the following issues:

(1) Chairman Roberts is unwilling to investigate the “Cabal” inside the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans because he is deferring to the administration to investigate itself.

(2) Roberts has been unwilling to allow for “additional interviews and documents” to conduct a thorough inquiry.

Also, it is important to note that while Bush continues to falsely claim that the Senate Intelligence Committee found the administration had not “manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war,” the Intel Committee Senators say just the opposite:

The Committee staff work on two other sections of the investigation is not finished: whether public statements were substantiated by intelligence information and the use of intelligence information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

Copy of Rockefeller, Levin, and Feinstein letter here." ...

US used white phosphorus in Iraq ... earlier denied it had been used in Falluja at all ... not a signatory of an international treaty

BBC NEWS | Middle East | US used white phosphorus in Iraq: "Tuesday, 15 November 2005,

The Pentagon has confirmed that US troops used white phosphorus during last year's offensive in the northern Iraqi city of Falluja.

"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.

The US earlier denied it had been used in Falluja at all.

Col Venable denied that the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - constituted a banned chemical weapon.

Washington is not a signatory of an international treaty restricting the use of white phosphorus devices. ...

Detainees Deserve Court Trials ... Senate prepared to vote to abolish the writ of habeas corpus ... [Prince John reappears on the throne in 1216 !]

Detainees Deserve Court Trials: "By P. Sabin Willett | Monday, November 14, 2005; Page A21

As the Senate prepared to vote Thursday to abolish the writ of habeas corpus, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl were railing about lawyers like me. Filing lawsuits on behalf of the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Terrorists! Kyl must have said the word 30 times.

As I listened, I wished the senators could meet my client Adel.

Adel is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.

The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. And these facts would still be a secret but for one thing: habeas corpus.

Only habeas corpus got Adel a chance to tell a federal judge what had happened. Only habeas corpus revealed that it wasn't just Adel who was innocent -- it was Abu Bakker and Ahmet and Ayoub and Zakerjain and Sadiq -- all Guantanamo "terrorists" whom the military has found innocent.

Habeas corpus is older than even our Constitution. It is the right to compel the executive to justify itself when it imprisons people. But the Senate voted to abolish it for Adel, in favor of the same "combatant status review tribunal" that has already exonerated him. That secret tribunal didn't have much impact on his life, but Graham says it is good enough. ...

How to lose friends and alienate people: The Bush administration's approach to torture beggars belief

Torture | How to lose friends and alienate people | Economist.com: "Nov 10th 2005 | From The Economist print edition | The Bush administration's approach to torture beggars belief
...
... This week saw the sad spectacle of an American president lamely trying to explain to the citizens of Panama that, yes, he would veto any such bill but, no, “We do not torture.” Meanwhile, Mr Bush's increasingly error-prone vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been across on Capitol Hill trying to bully senators to exclude America's spies from any torture ban. To add a note of farce to the tragedy, the administration has had to explain that the CIA is not torturing prisoners at its secret prisons in Asia and Eastern Europe—though of course it cannot confirm that such prisons exist.
Advertisement

The nub of the torture debate is an amendment sponsored by John McCain, a Republican senator who was himself tortured by the Vietnamese. The amendment, based on the American army's own field manual and passed in the Senate by 90 votes to nine, states that “no individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Mr McCain's aim was simple enough: to clear up any doubt that could possibly exist about America's standards.

That doubt does, alas, exist—and has been amplified by the administration's heavy-handed efforts to stifle the McCain amendment. This, after all, is a White House that has steadfastly tried to keep “enemy combatants” beyond the purview of American courts, whose defence secretary has publicly declared that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the battle against al-Qaeda and whose Justice Department once produced an infamous memorandum explaining how torture was part of the president's war powers. The revelation in the Washington Post that the CIA maintains a string of jails, where it can keep people indefinitely and in secret, only heightens the suspicion that Mr Cheney wants the agency to keep using “enhanced interrogation techniques”. These include “waterboarding”, or making a man think he is drowning. ...

Report Warned on C.I.A.'s Tactics in Interrogation

Report Warned on C.I.A.'s Tactics in Interrogation - New York Times: "By DOUGLAS JEHL | Published: November 9, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - A classified report issued last year by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general warned that interrogation procedures approved by the C.I.A. after the Sept. 11 attacks might violate some provisions of the international Convention Against Torture, current and former intelligence officials say.

The previously undisclosed findings from the report, which was completed in the spring of 2004, reflected deep unease within the C.I.A. about the interrogation procedures, the officials said. A list of 10 techniques authorized early in 2002 for use against terror suspects included one known as waterboarding, and went well beyond those authorized by the military for use on prisoners of war.

The convention, which was drafted by the United Nations, bans torture, which is defined as the infliction of 'severe' physical or mental pain or suffering, and prohibits lesser abuses that fall short of torture if they are 'cruel, inhuman or degrading.' The United States is a signatory, but with some reservations set when ratified by the Senate in 1994.

