Kraven Moorehead

Is your private property
in jeopardy?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: October 29, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

In the United States of America, where private property was considered to be sacred by the Founders and where the right to private property is guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, your private property is not in jeopardy – unless: 1) your property lies within a municipality, 2) your property lies within a county, or 3) your property lies within federal land.

There was a time when local elected officials created building and zoning ordinances to ensure that structures met minimum safety standards and to separate residential from commercial properties. These ordinances had to be acceptable to the people governed by them, or the local elected officials would be replaced by new officials more responsive to the will of the governed.

This fundamental principle of freedom gives meaning to the idea that government is empowered by the consent of the governed.

In recent years, this principle has been replaced by a new idea, advanced by the President's Council on Sustainable Development. Goal number 8, of the PCSD, says:

"We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions; more rapid change; and more sensible use of human, natural and financial resources in achieving our goals."

This new decision process empowers professionals to make the policy decisions that govern how people must live and empowers bureaucracies to implement and enforce these policies.

During the sustainable-development epidemic of the 1990s, the federal government provided millions of dollars in grants to the American Planning Association to develop a master plan that would bring all communities into compliance with the PCSD's vision of sustainable development.

The 1,500-page plan is called Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook: Model Statutes for Planning and the Management of Change.

Prodded by state-level planning professionals and enticed by the promise of federal funding for implementation, state governments rushed to enact state comprehensive planning laws fashioned by the American Planning Association. Invariably, these state laws require counties to develop local comprehensive land-use plans that conform to the regulations set forth in the APA's master plan.

Municipal and county governments, dependent upon state and federal government funding, have no choice but to comply with the dictates of the state's comprehensive planning laws. Consequently, it no longer matters what the people who are governed want; they must comply with the regulations designed and decided by the professionals, and implemented and enforced by government bureaucrats.

These regulations may be so detailed as to dictate the varieties of plants that may be used for landscaping, the color of paint used inside and outside structures, the size and color of business signs, and require that materials used for construction be certified as "environmentally friendly" regardless of the cost.

One of the more onerous concepts introduced in the master plan is the idea of "Amortization of Non-Conforming Uses." This scheme allows structures that do not meet the new regulations to continue in use for a specified period of time. If the structures are not brought into compliance by the deadline, the owner loses his right to the property, which could be taken by government, without compensation.

No private property within any municipality or county is safe from this new vision of sustainable development.

People who have a property interest in federal land are in even greater jeopardy. Ranchers who have invested thousands of dollars and years of sweat-equity in fences and watering systems are seeing their grazing allotments reduced to the point of economic non-viability. Loggers are now prohibited from harvesting timber on vast stretches of the national forest. Miners and drillers who pay for leases and invest millions in equipment are denied the right to extract natural resources from federal land. People whose families have invested in summer cabins on federal land are discovering that their permits are not being renewed, and the cabins are being confiscated or destroyed. Off-road vehicle enthusiasts are finding it increasingly difficult to use federal land. Even sightseers and bird watchers have discovered that new signs are spawning all across federal lands that read: "Area Beyond This Sign Closed – All Public Entry Prohibited."

Ownership of private property means that the exclusive right to use the property belongs to the owner. Restrictions on the use of private property, imposed by any authority other than by elected officials accountable to the people who are governed is usurpation of a fundamental principle of freedom.

This "new collaborative decision process" called sustainable development effectively extinguishes the rights of property owners, as well as the idea that government is empowered by the consent of the governed.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Exxon-Mobil Employees Given Fake Flu Shots
Oct 28 12:46 PM US/Eastern
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BAYTOWN, Texas

Fake flu shots were given out last week at a health fair at Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown complex and an investigation was under way, authorities said.

Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Treacy A. Roberts said Thursday that the FBI told the company that what was administered "definitely not the flu vaccine."

It doesn't appear that the fake shots were harmful, but steps were being taken to ensure workers' safety, U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg said in a statement Thursday.

Exxon Mobil offered blood tests and counseling to the up to 1,000 employees who took part in the health fair at the oil company's vast complex of refineries and chemical plants just east of Houston.

The FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are investigating what was in the syringes and whether others might have received the fake vaccine, Rosenberg said.

Jeanne Miller, another Exxon Mobil spokeswoman, said a doctor provided the shots in Exxon's first use of an outside contractor to administer the shots. She declined to identify the doctor because of the federal investigation.

In the past, Miller said, company medical staff had offered flu shots at health fairs.

FBI officials did not explain how they found out about the potential fraud, Roberts said.

In May, a nurse in Minnesota, Michelle Torgerson, pleaded guilty to dispensing a drug without a prescription, admitting she used diluted vaccine left over from an earlier clinic and pocketed the cash when she gave college students shots at $20 each.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Police: Woman Used Stolen Card in Lottery

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - A woman bought a winning lottery ticket worth $1 million with a stolen credit card and could wind up with nothing if convicted, police said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grand jury issues new subpoenas in DeLay investigation
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas prosecutor asked Thursday for all e-mail sent and received in 2002 by three indicted associates of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay as part of an investigation into an alleged campaign finance scheme.

Rep. Tom DeLay, left, talks with his attorney.
By Jay Janner, AP

The latest subpoenas issued by District Attorney Ronnie Earle request correspondence to and from e-mail addresses belonging to John Colyandro, Jim Ellis and Warren RoBold. He did not ask DeLay to provide e-mails.

Colyandro was executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee founded by DeLay. Ellis runs DeLay's national fundraising committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, and RoBold is a Republican fundraiser in Washington.

Prosecutors allege that DeLay and his associates funneled corporate money given to the Texas committee to an arm of the Republican National Committee, which sent it back to seven GOP candidates for the Texas Legislature. Texas law prohibits corporate money from being used directly in a political campaign. (Related story: DeLay says conservative politics being criminalized)

DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are charged with conspiracy and money laundering. Colyandro and RoBold are charged with accepting or making restricted corporate donations.

Among the information being requested, the subpoenas seek records from DeLay's political committee in Texas, including billing information and subscriber and recipient details.

The prosecutor also repeated a request for telephone records from DeLay's daughter, Danielle DeLay Ferro, a political consultant who did work for DeLay's Texas committee.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A History of Indictments Involving White House Staff
Skip directly to the full story.
The Associated Press

Published: Oct 28,2005

- The only sitting Cabinet member in recent history to be indicted while in office was Raymond J. Donovan, President Reagan's labor secretary. In September 1984, Donovan was indicted along with several others, accused of grand larceny in his co-ownership of a construction firm. After going on unpaid leave in October, Donovan resigned in March 1985. In 1987, a jury acquitted Donovan and his co-defendants.

- In October 2005, David H. Safavian, the top procurement official for President Bush, resigned. Three days later, he was arrested and indicted on five felony counts connected to criminal investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. At the time the indictment covered, from May 2002 to January 2004, Safavian had been serving as the chief of staff at the General Services Administration. Case pending.

- In November 1996, Henry G. Cisneros resigned from his position as President Clinton's housing secretary. In December 1997, he was indicted on 18 counts of conspiracy, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Cisneros pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in 1999 and was fined $10,000.

- In December 1994, Mike Espy resigned from his position as Clinton's agriculture secretary. In August 1997, Espy was indicted on 39 corruption counts in allegations that he had received financial gifts from Tyson Foods Inc., one of the companies his department regulated. In December 1998 Espy was acquitted on all counts.

- In May 1993, White House travel office chief Billy R. Dale and his entire staff were fired by the Clinton administration. Dale was indicted in December 1994 on two counts of embezzlement and conversion after a grand jury said he pocketed up to $68,000 from media organizations traveling with the president. Dale was acquitted of all charges in November 1995.

- In November 1986, John M. Poindexter resigned from his post as national security adviser to President Reagan. In March 1988, Poindexter and three others were indicted in relation to the Iran-Contra affair. Poindexter was charged with two additional counts of obstructing Congress and two counts of making false statements. He was convicted in 1990, but the charges were overturned the following year.

- In 1983, Thomas C. Reed resigned from the Reagan administration after working as a presidential assistant under National Security Adviser William P. Clark. In August 1984, he was indicted on four counts related to alleged illegal stock trading. He was acquitted in 1985.

- In April 1973, President Nixon forced White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, domestic affairs counsel John Ehrlichman and five other staff members to resign. In March 1974, they were indicted in connection with the Watergate cover-up. Along with several others found guilty, both Haldeman and Ehrlichman were convicted in 1975 and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fmr. FEMA Director Mike Brown’s $148K Salary Extended For Another 30 Days…
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Wednesday defended FEMA's decision to extend former director Michael Brown's post-resignation employment by another 30 days.

"It's important to allow the new people who have the responsibility ... to have access to the information we need to do better," Chertoff told The Associated Press as he flew to view Hurricane Wilma's damage in Florida.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bush Administration Will Reinstate Prevailing Wages on Katrina Contracts
Skip directly to the full story.
By Devlin Barrett Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration will reinstate rules requiring that companies awarded federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina pay prevailing wages, usually an amount close to the pay scales in local union contracts.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., was among congressmen critical of the administration's decision to waive the requirement and who met Wednesday with White House chief of staff Andrew Card. He said Card told them the wage requirement would be reinstated Nov. 8.

"We thought it was bad policy and bad politics, and I guess they accepted our argument," King told The Associated Press. "There's no need to antagonize organized labor."

King was part of a congressional delegation headed by Reps. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., and Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, that met with Card.

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, President Bush suspended provisions of the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, which sets wages for employees on federal contracts to ensure they are not underpaid.

The administration contended the move would reduce rebuilding costs and help open opportunities to minority-owned companies, but unions and other critics said it would result in lower pay for workers.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WASHINGTON Oct 25, 2005 — President Bush tried Tuesday to begin reviving U.S. support for the war in Iraq and reinvigorating his troubled presidency as the U.S. military death toll topped 2,000.

"I know this is a trying time for our military spouses," Bush said at a Joint Armed Forces Officer Wives' luncheon at Bolling Air Force Base. "We've lost some of our nation's finest men and women in the war on terror."

"And the best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and lay the foundation of peace by spreading freedom," he said.

A few hours after Bush spoke, the Pentagon announced a fatality that raised The Associated Press count of military fatalities in the Iraq war to 2,000.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Letters Show Frist Notified Of Stocks in 'Blind' Trusts
Documents Contradict Comments on Holdings

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 24, 2005; Page A01

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.

Hospital Corporation of America in Nashville was founded by Frist's father and brother. (By Rusty Russell -- Getty Images)

Melina Mara's Eye on Congress
Harriet Miers is President Bush's choice to replace retiring Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. If confirmed, she will become the third woman to serve on the highest court.

• 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.

The extent of Frist's knowledge of the inner workings of his trusts and his family's health care company is related to a recently launched federal investigation of possible insider trading involving the liquidation this summer of Frist's HCA stock. Within weeks of Frist's decision to sell his holdings in June, HCA shares fell sharply because of a weak earnings report. Frist has said he possessed only publicly available and not "insider" information about the company when he directed the sale and, therefore, did nothing wrong.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bush Won't Release All Miers Records

By NEDRA PICKLER
The Associated Press
Monday, October 24, 2005; 11:23 AM

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Monday that he will not release any records of his conversations with Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers that could threaten the confidentiality of the advice that presidents get from their lawyers.

"It's a red line I'm not willing to cross," Bush said.

White House Counsel Harriet Miers reacts while speaking with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N .Y., during a meeting to discuss her nomination to the Suprme Court Capitol Hill Monday, Oct. 17, 2005. Schumer is member of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings and take the first vote on the nomination. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) (Dennis Cook - AP)

Both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are demanding more documents on Miers, including from her work at Bush's counsel.

"People can learn about Harriet Miers through hearings, but we are not going to destroy this business about people being able to walk into the Oval Office to say, Mr. President, this is my advice," Bush said after a meeting with his Cabinet.

Bush did not directly answer the question that was posed to him by a reporter at the end of the meeting _ whether the White House is working on contingency plans to withdraw Miers nomination in the face of opposition to her from liberals and conservatives. Instead, he said that she is an "extraordinary woman" and that he understands people want to learn more about her.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Enemy Body Counts Revived
U.S. Is Citing Tolls to Show Success in Iraq

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 24, 2005; Page A01

Eager to demonstrate success in Iraq, the U.S. military has abandoned its previous refusal to publicize enemy body counts and now cites such numbers periodically to show the impact of some counterinsurgency operations.

The revival of body counts, a practice discredited during the Vietnam War, has apparently come without formal guidance from the Pentagon's leadership. Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said they knew of no written directive detailing the circumstances under which such figures should be released or the steps that should be taken to ensure accuracy.

U.S. soldiers near Baghdad can be bolstered by the release of enemy body counts, a Marine spokesman said. (By Lance Cpl. Michael R. Mcmaugh -- U.s. Army Via Reuters)

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations
Secret Surveillance Lacked Oversight

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 24, 2005; A01

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.

In one case, FBI agents kept an unidentified target under surveillance for at least five years -- including more than 15 months without notifying Justice Department lawyers after the subject had moved from New York to Detroit. An FBI investigation concluded that the delay was a violation of Justice guidelines and prevented the department "from exercising its responsibility for oversight and approval of an ongoing foreign counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. person."

In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents.

Although heavily censored, the documents provide a rare glimpse into the world of domestic spying, which is governed by a secret court and overseen by a presidential board that does not publicize its deliberations. The records are also emerging as the House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to conduct secret searches and surveillance but has come under attack from civil liberties groups.

The records were provided to The Washington Post by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group that has sued the Justice Department for records relating to the Patriot Act.

David Sobel, EPIC's general counsel, said the new documents raise questions about the extent of possible misconduct in counterintelligence investigations and underscore the need for greater congressional oversight of clandestine surveillance within the United States.

"We're seeing what might be the tip of the iceberg at the FBI and across the intelligence community," Sobel said. "It indicates that the existing mechanisms do not appear adequate to prevent abuses or to ensure the public that abuses that are identified are treated seriously and remedied."

FBI officials disagreed, saying that none of the cases have involved major violations and most amount to administrative errors. The officials also said that any information obtained from improper searches or eavesdropping is quarantined and eventually destroyed.

"Every investigator wants to make sure that their investigation is handled appropriately, because they're not going to be allowed to keep information that they didn't have the proper authority to obtain," said one senior FBI official, who declined to be identified by name because of the ongoing litigation. "But that is a relatively uncommon occurrence. The vast majority of the potential [violations] reported have to do with administrative timelines and time frames for renewing orders."

The documents provided to EPIC focus on 13 cases from 2002 to 2004 that were referred to the Intelligence Oversight Board, an arm of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board that is charged with examining violations of the laws and directives governing clandestine surveillance. Case numbers on the documents indicate that a minimum of 287 potential violations were identified by the FBI during those three years, but the actual number is certainly higher because the records are incomplete.

FBI officials declined to say how many alleged violations they have identified or how many were found to be serious enough to refer to the oversight board.

Catherine Lotrionte, the presidential board's counsel, said most of its work is classified and covered by executive privilege. The board's investigations range from "technical violations to more substantive violations of statutes or executive orders," Lotrionte said.

Most such cases involve powers granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs the use of secret warrants, wiretaps and other methods as part of investigations of agents of foreign powers or terrorist groups. The threshold for such surveillance is lower than for traditional criminal warrants. More than 1,700 new cases were opened by the court last year, according to an administration report to Congress.

In several of the cases outlined in the documents released to EPIC, FBI agents failed to file annual updates on ongoing surveillance, which are required by Justice Department guidelines and presidential directives, and which allow Justice lawyers to monitor the progress of a case. Others included a violation of bank privacy statutes and an improper physical search, though the details of the transgressions are edited out. At least two others involve e-mails that were improperly collected after the authority to do so had expired.

Some of the case details provide a rare peek into the world of FBI counterintelligence. In 2002, for example, the Pittsburgh field office opened a preliminary inquiry on a person to "determine his/her suitability as an asset for foreign counterintelligence matters" -- in other words, to become an informant. The violation occurred when the agent failed to extend the inquiry while maintaining contact with the potential asset, the documents show.

The FBI general counsel's office oversees investigations of alleged misconduct in counterintelligence probes, deciding whether the violation is serious enough to be reported to the oversight board and to personnel departments within Justice and the FBI. The senior FBI official said those cases not referred to the oversight board generally involve missed deadlines of 30 days or fewer with no potential infringement of the civil rights of U.S. persons, who are defined as either citizens or legal U.S. resident aliens.