The report, by John L. Helgerson, the C.I.A.'s inspector general, did not conclude that the techniques constituted torture, which is also prohibited under American law, the officials said. But Mr. Helgerson did find, the officials said, that the techniques appeared to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under the convention." ...

Bush Condemned Property Via Eminent Domain to Build Rangers Stadium - And Made $14 Million Off the Deal

Pensito Review � Bush Condemned Property Via Eminent Domain to Build Rangers Stadium - And Made $14 Million Off the Deal: "Posted November 5th, 2005 at 12:48 pm by Jon

Governing elite: The recent Supreme Court decision that allows local governments to use eminent domain to evict property owners in order to use their property for private development set off a howl on the Right.

[It was the first time in Texas history that the power of eminent domain has been used to assist a private organization like a baseball team.”]

To counter the ruling, Republicans in Congress are working on legislation that would cut off all federal funding to local governments who use eminent domain to evict property owners.

The president may have a hard time keeping a straight face when he signs the bill, however. In his past life as a baseball team owner, Mr. Bush profited from exactly this sort of eminent domain eviction - to the tune of $14.3 million. ...

Kerry Suspects Election 2004 Was Stolen ... “But he didn’t have the evidence to do more.”

Consortiumnews.com: "Kerry Suspects Election 2004 Was Stolen | By Robert Parry | November 6, 2005

Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, has told acquaintances over the past year that he suspects that the election was stolen, but that he didn’t challenge the official results because he lacked hard proof and anticipated a firestorm of criticism if he pressed the point.

“Kerry heard all the disquieting stories” about voting irregularities in Ohio and other states, said Jonathan Winer, a longtime Kerry adviser and a former deputy assistant secretary of state. “But he didn’t have the evidence to do more.”
...
Mark Crispin Miller, a New York University professor and author of a new book about the 2004 election entitled Fooled Again, said he discussed the voting issue with Kerry on Oct. 28 when he encountered the senator at a political event.

In a Nov. 4 interview on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now,” Miller said he gave Kerry a copy of Fooled Again, prompting Kerry’s comments about the 2004 election results.

“He told me he now thinks the election was stolen,” Miller said. “He said he doesn’t believe that he is the person who can go out front on the issue because of the sour grapes … question. But he said he believes it was stolen. He says he argues about this with his Democratic colleagues on the Hill. He had just had a big fight with Christopher Dodd.”" ...

[McCain: Sponsors of Anti-torture] "amendment will seek to add it to every piece of important legislation voted on in the Senate"

- toledoblade.com -: "Saturday, November 5, 2005 | McCain vows torture ban in Senate bills

WASHINGTON - Girding for a potential fight with the Bush Administration, supporters of a ban on torture of prisoners of war by U.S. interrogators threatened yesterday to include the prohibition in nearly every bill the Senate considers until it becomes law.

The no-torture wording, which proponents say is supported by majorities in both houses of Congress, was included last month in the Senate's version of a defense spending bill. The measure's final form is being negotiated with the House, and the White House is pushing for either a rewording or deletion of the torture ban.

At the urging of Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), the Senate by a voice vote added the ban to a related defense bill as a backup.

Speaking from the Senate floor, Mr. McCain said, "If necessary - and I sincerely hope it is not - I and the co-sponsors of this amendment will seek to add it to every piece of important legislation voted on in the Senate until the will of a substantial bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress prevails," Mr. McCain said on the Senate floor. "Let no one doubt our determination." ...

Republicans - disgracefully - targeted most of the cuts on the elderly and the poor ... deserves all that may be coming to it

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | It's the poor that gets the blame: "Leader | Saturday November 5, 2005 | The Guardian
...
If the budget cuts passed by the US senate on Thursday are anything to go by, the whole thing will end in tears. Republicans - disgracefully - targeted most of the cuts on the elderly and the poor through restructuring (ie cutting) some Medicare and Medicaid programmes. Worst of all, part of the cuts originally aimed (creditably) at cutting America's ludicrously high agriculture subsidies was amended so the brunt would be taken by chopping $844m from food stamps for the poor rather than from farm subsidies. Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping to pass yet more tax cuts for the wealthy. An administration that can tackle a serious budget problem in this way deserves all that may be coming to it. ...

Ousted from board of the Corporation then Spending Inquiry for Top Official on Broadcasting - if substantiated, they could involve criminal violations

Spending Inquiry for Top Official on Broadcasting - New York Times: "By STEPHEN LABATON | Published: November 5, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved in that examination said on Friday.

Mr. Tomlinson was ousted from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Thursday after its inspector general concluded an investigation that was critical of him. That examination looked at his efforts as chairman of the corporation to seek more conservative programs on public radio and television.
...
But Mr. Tomlinson remains an important official as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. ...