"The FBI and the people who work in the FBI are very cognizant of the fact that people are watching us to make sure we're doing the right thing," the senior FBI official said. "We also want to do the right thing. We have set up procedures to do the right thing."

But in a letter to be sent today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sobel and other EPIC officials argue that the documents show how little Congress and the public know about the use of clandestine surveillance by the FBI and other agencies. The group advocates legislation requiring the attorney general to report violations to the Senate.

The documents, EPIC writes, "suggest that there may be at least thirteen instances of unlawful intelligence investigations that were never disclosed to Congress."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A traffic warden slapped a parking ticket on a car which had its dead driver slumped at the wheel outside an Australian shopping mall, an official said Friday.

The body of the 71-year-old man, whose identity was not immediately released, was discovered Thursday in a parking lot in the southern city of Melbourne, The Age newspaper reported Friday.

The man had been reported missing nine days earlier and was known to be seriously ill, the newspaper said.

Nevertheless, a parking officer who inspected the vehicle failed to notice the man inside and issued the parking fine two days before his body was discovered.

Paul Denham, the mayor of Maroondah council, where the man was found, said the parking officer was ``distressed'' to learn that the dead man had been inside the car.

``Our local laws officer checked and wrote out the ticket at the rear of the vehicle and placed the ticket from the passenger side on the windscreen,'' Denham said in a statement. ``The local laws officer did not notice anything unusual regarding the vehicle, and is extremely distressed to have learned of the situation.''

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Suspected Illegal Workers Found at Halliburton Job Site

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 22, 2005; Page A09

Federal agents have identified 10 suspected illegal immigrants working at a naval base near New Orleans where the Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root is leading hurricane reconstruction, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A spokesman for the base said last night that 13 workers were barred from the base this week for lack of proper work papers, and that they were employees of Texas-based BMS Catastrophe. Officials of the company could not be reached yesterday for comment.

A KBR spokeswoman said the firm will look into any allegations that its subcontractors have violated the law or the company's code of conduct. She could not immediately say whether BMS was working for KBR.

Immigration and Customs spokeswoman Jamie E. Zuieback said yesterday that agents were called in Thursday by base security personnel and found that 10 workers lacked proper documentation. The workers have not been taken into custody, Zuieback said. She said the investigation is ongoing, but would not comment on its scope

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alleged Desecration of Bodies Investigated
U.S. Military Acts to Control Muslim Backlash After Incident in Afghanistan

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 21, 2005; Page A16

The senior U.S. operational commander in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, flew to the southern city of Kandahar yesterday to confer with officers about the alleged burning of two Taliban fighters by U.S. soldiers in the area as the Bush administration moved to try to limit the damage from the reported incident.

Fearing a Muslim backlash against television images of the apparent desecration, the State Department sent U.S. embassies instructions "to engage on this issue" and to stress that the pictures do not reflect U.S. values or the actions of "the vast majority" of the U.S. military, said spokesman Sean McCormack.

A video aired on Australian television allegedly shows U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan burning two dead Taliban fighters. (Sbs Via Cnn)

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Specialists in U.S.-Muslim relations warned that the alleged incident could deepen hostility against the United States and further damage an American image already tarnished by scandals over mistreatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"If true, the incident would fit a seeming pattern that has emerged of the U.S. military gaining enough knowledge of Islamic culture and sensitivities to devise ways of offending Muslims," said Khaled Abu el Fadl, a specialist in Islamic law at UCLA law school.

The latest scandal surfaced Wednesday when an Australian television network aired video showing members of a U.S. airborne unit purportedly setting fire to the Taliban bodies, followed by other soldiers, identified as specialists in psychological operations, using the event to taunt other enemy fighters

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ford Calls for Job Cuts, Plant Closings As It Reports Loss
CEO Sees 'Dramatic Restructuring'

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 21, 2005; Page D03

Ford Motor Co. reported a $1.2 billion third-quarter loss in its core North American division and warned that it would begin another major overhaul in January with "top-to-bottom" job cuts and "significant" plant closings.

Ford's announcement came days after General Motors Corp. announced its own restructuring plans. The carmakers' troubles have tipped the nation's biggest auto-parts supplier into bankruptcy protection and put pressure on unionized workers to make concessions. Responding to a sustained slide in market share, the auto companies are undertaking two of the largest restructurings in years. GM and Ford are aiming to be smaller, lower-cost producers with fewer plants and fewer workers.

Declining sales of large trucks and SUVs contributed to a third-quarter loss of $284 million for Ford Motor Co. Its North American division lost $1.2 billion. (By Kirsten Luce -- Bloomberg News)
William Clay Ford Jr., Ford's chairman and chief executive, said the industry's changes are painful but necessary. "In the most open market in the world, the landscape is constantly changing," Ford said. "Our industry is beginning a dramatic restructuring which is sorely needed."

Executives at Ford and GM said the collapse of the market for large sport-utility vehicles has hastened the pace of the industry's revamping this year. Ford yesterday said the future arrived faster than the automaker had anticipated because of the sharp rise in fuel prices. He said the company is tackling cost-cutting with a "renewed sense of urgency." He said Ford's management team would outline its restructuring plans in January.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Number Overstated for Storm Evacuees in Hotels
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The Red Cross and federal government said Tuesday that they had been significantly overreporting the number of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in hotels. Instead of 600,000 people, 200,000 remain in hotels, the charity said.

Although the lower number means that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and cities receiving evacuees will find new housing for far fewer people, the count shows the lack of knowledge that FEMA has about the relocations and its limited oversight over the money it is committed to spend on such housing.

"FEMA still does not know any more about what it was doing last week than it was a month ago," Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said. "It is still, as far as I am concerned, an incompetent agency."

FEMA had reported to Congress that as of last Wednesday, it was housing 576,135 people in 206,564 hotels rooms, with the largest numbers, in order, in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida. The New York Times and other news organizations reported the Red Cross and FEMA estimates, which meant that the government would have been spending $11 million a night for hotels and motels. Now, relief officials say, 70,000 rooms are occupied, costing $4 million a night.

A spokeswoman for the emergency agency, Frances Marine, said it had relied on the Red Cross for the estimates that it provided to Congress as its own. "It is unfortunate," Ms. Marine said.

The Red Cross has been operating the hotel program since shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. A FEMA official said Tuesday that the agency did not question the figures because as the population in emergency shelters had dropped, to 11,304 on Monday from a peak of 273,000, it made sense that the number of people in hotels was significantly increasing.

Local officials in cities that included Dallas and Houston, where many evacuees settled, said the Red Cross figures seemed high.

"We kind of looked at those numbers ourselves and thought they were exaggerated," said Frank J. Librio, a spokesman for Mayor Laura Miller of Dallas.

Because of discrepancies between the reported numbers of occupied rooms and billing records, The New York Times raised questions about the figures on Thursday with members of Congress and the inspector general's office of the Homeland Security Department and on Monday with Red Cross officials. The Red Cross and FEMA acknowledged on Tuesday that they had issued inaccurate numbers.

They attributed the error to a "misinterpretation by the Red Cross of data provided to it by the contractor" that ran the motel program, resulting in the publishing of cumulative counts of occupied rooms instead of the actual nightly counts.

"When you are off on any number, it is significant," Armond T. Mascelli, the Red Cross vice president for domestic disaster response, said. "Clearly, we made a mistake."

No refunds are necessary, because the government has not been asked to pay the bills, which total $150 million so far. Even now, the Red Cross cannot precisely estimate how many people are in the government-financed hotel rooms or say definitively that the hotel guests are eligible for their rooms.

That is because the Red Cross and FEMA use unusually informal arrangements to manage the program. Corporate Lodging Consultants of Wichita, Kan., hired by the Red Cross to run the program, learns how many rooms evacuees have occupied after it receives bills, its president, George Hansen, said. That can take two weeks from the stay, Mr. Hansen said. Even then, Corporate Lodging knows only how many rooms it pays for, not the number of occupants. The Red Cross estimates that 3.1 people stay in each room.

Neither the Red Cross nor the government monitors who stays in the hotels, Red Cross officials said. To obtain free rooms, guests were asked to show driver's licenses or other identification that included a ZIP code from areas with widespread storm damage.

Corporate Lodging received bills for 35,000 rooms for Monday night. Mr. Hansen said that after all the bills arrived the likely total room count for this week would be 60,000 to 70,000 rooms. He acknowledged that number was largely a guess.

That is the basis of the new Red Cross estimate of 200,000 people.

If the numbers are accurate, FEMA may have less work to do in finding temporary housing for evacuees than it had anticipated.

Last week, Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, who is in charge of the relief operation for the Homeland Security Department, estimated 200,000 to 250,000 housing units in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast had been lost or were uninhabitable.

The lowered hotel count suggests that many more families than expected may have found temporary housing. Currently, FEMA cannot estimate how many housing units it needs to provide. "I don't have a hard number on that," Ms. Marine, the spokeswoman, said.

Representative Obey said the agency should have more detailed and accurate information for Congress before it asked for more money for hurricane relief.

"I don't think it is appropriate for Congress to appropriate any more money until we know what the hell is going on, and we don't know at this point," he said.

Even with the lower numbers, cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio said they faced huge challenges to find temporary housing for the evacuees they had welcomed. A spokeswoman for the Joint Hurricane Housing Task Force in Houston, Sharon Adams, said the Houston metropolitan region probably had 43,500 evacuees in hotels as of Friday. Robbie Ashe, an aide to Mayor Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, said FEMA had to help move families quickly from hotels to apartments.

"However many people are in hotels," Mr. Ashe said, "we could house them much more cheaply and in a superior fashion in an apartment."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DeLay's campaign goes after prosecutor
Campaign distributes information attacking prosecutor

Friday, October 14, 2005; Posted: 7:33 p.m. EDT (23:33 GMT)

Rep. Tom DeLay was forced to give up his House leadership position after he was indicted.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tom DeLay is using his congressional campaign to distribute to voters derogatory information about the Texas prosecutor who has indicted him -- and to raise more money for a re-election bid that has been affected by the criminal case.

"Help Tom fight back," reads one of the solicitations on the www.TomDelay.com Web site that voters are being directed to as part of an Internet-based campaign paid for by DeLay's re-election committee.

Contributors, voters and others who sign up can get regular e-mails and an electronic "toolkit" from DeLay's campaign with the latest disparaging information his legal team has prepared on Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle.

"Join thousands of conservatives across the country in the fight against liberal DA Ronnie Earle," recipients are told.

Recipients are offered a full dossier about the Democratic prosecutor and his "baseless political indictment" with subjects like:

"Ronnie Earle's previous misuse of his office," which highlights failures in Earle's career such as his unsuccessful case against Republican Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 1990s.

"Earle asks for a Do-Over," which focuses on the prosecutor's decision to seek a re-indictment of DeLay on different charges after the congressman's lawyers raised technical questions about the first indictment.

"Coming Soon: The Ronnie Earle Movie," which highlights reports that Earle allowed a film crew to follow him during parts of the investigation.

Legal experts said DeLay's use of congressional campaign donations to attack Earle probably was permissible, though it could lead to legal questions about whether he was trying to influence potential jurors for his trial.

"He clearly is aiming at the jury pool and aiming at voters, hoping to generate as much sympathy as he can," said Larry Noble, the government's former chief election enforcement lawyer. "And it shows DeLay never misses a beat when it comes to fundraising -- no matter how dark things get."

Bruce Yannett, a former Iran-Contra prosecutor, said DeLay's campaign effort might raise questions of trying to taint the potential jury pool but the legal standard for making such a case is difficult to meet.

Nonetheless, Yannett said he could not imagine former President Reagan overtly using his campaign to attack prosecutors during the 1980s investigation of the Iran-Contra affair. "It does seem a little unusual," Yannett said.

DeLay has been indicted along with several colleagues on charges he conspired to launder illegal corporate contributions to Texas state candidates. He denies the charges. (Read about latest subpoenas)

Earle, apparently, hasn't been solicited by the campaign. "I haven't seen it and have no comment," the prosecutor said when reached Friday. Earle has strongly denied politics has anything to do with his prosecution.

'Perfectly legal'
Don McGahn, a lawyer for DeLay's campaign, said the use of the campaign for the anti-Earle effort was "perfectly legal" and had nothing do with trying to sway jurors.

The indictment "is obvious big news in Texas, so it is obviously something the campaign should address for the voters whom it affects," McGahn said. "The intent is just for people to understand the truth. There is no other purpose here."

"Ronnie Earle is wrong on the facts. Ronnie Earle is wrong on the law," the Web site states as it analyzes the twists and turns in the case in the most favorable light to the congressman.

It also gives readers their own tools -- letting them send a letter to newspaper editors in support of DeLay, contact a radio talk show or e-mail DeLay's statement to friends.

And the Web site wouldn't be complete without the oldest pitch in politics.

"Make a contribution," it asks.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Wednesday his advisers were telling conservatives about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' religious beliefs because they are interested in her background and "part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Bush, speaking at the conclusion of an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, said that his advisers were reaching out to conservatives who oppose her nomination "just to explain the facts."

He spoke on a day in which conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on Family, said he had discussed the nominee's religious views with presidential aide Karl Rove.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ederal Deficit Below Last Year's Record

Oct 15 2005 11:28AM

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal deficit hit $319 billion for the budget year just ended, down from last year's record red ink though a surge in Katrina-driven spending threatens to drive it up again.

The improvement from the record $413 billion recorded in the 2004 budget year, which the Treasury Department reported on Friday, is largely due to a surge in federal revenues from an improving economy.

The figures were released three days before Congress returns from a recess and commences a struggle to cut $35 billion from federal benefit programs over the next five years to help defray hurricane recovery costs. Friday's deficit figures underscored that even if lawmakers agree to such savings, they would have a barely visible effect on the overall red ink figure.

Despite the improvement from last year's budget gap, the 2005 shortfall was still the third-highest ever recorded. The government's 2005 budget year ended on Sept. 30.

Because hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in August and September, only about $4 billion of the $62 billion in emergency aid provided for the storms was actually spent in fiscal 2005, according to a senior Treasury official. Congressional analysts figure another $30 billion of those funds will be spent in the budget year that began Oct. 1, though more spending is likely to be approved in coming weeks.

The most recent White House estimate for the new fiscal year projects a $341 billion deficit, but that was issued before the hurricanes hit.

Republicans emphasized that the figure was an improvement from earlier deficit projections.

At the beginning of this year, the White House projected a $427 billion shortfall for 2005, which would have set another record in sheer dollar terms. The Congressional Budget Office forecast a gap of $365 billion, although both lowered their forecasts as the year progressed.

The improvements were due to a surge of 15 percent in federal revenues over 2004 levels. Meanwhile, spending went up 8 percent.

``Lower taxes and pro-growth economic policies have created millions of jobs and a growing economy that has swelled tax revenues over the past year,'' said Treasury Secretary John Snow. ``While deficits are never welcome, the fact that we finished FY 2005 with a much lower-than-expected deficit is encouraging news.''

The White House and most economists say the truest measure of the deficit is relative to the size of the economy. In those terms, the deficit measured 2.6 percent of gross domestic product. The 2004 deficit, by contrast, equaled 3.6 percent of GDP. That is well below the post-World War II worst-ever record, a 6 percent figure set in 1983 under President Reagan.

Democrats say that despite the improvement over 2004, the administration's record on the deficit isn't anything to be proud of. They add that congressional forecasts that factor in costs such as the war in Iraq, adjustments to the alternative minimum tax and the enactment of personal Social Security accounts, the deficit rises well above White House estimates.

``The deficit in 2006 is almost certain to increase, because the bulk of spending for Katrina and Rita will occur in 2006,'' said Rep. John Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. ``What's worse is that when the Congressional Budget Office factors the Bush agenda into the budget, CBO sees the deficit doubling to $640 billion in 2015.''

Indeed, the deficit picture remains far worse than when President Bush took office in 2001, when both White House and congressional forecasters projected cumulative surpluses of $5.6 trillion over the subsequent decade. Then, the White House forecast a surplus for 2005 of $269 billion.

Those earlier estimates assumed the revenue boom fueled by the surging stock market and worker productivity gains would continue. But that bubble burst and a recession and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults adversely affected the books.

Several rounds of tax cuts, including Bush's signature $1.35 trillion, 10-year 2001 tax cut also contributed to the return to deficits three years ago after four years of surpluses.

The White House has set a goal of cutting the deficit in half from the $521 billion prediction for 2004 that it issued at the beginning of that year.