The board has been troubled lately over deep internal divisions and criticism of its Middle East broadcasts. Members of the Arab news media have said its broadcasts are American propaganda.

People involved in the inquiry said that investigators had already interviewed a significant number of officials at the agency and that, if the accusations were substantiated, they could involve criminal violations.

Last July, the inspector general at the State Department opened an inquiry into Mr. Tomlinson's work at the board of governors after Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, forwarded accusations of misuse of money. ...

'Producer Gets Access,' by Dana Rohrabacher - television project was at the heart of an elaborate swindle ...

'Producer Gets Access,' by Dana Rohrabacher - Los Angeles Times: "November 4, 2005 | By Greg Krikorian and Christine Hanley, Times Staff Writers

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) used his influence to open doors in Washington for a Hollywood producer pitching a television show after the producer paid him a $23,000 option on a screenplay, records and interviews show.

Before the option deal in late 2003, Rohrabacher's script, 'Baja,' had kicked around Hollywood for so many years that its conservative protagonist had morphed from a Vietnam veteran to a soldier who had served in the Persian Gulf War. ...
...
Federal authorities now allege that Medawar's television project was at the heart of an elaborate swindle in which Medawar defrauded dozens of people — many of them Orange County and South Los Angeles churchgoers — by selling $5.5 million of stock in Steeple.

Medawar, arrested last month, has pleaded not guilty to a 23-count indictment. He faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

Rohrabacher said Thursday in an interview that he had done nothing improper by accepting the option payment from Medawar before introducing him to congressmen and Homeland Security officials. ...

American gulag - The Boston Globe

American gulag - The Boston Globe: "November 4, 2005

NEWS THAT the Central Intelligence Agency is running a system of secret prisons in far-off countries has shocked the nation. The clandestine jails are an affront to American values and an embarrassment in the world community. They are probably illegal, and ineffective as well.

But their existence may solve one of Washington's recent minor mysteries. Members of Congress were dismayed last month when Vice President Dick Cheney, joined by CIA Director Porter Goss, lobbied them to exempt CIA employees from a bill that would bar cruel or degrading treatment of all prisoners in US custody. Their efforts were spurned in the Senate, where the provision, advanced by Senator John McCain, passed with 90 votes. ...

Former Powell aide links Cheney's office to abuse directives

Former Powell aide links Cheney's office to abuse directives - Print Version - International Herald Tribune: "Agence France-Presse | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2005

WASHINGTON Vice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for directives that led to U.S. soldiers' abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former top State Department official said Thursday.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff.

'The secretary of defense under cover of the vice president's office,' Wilkerson said, 'regardless of the president having put out this memo' - 'they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen.'

He said the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the U.S. military to abide by the Geneva conventions against torture.

'There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field,' authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detainees, Wilkerson said.

The directives were 'in carefully couched terms,' Wilkerson conceded, but said they had the effect of loosening the reins on U.S. troops, leading to many cases of prisoner abuse, including at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, that were contrary to the Geneva Conventions." ...

Wal-Mart: rock-bottom wages, obliges employees to resort to government subsistence, including food stamps

Independent Online Edition > Americas: "3 November 2005 23:16 | Wal-Mart: is this the worst company in the world?

There can be few chief executives in corporate America more uncomfortable at the moment than Lee Scott of Wal-Mart. Not that he should necessarily have our sympathy: his company, known unaffectionately as the Beast of Bentonville, after its corporate home, is the biggest single private employer in the United States. Its network of more than 3,500 discount retail stores has been lambasted repeatedly in recent years for its rock-bottom wages, which oblige thousands of its lower-end employees to resort to government subsistence, including food stamps, to make ends meet.
...
But all the careful public relations work was demolished by the leak of an internal memo last week which acknowledged some shocking home truths about Wal-Mart - including the fact that 46 per cent of the children of company employees either had no health insurance or relied on emergency government programmes nominally set up for the indigent and unemployed. The memo, written by Wal-Mart's executive vice-president for benefits in conjunction with the management consultants McKinsey, also showed the true purpose of rearranging the company's health plan was to cut costs further.

Sure enough, close examination of the health plan revealed that, while monthly insurance payments were being lowered in some cases, they came with a hefty deductible that many company employees were unlikely to be able to afford. The memo went so far as to suggest adding a physical element to sedentary jobs such as cashiering to deter unhealthy people from applying. ...

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. ruled in a 2002 case in favor of the Vanguard mutual fund company at a time when he owned more than $390,000 in funds

Plaintiff alleges Alito conflict - The Boston Globe: "Says judge should have recused self | By Sarah Schweitzer and Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | November 3, 2005

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. ruled in a 2002 case in favor of the Vanguard mutual fund company at a time when he owned more than $390,000 in Vanguard funds and later complained about an effort to remove him from the case, court records show -- despite an earlier promise to recuse himself from cases involving the company.

The case involved a Massachusetts woman, Shantee Maharaj, who has spent nearly a decade fighting to win back the assets of her late husband's individual retirement accounts, which had been frozen by Vanguard after a court judgment in favor of a former business partner of her husband.

Her lawyer, John G. S. Flym, a retired Northeastern law professor, said in an interview yesterday that Alito's ''lack of integrity is so flagrant' in the case that he should be disqualified as a Supreme Court nominee. ...

Maharaj, 50, discovered Alito's ownership of Vanguard shares in 2002 when she requested his financial disclosure forms after he ruled against her appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit."

Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

In the Company of Friends - Newsweek Politics - MSNBC.com: "By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey | Updated: 6:45 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2005

Bush may be besieged by charges of cronyism, but they don’t seem to have affected his picks for a panel assessing intelligence matters. Plus, Alito, the talkie.

President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts. After watching the fate of Michael Brown as head of FEMA and Harriet Miers as Supreme Court nominee, you might think the president would be wary about the appearance of cronyism—especially with a critical national-security issue such as intelligence. Instead, Bush reappointed William DeWitt, an Ohio businessman who has raised more than $300,000 for the president’s campaigns, for a third two-year term on the panel. Originally appointed in 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, DeWitt, who was also a top fund-raiser for Bush’s 2004 Inaugural committee, was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team.

Other appointees included former Commerce secretary Don Evans, a longtime Bush friend; Texas oilman Ray Hunt; Netscape founder Jim Barksdale, and former congressman and 9/11 Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton. Like DeWitt, Evans and Hunt have also been longtime Bush fund-raisers, raising more than $100,000 apiece for the president’s campaigns. Barksdale and five other appointees—incoming chairman Stephen Friedman, former Reagan adviser Arthur Culvahouse, retired admiral David Jeremiah, Martin Faga and John L. Morrison—were contributors to the president’s 2004 re-election effort. ...

Guantanamo: 131 Guantanamo inmates on hunger strike, 24 on forced feeding ...network of secret prisons ... Rumsfeld denies Red Cross access ...

Rebellion Against Abuse: "Thursday, November 3, 2005; Page A20

LAST MONTH a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay military base excused himself from a conversation with his lawyer and stepped into a cell, where he slashed his arm and hung himself. This desperate attempted suicide by a detainee held for four years without charge, trial or any clear prospect of release was not isolated. At least 131 Guantanamo inmates began a hunger strike on Aug. 8 to protest their indefinite confinement, and more than two dozen are being kept alive only by force-feeding. No wonder Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has denied permission to U.N. human rights investigators to meet with detainees at Guantanamo: Their accounts would surely add to the discredit the United States has earned for its lawless treatment of foreign prisoners.

Guantanamo, however, is not the worst problem. As The Post's Dana Priest reported yesterday, the CIA maintains its own network of secret prisons, into which 100 or more terrorist suspects have 'disappeared' as if they were victims of a Third World dictatorship. Some of the 30 most important prisoners are being held in secret facilities in Eastern European countries -- which should shame democratic governments that only recently dismantled Soviet-era secret police apparatuses. Held in dark underground cells, the prisoners have no legal rights, no visitors from outside the CIA and no checks on their treatment, even by the International Red Cross. President Bush has authorized interrogators to subject these men to 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment that is illegal in the United States and that is banned by a treaty ratified by the Senate. The governments that allow the CIA prisons on their territory violate this international law, if not their own laws."

Why does Bush administration keep forcing policies ...scrapping Geneva Conventions and American law, .. ignored the objections of armed services

The Prison Puzzle - New York Times: "Published: November 3, 2005

It's maddening. Why does the Bush administration keep forcing policies on the United States military that endanger Americans wearing the nation's uniform - policies that the military does not want, that do not work and that violate standards upheld by the civilized world for decades?

When the Bush administration rewrote the rules for dealing with prisoners after 9/11, needlessly scrapping the Geneva Conventions and American law, it ignored the objections of lawyers for the armed services. Now, heedless of the lessons of Abu Ghraib, the civilians are once again running over the people in uniform. Tim Golden and Eric Schmitt reported yesterday in The Times that the administration is blocking the Pentagon from adopting the language of the Geneva Conventions to set rules for handling prisoners in the so-called war on terror.

Senior military lawyers want these standards, as do some Defense and State Department officials outside the inner circle. They say the abuse and torture of prisoners has reduced America's standing with its allies and taken away its moral high ground with the rest of the world. They also know that it endangers any American soldiers who are captured. ...

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons ... covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons: "By Dana Priest | Washington Post Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Page A01

Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents. ...
...
It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

[All this was achieved by the president signing a "finding" on September 17, 2001:]

Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal advisers. ...

Bush administration has 'serious breakdowns' in procedures promising Wal-Mart Stores 15 days' notice before labor investigators would inspect

Confined Space: "Tuesday, November 01, 2005 | PERMALINK Posted 7:39 AM by Jordan | Labor Dept Rebuked Over Wal-Mart Deal

The Bush administration's bad week continues.