The administration says it is still on track to reach that $260 billion goal by the time Bush leaves office. But administration budget projections leave out the long-term costs of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and have yet to be updated with cost estimates of hurricane relief.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Inflation In Sept. Highest Since '80
Federal Benefits To Rise Up to 4.1%

By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 15, 2005; Page A01

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita helped make energy prices soar in September at the fastest rate on record, contributing to the highest monthly consumer price inflation in 25 years, the government reported yesterday.

The inflation spike means payments to millions of Americans receiving Social Security and other federal benefits will rise next year by the largest amount since 1991, because of automatic cost-of-living adjustments.

However, average wages for most workers have risen more slowly than prices over the past 12 months, leaving workers with less spending power than a year earlier.

Energy prices have eased a bit this month and other prices show no sign of breaking out of control, analysts said. The worst monthly inflation increase in a generation does not signal a return to the economic turbulence of the 1970s and early '80s, with double-digit inflation and interest rates. Global competition and a vigilant Federal Reserve should prevent that, they said.

But consumers will probably have to live with higher prices and rising interest rates for months to come. That mixture, at a time when household debt is high and savings are low, is already slowing economic growth, several analysts said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

George W. Bush and the G-Word

By Al Kamen

Friday, October 14, 2005; Page A17

The reemergence of the controversy that President Bush allegedly told Palestinian leaders that God told him to invade Afghanistan and then Iraq is not the only time that his comments regarding God have sparked confusion.

In July 2004, he stopped to campaign with some Amish folks at Lapp Electric Service in Smoketown, Pa. Just as the meeting ended, Bush, according to Mennonite Weekly Review columnist Jack Brubaker, told the group: "I trust God speaks through me. Without that I couldn't do my job." This also produced White House denials that Bush used those words.

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Loop Fans will recall that the Palestinian kerfuffle began in June 2003, when an Israeli paper reported that former Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas said Bush told the Palestinian leaders: "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam Hussein, which I did."

The White House declined to clarify, but the Israeli reporter at the time read what he said were the Palestinians' minutes of the meeting to an Arabic-speaking colleague here. Our colleague's translation was different: "God inspired me to hit al Qaeda, and so I hit it. And I had the inspiration to hit Saddam, and so I hit him."

Substantially different, we felt. Moreover, this is Abbas's account in Arabic of what Bush said in English, written down by a note-taker in Arabic and then put back into English.

The newest uproar was sparked by a BBC documentary airing this week in which Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath says Bush said during that meeting that he was "driven with a mission from God."

"President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq. . . . And I did." This sounds much like the original Haaretz version. Bush then allegedly said God had now told him to "go get the Palestinians their state."

This time there is a response: "We checked contemporaneous notes from the meeting with President Abbas and did not find a single reference to God," a senior administration official told us. "The closest thing we could find that the president said is: 'My government and I personally are committed to the vision of a Palestinian state.' "

Back in 2004, a White House spokesman told Mennonite Weekly columnist Brubaker that Bush "likely talked about his own faith," as he often does, but did not say God speaks through him.

Brubaker, in a follow-up column, said he checked with his source, an Amish reporter, who rechecked with attendees and had gotten different wording from several of them. "But Bush has said similar things on other occasions," Brubaker noted, citing B ob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," where Bush says he's "surely not going to justify the war based on God . . . Nevertheless . . . I pray I be as good a messenger of his will as possible."

" 'Messenger of his will [or] God speaks through me,' " Brubaker wrote. "The difference seems rather fine."

The question is, how is it that Bush so confuses groups as diverse as the Palestinians and the Amish? Is it the Andover-Texas accent?

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LONDON (Reuters) - 2005 will be the second or third warmest year on record globally, Britain's national weather service said on Friday, as climate concerns build among people in polar and low-lying areas and in the insurance and utility industries.

"Whether it is second or third depends on how Siberia reacts between now and the end of the year," said Wayne Elliott, Met Office spokesman.

"1998 was the warmest ever, 2005 is looking at being second. It will be another very warm year generally, which is in line with global climate change research."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Consumer prices surge
From wire reports
WASHINGTON — Consumer prices surged in September by the largest amount in more than 25 years as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita sent energy prices soaring at the fastest pace on record.
The Labor Department reported Friday that inflation jumped 1.2% last month. It said that 90% of that increase came from a record-setting 12% surge in energy prices which reflected gasoline prices that briefly topped $3 a gallon last month after widespread shutdowns of refineries and oil and natural gas platforms along the Gulf Coast.

Outside of energy and food, inflation was more moderate, rising just 0.1%, the sixth straight month of benign readings in the so-called core rate of inflation. However, economists and officials at the Federal Reserve are worried that the energy jolt from the Gulf Coast hurricanes could start causing more widespread inflation problems.

The increase in the consumer price index — the largest since March 1980 — outstripped forecasts for a 0.9% gain, but the rise in the so-called core price index came in a touch below the 0.2% expected.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bankruptcy filings surge as law looms
Mass. debtors seek protection before complex, costly change
By Robert Gavin, Globe Staff | October 13, 2005

Struggling debtors are rushing to file for bankruptcy before Monday, when a new law that makes it more complex and costly to gain protection from creditors goes into effect.

In the first 11 days of October, more than 2,500 new bankruptcy cases were filed in Massachusetts, compared to 464 during the same period a year ago, according to the clerk's office at US Bankruptcy Court in Boston. More than 1,000 new cases were filed over the long Columbus Day weekend alone.

Bankruptcy Court Clerk James Lynch said he expects the deluge to continue through the weekend. Over the last few weeks, local bankruptcy lawyers say they are filing up to five times as many cases as they normally would.

The new law, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in April, represents the first major overhaul of the bankruptcy code in more than a quarter-century. Pushed by banks, credit-card companies, and retailers, the changes make it harder for higher-income families -- in Massachusetts, a family of four with income of $85,000 or above -- to wipe out debts through bankruptcy; require debtors to seek credit and financial counseling, for which debtors have to pay; and boost filing fees.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Republicans declining Senate runs
Concerns raised about recruiting efforts by party
By Charles Babington and Chris Cillizza, Washington Post | October 11, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Republican politicians in multiple states have decided recently not to run for the US Senate next year, stirring anxiety among Washington operatives about the effectiveness of the party's recruiting efforts and whether this signals a broader decline in GOP congressional prospects.

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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Prominent Republicans in recent days passed up races in North Dakota and West Virginia, both GOP-leaning states with potentially vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Earlier, Republican recruiters on Capitol Hill and at the White House failed to lure their first choices to run in Florida, Michigan, and Vermont.

These setbacks have prompted grumbling. Some Republican operatives, including some who work closely with the White House, privately point to what they regard as a lackluster performance by Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group that heads fund-raising and candidate recruitment for GOP senators.

But some strategists more sympathetic to Dole point the finger right back. With an unpopular war in Iraq, ethical controversies shadowing top Republicans in the House and Senate, and President George W. Bush getting the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, the waters look less inviting to politicians deciding whether to plunge into an election bid next year.

Additionally, some Capitol Hill operatives complain that preoccupied senior White House officials have been less engaged in candidate recruitment than they were in 2002 and 2004.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lobbyists dominate La. reconstruction planning
By Alan C. Miller and Ken Silverstein, Los Angeles Times | October 11, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Lobbyists representing transportation, energy, and other special interests dominated panels that advised Louisiana's US senators crafting legislation to rebuild the storm-damaged Gulf Coast, records and interviews show.
The Louisiana Katrina Reconstruction Act -- introduced last month by Senators Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat, and David Vitter, a Republican -- included billions of dollars in business for clients of those lobbyists and a total price tag estimated as high as $250 billion.

One advisory panel member who discovered that most of his fellow panelists were lobbyists called the resulting legislation ''a huge injustice" to the state.

''I was basically shocked," said Ivor van Heerden, director of a hurricane public health research center at Louisiana State University. ''What do lobbyists know about a plan for the reconstruction and restoration of Louisiana?"

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Iraq seeks arrest of former officials over missing defense funds
By Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Associated Press | October 11, 2005

BAGHDAD -- Iraq has issued arrest warrants against the defense minister and 27 other officials from the US-backed government of former prime minister Iyad Allawi over the alleged disappearance or misappropriation of $1 billion in military procurement funds, officials said yesterday.

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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Those accused include four other ministers from Allawi's government, which was replaced by an elected Cabinet led by Shi'ite parties in April, said Ali al-Lami of Iraq's Integrity Commission. Many of the officials are believed to have left Iraq, including Hazem Shaalan, the former defense minister who moved to Jordan shortly after the new government was installed.