While this won't make the same headlines as the Miers withdrawal or Scooter's journey to the dark side, the underbelly of the Bush administration's coziness with its special corporate friends was revealed for all to see as the Bush Labor Department was taken to the woodshed yesterday by its inspector general who criticized the Department for an agreement promising the stores 15 day notice before labor invstigators woud inspect its stores for child labor violations.

The Labor Department's inspector general strongly criticized department officials yesterday for 'serious breakdowns' in procedures involving an agreement promising Wal-Mart Stores 15 days' notice before labor investigators would inspect its stores for child labor violations."
...
The inspector general also contradicted the Labor Department's claim that there was nothing about this agreement that the Clinton administration hadn't done, finding that

the agreement between Wal-Mart and the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division (W.H.D) "was significantly different from other agreements entered into by W.H.D." and "had the most far-reaching restriction on W.H.D.'s authority to conduct investigations and assess" fines..

clam dredging operation off Atlantic City, N.J turns up World War I-era mustard gas ... Army secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve gas ...

mcall.com: Army secret surfaces: Deadly chemicals at sea: "By John Bull | Special to The Morning Call | October 30, 2005

Millions of pounds of unused weapons of mass destruction were dumped in oceans before Congress banned the practice in 1972. The threat is still out there, and may be growing.

First of a two-day series

A clam dredging operation off the coast of Atlantic City, N.J., in 2004 pulled up an old artillery shell.

The long-submerged, World War I-era explosive was filled with a black, tar-like substance.

Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were brought in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured, one hospitalized with large, pus-filled blisters on his arm and hand.

The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.

What was long-feared by the few military officials in the know had come to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago had finally ended up on shore in the United States.

While it has long been known that some chemical weapons went into the ocean, records obtained by the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., show that the previously classified weapons-dumping program was far more extensive than has ever been suspected.

The Army now admits in reports never before released that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas agent into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.

A Daily Press investigation also found:

These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off the coasts of at least 11 states: six on the East Coast, including New Jersey and Maryland, two on the Gulf Coast, and in California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.

The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army has examined only a few of its 26 dump zones, and none in 30 years."

Bush: Treaty Outlawing Torture Doesn't Apply Beyond US Soil

Bush: Treaty Outlawing Torture Doesn't Apply Beyond US Soil: "October 29, 2005 by OneWorld.net | by Niko Kyriakou

SAN FRANCISCO - Echoing recent comments by White House officials, a U.S. government report submitted to the United Nations last Friday bears a message that the brutal treatment of people held in U.S. military custody abroad is and should be legal.

The report, which was submitted to the UN's Human Rights Committee and is designed to document U.S. compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), fails to mention a number of U.S violations of the treaty that took place off of U.S. soil in places like Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, human rights groups say.

"This is not a sufficient report," said Ann Fagan Ginger, Executive Director of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute based in Berkeley, California.

"The government continues its arrogant and illegal refusal to report major violations...in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan," she told OneWorld Friday.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was signed by the U.S. in 1992 and outlaws torture or degrading treatment.

The treaty mandates signatories to submit reports on their compliance with the treaty every five years to the Human Rights Committee, which reviews reports and presents its findings to the United Nations. The U.S. reports were many years overdue. ...
...
While McCain's proposal would, in effect, remedy many U.S. violations of the civil and political rights treaty, rights groups are not waiting around for domestic law to do what they say is already done by international law.

"This is yet another example of how the U.S. government is trying to deflect responsibility for its international obligations," Jamil Dakwar, staff attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) national legal department, told OneWorld.

At an hour-long hearing to discuss the report held at the State Department yesterday, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, Global Rights, and several smaller organizations railed the U.S. report. ...
..
The State Department, for its part, held to its argument that the U.S. has never accepted the application of the treaty beyond its borders, affirming that this "has nothing to do with the post 9-11 policies," Dakwar said.

But rights groups retorted that the Human Rights Committee has already reached numerous decisions in which the treaty was deemed applicable to countries occupying foreign lands, according to Dakwar. ...

What the US papers say: President Bush vowed to restore honour[... but] secretly punish an opponent's spouse rather than openly defend policy

The Observer | International | What the US papers say: "Sunday October 30, 2005 | The Observer

The New York Times The indictment ... describes a distinct and disturbing pattern of behaviour among very high-ranking officials, including Lewis Libby and Vice- President Dick Cheney, who knew that they were dealing with a covert officer and used their access to classified information in a public relations campaign over the rapidly disintegrating justifications for war with Iraq.

The Washington Post Both Mr Libby and Mr Rove appear to have allowed the White House spokesman to put out false information about their involvement. But nothing in this indictment suggests a broad-based conspiracy that requires endless further investigation by Congress or others.

The Houston Chronicle What started as a common cold for selected Republican officeholders has turned into raging influenza for our democracy. The Democrats are already counting Congressional seats to be gained from the litany of GOP scandals, but we think they misunderstand the nature of this contagion.

Los Angeles Times [The] implications could hardly be more momentous. President Bush vowed to restore honour to the White House... Friday's indictment, however, shows how the White House used Plame's identity as part of a campaign to discredit critics of the war in Iraq.

The Houston Chronicle What does it say about the character of officials who would attempt to secretly punish an opponent's spouse rather than openly defending their policy, in this case their reasons for war?"

Hungry who can't afford food grows to 38.2 million in 2004, an increase of 7million in 5 years ... Republicans vote forUS poor set to lose food stamps

US poor set to lose food stamps: "US poor set to lose food stamps | By Associated Press

10/29/05 'SMH' -- - -With more than 38 million Americans too poor to buy adequate food, the US Congress has begun to take away the food stamps many of them receive.

The Republican majority on the House Agriculture Committee has approved budget cuts that will take 'food stamps' away from an estimated 300,000 people and could cut off school lunches and breakfasts for 40,000 children.

The action came as the US Government reported that the number of people who are hungry because they can't afford to buy enough food rose to 38.2 million in 2004, an increase of seven million in five years.

The number represents nearly 12 per cent of US households.

Food stamps are coupons distributed to low-income people and redeemable at grocery stories for food.

The cuts, approved by the Republican-controlled committee on a party-line vote, are part of an effort by Republicans to curb federal spending by $US50 billion ($65.7 billion)." ...

prominent Republican fund-raiser for Presiden Bush in Ohio has been charged with illegally funneling money to Bush's campaign

Excite News: "Bush campaign fund-raiser indicted | Oct 27, 6:12 PM (ET)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A prominent Republican fund-raiser for President George W. Bush in Ohio has been charged with illegally funneling money to Bush's re-election campaign, a federal prosecutor said on Thursday.

A federal grand jury in Toledo charged Thomas Noe with making illegal contributions in the names of others to the Bush campaign and with making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. ...

'We all knew it was contrary to the Geneva Conventions. And we were told that this – these instructions were being given by Secretary Rumsfeld'

The Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions :: "Broadcast - 10/27/05

Says the Blame 'Goes All the Way to The Top”

'We all knew it was contrary to the Geneva Conventions. And we were told that this – these instructions were being given by Secretary Rumsfeld"

# Karpinski, the highest-ranking officer demoted in connection with the torture scandal, speaks out about what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison. She discusses: How the military hid "ghost detainees" from the International Red Cross in violation of international law;

# Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller calling for the Gitmoization of Abu Ghraib and for prisoners to be "treated like dogs";

# Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's secret memos on interrogation policies that hung on the prison’s walls;

# The military’s use of private (and possibly Israeli) interrogators;

# Her dealings with the International Red Cross;

# Why she feels, as a female general, she has been scapegoated for a scandal that has left the military and political leadership unscathed; and
# Calls for Donald Rumsfeld, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, Alberto Gonzalez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller to be held accountable for what happened. [includes rush transcript] ...

CREW alleging that Senator Frist was well aware that the he held HCA stock at a time when he denied any knowledge of such holdings

News Release - CREW: "CREW FILES ADDITIONAL ETHICS COMPLAINT AGAINST SEN. FRIST | Complaint Alleges Frist Lied by Claiming He Did Not Know Whether He Owned HCA Stock

Washington, DC – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed an additional complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics against Senator William Frist (R-TN) alleging that Senator Frist was well aware that the he held HCA stock at a time when he denied any knowledge of such holdings. The complaint points to recent press reports and letters from trustees to Senator Frist as evidence that the Senator was aware of his holdings.

The original complaint CREW filed on September 26, 2005, alleged that the Senator violated Senate ethics rules by engaging in apparent insider trading and then attempting to cover it up.

This past June, Sen. Frist sold all of his, his wife’s and his children’s stock in, HCA, shortly before the value of the stock fell sharply. Notably, Sen. Frist’s brother sits on HCA’s board of directors and other members of the board also sold HCA stock before its value fell. Although Sen. Frist has owned HCA stock prior to his initial election to the Senate in 1994, Sen. Frist now claims that he sold the stock because of a conflict of interest.
"

"President Bush finally realized that his Gulf Coast wage cut was a bad idea that hurt the workers and their families affected by Katrina"

American Chronicle: REP. MILLER STATEMENT ON WHITE HOUSE DEAL ON GULF COAST WAGE CUT: "By Congressional Desk | October 26, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Bowing to pressure from a united Democratic front, a small group of members of his own party, the religious community, and the labor movement, President Bush announced today he would reverse the decision he made in September to remove wage protections for construction workers in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.