For months, Iraqi investigators have been looking into allegations that millions of dollars were spent on overpriced deals for shoddy weapons and military hardware, apparently to launder cash, at a time when Iraq was battling a bloody insurgency that still persists.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Delphi bankruptcy hits GM
By Associated Press | October 11, 2005

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. has been negotiating with the United Auto Workers for months in an attempt to lower its skyrocketing healthcare costs, but those talks could be jeopardized by Delphi Corp.'s bankruptcy, analysts said yesterday.
Uncertainty over GM's situation caused its shares to fall $2.81, or nearly 10 percent, to $25.48 on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of auto supplier Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy on Saturday, fell 79 cents, or 70.5 percent, to 33 cents.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services also lowered GM's credit rating one level deeper into ''junk" status yesterday, from BB to BB-, a move that could make it harder for the struggling automaker to borrow money. GM, which is Delphi's former parent and largest customer, will likely face price increases from Delphi and is at risk of disrupted supply if there is labor strife at Delphi plants, S&P said.

GM and the UAW have been talking since spring about ways to cut GM's annual healthcare bill, which will grow to $5.6 billion this year. GM has suggested, among other measures, that hourly workers should pay as much for their healthcare as salaried workers do. The UAW has said it will consider some ways to help GM but won't reopen its contract with the automaker, which is scheduled to expire in September 2007.

Some industry analysts said the UAW may be less willing to make concessions to GM because the automaker didn't prevent Delphi from declaring bankruptcy, putting the supplier's 24,000 UAW-represented hourly workers at risk of massive pay cuts.

GM spun off Delphi in 1999 but left it with high labor costs. The supplier is now expected to seek cuts in wages and healthcare.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3 New Orleans police officers plead not guilty to hitting man
Lawyer: Victim was not drunk
By Paul Simao, Reuters | October 11, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- Three New Orleans police officers pleaded not guilty yesterday to beating up a 64-year-old man and roughing up a journalist in another blow to a department already under fire for its performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Two officers, identified as Lance Schilling and Robert Evangelist, were charged with battery in connection with the arrest of Robert Davis on Saturday outside a bar in the French Quarter.

Officer S.M. Smith was accused of roughing up a producer for Associated Press Television News.

A video shot by APTN showed an officer punching Davis in the head several times as he apparently resisted and a group of officers subsequently dragging Davis to the ground.

The tape showed Davis being punched again and bleeding on the sidewalk. An officer identified as Smith then approached the APTN producer and ordered an end to the filming, jabbing him in the stomach when he presented media credentials.

Davis was arrested for public intoxication, resisting arrest, and other charges after the encounter. Schilling, Evangelist, and Smith were arrested Sunday and suspended without pay. They were released yesterday on bail.

Davis's lawyer, Joseph Bruno, told the Associated Press that his client was not drunk and put up no resistance as he was being struck.

''I don't think that when a person is getting beat up there's a whole lot of thought. It's survival. You don't have a whole lot of time to think when you're being pummeled," Bruno told AP.

Bruno told AP his client suffered fractures to his cheek and eye socket, and scrapes and bruises, but was expected to recover.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BUCHAREST (AFP) - Romania began to administer anti-flu vaccines to thousands of people amid fears that the avian flu detected the day before may be the deadly strain that has killed over 60 in southeast Asia.

Health authorities said that based on preliminary tests they feared that three ducks in the southeastern Tulcea region had been infected with the H5N1 strain transmissible to humans.

The head of Romania's National Animal Health Institute, Stefan Nicolae, told AFP Saturday that migratory birds from Russia had carried the H5N1 virus into the country.

But final confirmation of Europe's first contamination by the deadly version of the virus was being awaited from a lab in Britain.

"These first three cases of avian flu will however be analysed by a

European Union-approved British laboratory. We expect the results in the coming weeks," Nicolae said.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has mainly been found in 10 southeast Asian countries and has so far infected 112 people, of whom around 60 have died, according to the

World Health Organization.

The deadly strain has been carried by migratory birds as far north and west as Siberian regions of Russia, but has yet to cause any cases in humans there.

Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu said that no human cases had been detected so far in Romania.

Local authorities said Saturday they had enforced quarantine measures across the southeastern Tulcea region and that the village of Ceamurlia de Jos, where the three infected ducks had been found, had been sealed off.

The ducks are thought to have been infected by migrating birds bringing the virus from Russia.

The area contains a large nature reserve, and is a key stopping point for migratory birds.

Some 500 chickens suspected of having contacted the virus were destroyed Saturday, and authorities asked local farmers to report any birds showing signs of the disease, promising compensation for any losses.

More than 700 residents of the delta were given general anti-flu vaccines on Saturday and some 3,000 people will have received the jabs by Sunday, he said.

"Romania does not have a specific vaccine for avian flu. However this anti-flu vaccine is important as it helps to enhance immunity," health ministry spokeswoman Oana Grigore told AFP.

"The risk of a disaster is remote if the population is vaccinated against influenza," Nicolaescu told news media.

A free of charge nationwide flu vaccination campaign began a week ago and some 500,000 doses have been stockpiled, according to the ministry.

"In all we need nearly 1.5 million doses. So we will be making an international appeal for donations in the next few days," Nicolaescu said, adding that Romania also planned to stock up on anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

The minister said he would ask the WHO for logistical support and a "sharing of expertise" on the disease.

"We want to know what the exact symptoms of the disease are and what the best treatment is," Nicolaescu said.

Bucharest also announced Saturday that border controls between Romania and its eastern neighbour Moldova had been stepped up, with all meat products in luggage being confiscated.

Romania has already suspended poultry imports from 15 countries.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bird flu 'passed between humans'
Scientists have said a woman who died of bird flu probably contracted the disease from her daughter.
The researchers from the Thai Ministry of Public Health warn it is likely there will be more cases where the virus is passed from human to human.

Professor John Oxford, a leading UK expert, said the virus had broken down the "final door" which prevented it being spread between people.

The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This is a very important step towards the conclusion that we all wanted to avoid

Professor John Oxford, Queen Mary's School of Medicine
In 2004, avian flu infected at least 44 people in eight south Asian countries, killing 32.

Until the late 1990s, it had not been thought that the virus strain - H5N1 - could spread to humans.

Once it did, scientists began to fear it could then be spread between people.

In a "worst-case scenario", they suggested the virus could combine with a human flu virus if people were simultaneously infected with both.

If the viruses then exchanged genes, a new, highly infective virus could be created and be passed from person to person.

It is not thought that this happened in the Thai case, but experts say the fact that the evidence strongly suggests human-to-human transmission of the basic virus is worrying.

Fever

The case began with an 11-year-old girl who lived with her aunt and went to the doctors with a fever, cough and sore throat in September last year.

Chickens in the household had all died from avian flu in the preceding weeks. The girl slept and played in the area under the elevated house where the chickens were also present.

The girl's mother lived in Bangkok, but went to visit her daughter when she heard she was sick, and cared for her in hospital for two days before the child died.

Three days later, she too began to experience fever and severe shortness of breath. About a week later, she also died.

The child's aunt, who also nursed her, showed symptoms of the virus, and was hospitalised. However, she survived her illness.

The research team interviewed surviving members of the family and carried out laboratory tests on the aunt and the body of the mother to test for the presence of the virus.

The child's body had been cremated so could not be tested.

'Shiver down the spine'

Writing in NEJM, the team, led by Dr Kumnuan Ungchusak, said: "We believe that the most likely explanation for the family clustering of these three cases of avian influenza is that the virus was transmitted directly from the infected patient to her mother and to her aunt.

"Person-to-person spread of avian influenza A (H5N1) strains has been the focus of intense concern.

"If H5N1 remains endemic for months to years in the eight countries that contain more than 30% of the world's population, it is likely that such clusters will appear again."

However, they add, "it is reassuring that no further transmission of the virus has been detected" after the Thai case.

The researchers said human-to-human transmission of avian flu had probably occurred before, but that this case was unique because secondary infection - of the mother - had resulted in her death.

Professor John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary's School of Medicine in London, said: "This is a very important step towards the conclusion that we all wanted to avoid - the spread of this virus from human to human.

"It sends a cold shiver down the spine.