After Katrina, the President suspended the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, which requires federal contractors to pay at least the prevailing wage to construction workers in a local area. The president's action, which was widely denounced, followed requests from right-wing activists and Republican members of Congress who exploited Katrina to achieve a long-sought ideological agenda item.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, led the effort in the House to force Bush to rescind his Gulf Coast wage cut.

"President Bush finally realized that his Gulf Coast wage cut was a bad idea that hurt the workers and their families affected by Katrina," said Miller. "But let me be clear - the President is backing down today only because he had no other choice.

"The President's wage cut was just another example of his incompetence as a leader in a time of crisis and of his constant need reward the private agenda's of his special special-interest friends rather than attend to the needs of all the people affected by this storm." ...

Vice President for Torture

Vice President for Torture: "Wednesday, October 26, 2005; Page A18

VICE PRESIDENT Cheney is aggressively pursuing an initiative that may be unprecedented for an elected official of the executive branch: He is proposing that Congress legally authorize human rights abuses by Americans. 'Cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment of prisoners is banned by an international treaty negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the United States. The State Department annually issues a report criticizing other governments for violating it. Now Mr. Cheney is asking Congress to approve legal language that would allow the CIA to commit such abuses against foreign prisoners it is holding abroad. In other words, this vice president has become an open advocate of torture.

His position is not just some abstract defense of presidential power. The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have 'disappeared,' like the victims of some dictatorships. The Justice Department and the White House are known to have approved harsh interrogation techniques for some of these people, including 'waterboarding,' or simulated drowning; mock execution; and the deliberate withholding of pain medication. CIA personnel have been implicated in the deaths during interrogation of at least four Afghan and Iraqi detainees. Official investigations have indicated that some aberrant practices by Army personnel in Iraq originated with the CIA. Yet no CIA personnel have been held accountable for this record, and there has never been a public report on the agency's performance." ...

Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs ... less than 45 percent of its workers receive company health insurance

Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs - New York Times: "By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO | Published: October 26, 2005

An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive.

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."

The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid. ...
...
Under fire because less than 45 percent of its workers receive company health insurance, Wal-Mart announced a new plan on Monday that seeks to increase participation by allowing some employees to pay just $11 a month in premiums. Some health experts praised the plan for making coverage more affordable, but others criticized it, noting that full-time Wal-Mart employees, who earn on average around $17,500 a year, could face out-of-pocket expenses of $2,500 a year or more. ...

Illegal workers found at La. base ... replaced 75 union electricians who lost their jobs after Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act ...

USATODAY.com - Illegal workers found at La. base: "10/24/2005 12:05 AM | By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY

Federal officials are investigating how at least 10 undocumented immigrants performed hurricane reconstruction work at a naval base near New Orleans. (Related story: Cities tackle day labor dilemma)
...
The action came amid growing complaints from area electricians who say they lost their jobs at the base to lower-wage workers.

Robert "Tiger" Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO, said about 75 union electricians lost their jobs after the Bush administration temporarily suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which guarantees the prevailing local wage for workers hired under federal contracts.

It was unclear who employed the undocumented workers. Zuieback would not give the name of the employer. Robertson said they worked for BE&K, an Alabama-based contractor, and Texas-based BMS Catastrophe.

BE&K spokeswoman Susan Wasley said no company employee had been cited, removed or barred from the base. "We haven't done anything wrong," she said.

BMS Catastrophe did not return calls for comment.

BE&K is a subcontractor for Halliburton, which is doing the bulk of the reconstruction work at the base. It was not clear whether BMS Catastrophe also is a Halliburton subcontractor. ...

Analysis finds 21 homicides among deaths of U.S. prisoners overseas .... 400 investigations .... 230 military personnel have received [some] action

WKRC 12 Cincinnati - Analysis finds 21 homicides among deaths of U.S. prisoners overseas: "LAST UPDATE: 10/24/2005 8:59:10 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) - At least 21 detainees who died while being held in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed, many during or after interrogations, according to an analysis of Defense Department data by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The analysis, released Monday, looked at 44 deaths described in records obtained by the ACLU. Of those, the group characterized 21 as homicides, and said at least eight resulted from abusive techniques by military or intelligence officers, such as strangulation or 'blunt force injuries,' as noted in the autopsy reports.

The 44 deaths represent a partial group of the total number of prisoners who have died in U.S. custody overseas; more than 100 have died of natural and violent causes.
...
To date, there have been more than 400 investigations of detainee abuse, and more than 230 military personnel have received a court-martial, nonjudicial punishment or other administrative action. ...

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Notes Show

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Notes Show - New York Times: "By DAVID JOHNSTON, RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL | Published: October 24, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson’s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration’s handling of intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program to justify the war.

Lawyers said the notes show that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003. ...

Police to probe US [CIA] ‘torture flights’ landing in Scotland

Police to probe US ‘torture flights’ landing in Scotland - [Sunday Herald]: "
By Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor | 23 October 2005

SCOTTISH police are to launch an investigation into CIA “torture flights” which fly in and out of Glasgow and Prestwick airports, ferrying kidnapped war on terror suspects around the world.