He added: "In this case, it didn't spread, but I think we have to be careful not to be over-optimistic."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Floodwall Overtopping May Not Be to Blame
Focus Now on New Orleans's Shifting Soil

By Peter Whoriskey and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 8, 2005; Page A11

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 7 -- The system of levees and concrete walls that was supposed to protect the New Orleans area from flooding was breached in dozens of places, investigators said Friday, a finding that indicates that the failures were far more widespread than originally thought.

Engineers probing the failures said they are increasingly convinced that floodwaters did not overtop two key floodwalls that collapsed on Aug. 29, swamping large portions of the city. Instead, evidence suggests that the floodwalls were weakened by the shifting soil beneath the structures, according to a team of experts from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

In the early days after the storm, accounts offered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others focused attention on a few of the most prominent breaches. But the team of engineers working with the Corps said the places where water broke through were much more numerous.

"This place was ripped to shreds. I was amazed," said Peter Nicholson, a University of Hawaii professor of civil engineering who is part of the investigating team. "There were dozens and dozens of breaches."

Engineers from ASCE and an NSF-funded group at the University of California at Berkeley have been poking through the wreckage of the levees to determine what went wrong.

Many miles of earthen berms and concrete walls are supposed to prevent the low-lying city from being inundated by the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain and other nearby waters. The engineers said Friday that the system failed in a number of ways.

At two key breaches where huge volumes of water inundated the city -- at the 17th Street Canal and the London Avenue Canal -- the quality of the soil supporting the flood walls appears to have been a problem.

At the 17th Street Canal, they said, a section of the levee embankment moved back 35 feet. There is evidence of a similar "soil mass movement" at one of two London Avenue sites. The engineers speculate that either the pressure on the walls pushed them back against the soft soil or water seeping beneath the walls softened the soil, weakening the wall's support. "The soil moved," said Paul Mlakar of the Army Corps of Engineers. "The exact mechanism is not known at this time."

The soil in the area, composed of sand, silt, clay and peat is "compressible and not very strong," said Raymond Seed, a professor of civil engineering at UC-Berkeley.

An extensive analysis at the two canal locations has virtually ruled out overtopping as the cause of the failures, the engineers said. Overtopping occurs when rising waters spill over the top of a floodwall. The analysis shows that the water levels in both the London Avenue and 17th Street canals missed the top of the floodwalls by at least two feet, Nicholson said.

Many levees and flood walls did overtop. In some cases, catastrophic failures followed the overtoppings because the rushing floodwaters wore away the ground supporting the walls and the walls fell over.

"Some were simply overwhelmed and largely destroyed," Nicholson said. "However, many miles of levees performed satisfactorily, even many that were overtopped."

Concern about the inferior quality of the soil beneath the floodwalls is not new. In the early 1990s, a New Orleans-based contractor filed a legal claim against the Corps alleging that the soil beneath the floodwall on the 17th Street Canal was poor. A judge dismissed the contractor's complaint in 1996.

The teams investigating the floodwall failures say that a thin band of soft, peatlike soil lay more than 20 feet below the walls at both the 17th Street and London Avenue canals. But because the layer was deep and narrow, the crews that initially built the walls did not discover it, the engineers said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tom Oliphant on boston.com today and the following NYT Editorial.

October 7, 2005
President Bush's Major Speech: Doing the 9/11 Time Warp Again
Yesterday, the same day New Yorkers were warned there was a "specific threat" of a bombing on their subways, President Bush delivered what the White House promoted as a major address on terrorism. It seemed, on the surface, like a perfect topic for the moment. But his talk was not about the nation's current challenges. He delivered a reprise of his Sept. 11 rhetoric that suggested an avoidance of today's reality that seemed downright frightening.

The period right after 9/11, for all its pain, was the high point of the Bush presidency. Four years ago, we hung on every word when Mr. Bush denounced Al Qaeda and made the emotional - but, as it turned out, empty - vow to track down Osama bin Laden. Yesterday, it seemed as if the president was still trying to live in 2001. It was eerie to hear him urge Americans to take terrorism seriously. There wasn't any reason to worry about that even before subway riders were being told about the threat of a terrorist attack on their commute home.

He seemed to be reading from a very old and familiar script as he revealed that terrorists recruit "disillusioned young men and women," some of whom build weapons based on information available on the Internet. He shared his conviction that "it is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs." He said his team was "reforming our intelligence agency" and reorganizing government for "a broad and coordinated homeland defense."

Americans have seen the Department of Homeland Security in action for several years now, under two directors. The first, a former governor with whom the president had a good personal relationship, was an inept bureaucratic and political player who had a strange obsession with color-coded states of emergency. The current one was at the helm during the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster in New Orleans, when that agency was overseen by an unqualified political appointee.

The administration is still trying to recover politically from Katrina. The hurricane was not just a bad stretch that could be cured by a promise of federal aid and a demonstration of presidential concern. The hurricane showed that despite four years of spinning, America is still unprepared for a catastrophe. It raised major questions about the caliber of people with whom Mr. Bush surrounds himself.

Ever since the terrorist attacks, the main thing Americans have wanted from Washington is a sense of safety. That takes more than hyperalertness to suicide bombing threats, important as that is. No matter what the terrorists are up to, it is not possible to feel safe if the federal government does not appear to know what it is doing on so many different levels.

Yesterday was an ideal moment for Mr. Bush to demonstrate that he was really in control of his administration. He could have taken any one of a number of pressing worries and demonstrated that he was on the job, re-examining the problems, working on answers. For instance, he could have addressed the crisis facing the overstretched military due to the endless demands made by Iraq on both the Army and the beleaguered National Guard.

The speech came one day after the White House threatened to veto a bill onto which the Senate added a ban on the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against prisoners of the American government. This president could not find the spine to veto a bloated transportation bill that included wildly wasteful projects like the now-famous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. What kind of priorities does that suggest? If we ever needed the president to demonstrate that he has a working understanding of exactly where he wants to take this country, we need it now.

The president's inability to grow beyond his big moment in 2001 is unnerving. But the fact that his handlers continue to encourage him to milk 9/11 is infuriating. For most of us, the memories are fresh and painful. We mourn the people who died on Sept. 11, as we mourn Daniel Pearl and other Americans, not to mention innocents from other countries, who were murdered by terrorists. The administration's penchant for using them as political cover is offensive. It threatens to turn our wounds, and our current fears, into cynical and desperate spin.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

Nazi Herman Goering on Military Recruting

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WEST BEND, Wis. (AP) - Pat Faragher has a sure-fire way to get out of jury duty - he'll just excuse himself.

Faragher, a Washington County Circuit judge, was summoned for jury duty recently in his own court. He has his excuse already prepared: "I think I'll just say it may not be a good idea to be summoned to my own court."

Jury clerk Deb Donath said a computer randomly compiles juror lists from information provided by the state Department of Motor Vehicles. "I can't pull any names out, not even his in his own branch," she said of the judge.

Faragher also has been summoned for jury duty in the court of a colleague, Judge Andy Gonring.

"Andy thought it was hilarious," Faragher said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rove's Testimony a Risky Move, Legal Experts Say, but Not Testifying Also Might Be Risky
Skip directly to the full story.
By Pete Yost Associated Press Writer

Published: Oct 7, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - Presidential aide Karl Rove's upcoming fourth appearance before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity is a risky legal move because it opens him up to making statements that are inconsistent with what he previously has said, legal experts say.

Rove offered in July to return to the grand jury and Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald accepted last Friday, lawyers familiar with the investigation said Thursday, speaking only on condition of anonymity.

The grand jury normally meets on Fridays and was also scheduled to convene next week, but it was unclear when Rove would testify again.

"In a normal criminal investigation, most defense lawyers are extremely cautious about their clients testifying even once before a grand jury and are generally loathe to let them testify more than once," said former federal prosecutor E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. "This is a classic example of what happens when there's a large political overlay to a criminal investigation."

At the same time, it may be risky for Rove not to testify, since Fitzgerald warned Rove that prosecutors can no longer guarantee he won't be indicted. The warning came in a letter accepting Rove's offer to testify one more time.

Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, said it was unusual for a witness to be called back to a grand jury four times and that the prosecutor's legally required warning to Rove before this next appearance is "an ominous sign" for the presidential adviser.

"It suggests Fitzgerald has learned new information that is tightening the noose," Gillers said.