The police action is a result of last week’s disturbing investigation by the Sunday Herald into the so-called “extraordinary rendition flights”, which see suspects kidnapped overseas by the CIA, drugged and then flown to “friendly” states, such as Egypt, Uzbekistan and Morocco, where they are tortured on behalf of British and American intelligence.

Following our reports , the Green Party wrote to the chief constable of Strathclyde Police, Sir William Rae, asking for a full inquiry into the torture flights. A police spokesperson confirmed that the force would now launch an investigation.

Last week, we revealed that the British government was to be sued by human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith for complicity in the torture of his client Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi."

FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations: "By Dan Eggen | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, October 24, 2005; Page A01

Secret Surveillance Lacked Oversight

The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today.

Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use of secret surveillance operations, which have been stepped up dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but are largely hidden from public view."

Letters Show Frist Notified Of Stocks in 'Blind' Trusts

Letters Show Frist Notified Of Stocks in 'Blind' Trusts: "By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, October 24, 2005; Page A01

Documents Contradict Comments on Holdings

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was given considerable information about his stake in his family's hospital company, according to records that are at odds with his past statements that he did not know what was in his stock holdings.

Managers of the trusts that Frist once described as 'totally blind,' regularly informed him when they added new shares of HCA Inc. or other assets to his holdings, according to the documents."

Since 2001, the trustees have written to Frist and the Senate 15 times detailing the sale of assets from or the contribution of assets to trusts of Frist and his family. The letters included notice of the addition of HCA shares worth $500,000 to $1 million in 2001 and HCA stock worth $750,000 to $1.5 million in 2002. The trust agreements require the trustees to inform Frist and the Senate whenever assets are added or sold.

The letters seem to undermine one of the major arguments the senator has used throughout his political career to rebut criticism of his ownership in HCA: that the stock was held in blind trusts beyond his control and that he had little idea of the extent of those holdings. ...

Miers family received 'excessive' sum in land case ... collected more than 10 times market value ... hasn’t reimbursed state for $26,000 difference

RealCities.com | 10/22/2005 | Miers family received 'excessive' sum in land case: "Sat, Oct. 22, 2005 | By JACK DOUGLAS JR. and STEPHEN HENDERSON | Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers collected more than 10 times the market value for a small slice of family-owned land in a large Superfund pollution cleanup site in Dallas where the state wanted to build a highway off-ramp.

The windfall came after a judge who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Miers' law firm appointed a close professional associate of Miers and an outspoken property-rights activist to the three-person panel that determined how much the state should pay.

The resulting six-figure payout to the Miers family in 2000 was despite the state’s objections to the "excessive” amount and to the process used to set the price. The panel recommended paying nearly $5 a square foot for land that was valued at less than 30 cents a square foot.

Mediation efforts in 2003 reduced the award from $106,915 to $80,915, but Miers, who controls the family’s interest in the land, hasn’t reimbursed the state for the $26,000 difference, even after Bush appointed her to the Supreme Court.

The case raises new questions about Miers’ judgment at a time when her nomination is troubled by doubts about her qualifications for the nation’s highest court and accusations that she was chosen mostly because of her close friendship with President Bush. ...

FEMA Staffer Blows Whistle on Brownie ... emails " “The situation is past critical. ... many will die within hours"

Pensito Review � FEMA Staffer Blows Whistle on Brownie: "LISA MYERS, NBC CORRESPONDENT

(voice-over): Wednesday, August 31st, much of New Orleans is underwater. A FEMA official inside the Superdome sends an urgent Blackberry message to his boss, Director Michael Brown.

Marty Bahamonde, said to be Brown‘s eyes and ears within the city, writes: “The situation is past critical. Hotels are kicking people out. Thousands gathering in the streets with no food or water. Estimates are many will die within hours.”

Bahamonde tells Senate investigators, he doesn‘t remember getting a response to that e-mail but later was forwarded this one. Brown‘s press secretary [fretting] about Brown‘s dining plans for that evening. “It‘s very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner, she writes, given that Baton Rouge is back to normal, restaurants are getting busy. He needs much more than 20 or 30 minutes.”

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS [(R)], MAINE: That is just appalling.

MYERS: Senator Susan Collins says Brown‘s inner circle seemingly failed to grasp the urgency of Bahamonde‘s warnings.

COLLILNS: There is this extraordinary disconnect between what he is reporting and the reaction back in Washington.

MYERS: Bahamonde expressed his frustration about the dinner e-mail writing: “Oh, my God!!!!!!!! Just tell her that I just ate MRE and went to the bathroom in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends, so I understand her concern about busy restaurants.”

(on camera): Bahamonde also says officials at all levels of government failed to act on his early warnings that this key 17th Street levee had failed. He says local and FEMA officials had 16 hours to warn the public and no one sounded the alarm."