After last week's appearance before the grand jury by New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Gillers said Fitzgerald may now suspect that Rove may in some way be implicated in the revelation of Valerie Plame's identity, or that he is investigating various people for obstruction of justice, false statements or perjury.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Making a Mockery of Conservation
By Kelpie Wilson, TruthOut.org
Posted on October 7, 2005, Printed on October 7, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/26504/

A senior energy analyst at the recent API (American Petroleum Institute) convention warned that if the U.S. petroleum industry doesn't reduce its refining capacity, it will never see any substantial increase in refining margins...

- Internal Chevron document, November 30, 1995

Billionaire oil baron John Paul Getty knew that the secret to accumulating great wealth was to never miss an opportunity. He even installed a pay telephone at his English country estate to ensure that guests paid for their own calls. If he wasn't going to get your dime one way, he'd get it another.

The Bush regime follows the same methods to accumulate wealth and power, and they've had no trouble finding ways to use the recent hurricane disasters to keep fortunes flowing their way.

Bush and the Republicans have a well-known agenda of removing all regulatory restrictions on industry. They have already suspended labor and contracting laws to "speed" Gulf Coast reconstruction. Now they are using the disaster-spawned energy crunch to break down environmental laws and restrictions that they failed to destroy with last summer's energy bill. Three big ones are now in their sights: the Clean Air Act, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and restrictions on offshore oil drilling.

The House is scheduled to vote today on what's being called the "refinery bill" after the perceived need to hurry up and build a lot of new oil refineries. All summer long (since well before hurricane season), the business press was blaming high gas prices on a lack of refinery capacity. Supposedly, strict environmental laws have kept new refineries from being built. But the reality is far different.

Several years ago, Senator Ron Wyden's office started looking into the issue of U.S. refinery capacity and found documents -- oil industry internal memos -- that show that oil companies deliberately shut down refineries all through the 1990s in order to keep supply throttled and profit margins high.

Wyden stated: "Information I have received during my ongoing investigation raises serious concerns that the nation's major oil suppliers have set out in a strategic effort to orchestrate a financial triple play, a coordinated effort that would reduce supply, raise prices at the pump and relax environmental regulations."

Between 1995 and 2001, 24 refinery closings took offline nearly 830,000 barrels of oil per day. At the same time, oil industry profits rose hugely. Taking the example of Texaco, the report found that while the company's production steadily decreased from 1998 to 2000, its net income more than quadrupled during the same period. Texaco gets high marks as an energy hog. You can read Wyden's report here. [PDF]

Now that they've got the reduced supply and high prices they wanted, the oil industry is working on the relaxing-environmental-rules part of their triple play, and that's what the refinery bill is really about.

The real target of the refinery bill is the Clean Air Act's New Source Review (NSR). The NSR program requires owners of aging power plants and industrial facilities to modernize pollution controls whenever they expand their facilities and increase emissions. But the refinery bill doesn't just exempt refineries from New Source Review requirements. It exempts ALL energy industry facilities -- approximately 20,000 large industrial facilities and power plants across the country -- not just on the Gulf Coast.

The refinery bill would also allow cities with the worst smog problems to simply skip their cleanup deadlines for years. And it would take refinery permitting authority away from states, keeping the power flowing to the federal government.

The bill would also repeal the one environmental accomplishment that the Bush administration can take credit for: EPA's new clean diesel standards. A great chance to clean up that mistake!

The public learned this week that House Republicans would not try to open up the Arctic Refuge and protected offshore areas to oil drilling with this refinery bill, but it will be a short respite. Republicans will insert both items into the budget reconciliation process that starts at the end of October. That's how it works. They never miss an opportunity.

It was a little disconcerting to see that the Bush administration has actually launched an energy conservation program as announced this week. It's just not like them. Could they be slipping? Trying to give something back to the little people? Perhaps something like the two-billion-dollar program the Canadian government just approved to give rebates to people struggling with high energy costs?

But no worries, Bush's program is nothing but an ad campaign that uses a cartoon mascot, "Energy Hog," to pass out tips to consumers to help "put the chill on winter energy bills."

The only problem is that Energy Hog is dressed like a punk anarchist, with spiky hair and piercings. He looks nothing at all like J. Paul Getty. Kids might get the wrong idea.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Woman Booted Off Flight For Anti-Bush Shirt

POSTED: 12:49 pm EDT October 6, 2005

RENO -- A Washington state woman was bounced from a Southwest Airlines flight in Reno for wearing a T-shirt with the pictures of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and the F-word.

The shirt was a play on words taken from the movie "Meet the Fockers." It had the title of the movie, with the last word changed to a curse word, according to KRNV-TV in Reno.

Lorrie Heasley said she plans to press a civil-rights complaint against the airline over Tuesday's action at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. Heasley said the airline offered to let her continue her flight if she were to change her shirt, which she refused to do.

"I didn't feel that I should have to change my shirt, because we live in the United States, and it's freedom of speech and it was based on the movie 'The Fockers,' and I didn't think it should have offended anyone," Heasley told KRNV.

Southwest officials said other passengers complained about her shirt, and that rules prohibit offensive clothing.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Levees in New Orleans to Be Rebuilt to Pre-Katrina Specifications - for Now
Skip directly to the full story.
By Brett Martel Associated Press Writer

Published: Oct 6, 2005

CHALMETTE, La. (AP) - Even though Hurricane Katrina exposed the weakness of the levee system around New Orleans, officials won't rebuild the barriers higher and better - at least not right away.

Col. Lewis Setliff, the engineer overseeing the levee repairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said the Corps only has the authority to rebuild levees to the strength they were prior to the storms that damaged them.

The levees that broke were built to withstand Category 3 hurricanes, which have winds up to 130 mph. Hurricane Katrina's winds were about 145 mph - a Category 4 - when the storm hit Louisiana.

Without approval from Congress, the Army engineers cannot build the levees higher and stronger. And even if Congress were to give that approval soon, it would come too late to allow them to be finished by the time the 2006 hurricane season begins in June.

"We've got eight months and counting," Setliff said. He added, though, that the levee system in its broken and heavily eroded state might not do much to stop flooding should the area get hit again before the current hurricane season ends in a month.

Setliff said about 10 percent of the New Orleans-area levee system was damaged, mostly because of water running over the tops of the barriers. To repair those levees, crews must first pack down what is left of them, filling in holes scoured out by water. Dirt will then be added to get them back to their original height.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DeLay and Successor Blunt Swapped Donations Between Secretive Groups SHARON THEIMER Associated Press Writers
Skip directly to the full story.
By John Solomon and

WASHINGTON (AP) - Reps. Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt, the deputy who succeeded him as House majority leader, orchestrated a political money carousel in 2000 that diverted donations secretly collected for presidential convention parties to some of their own pet causes.

When it all ended, DeLay's private charity, along with the consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son, Matt, who now is the state's governor, all ended up with a piece of the pie, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congress Seeks to Slash Food Aid for Poor, Conservation

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats are fighting attempts to make cuts in food stamps and conservation programs at a time when people are coping with hurricanes and drought.

"Right now the difference between life and death for many Americans is the food stamp program," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. "We should not, we cannot, cut the very nutritional programs that are literally saving lives."

A Republican plan to cut agriculture spending by $3 billion was scheduled for a vote Thursday in the Senate Agriculture Committee. But a spokesman for the panel's chairman, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said late Wednesday that the vote was being put off indefinitely. He didn't offer a reason.

The bill by Chambliss would cut food programs for the poor by $574 million and conservation programs and farm payments by more than $1 billion each.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One night, George W. Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House bed. He
awakens to see George Washington standing by him. Bush asks him, "George,
what's the best thing I can do to help the country?"

"Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises,
and then fades away.

The next night, Bush is astir again, and sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson
moving through the darkened bedroom. Bush calls out, "Tom, please! What is
the best thing I can do to help the country?"

"Respect the Constitution, as I did," Jefferson advises, and dims from
sight.

The third night sleep is still not in the cards for Bush. He awakens to see
the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed. Bush whispers, "Franklin, what is
the best thing I can do to help the country?"

"Help the less fortunate, just as I did," FDR replies and fades into the
mist.

Bush isn't sleeping well the fourth night when he sees another figure
moving in the shadows. It is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Bush pleads,
"Abe, what is the best thing I can do right now to help the country?"

Lincoln replies, "Go see a play."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bush seeks military option on bird flu
Suggests troops should be sent in if outbreak occurs
By Jennifer Loven, Associated Press | October 5, 2005

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, stirring debate on the worrisome possibility of a bird flu pandemic, suggested dispatching American troops to enforce quarantines in any areas with outbreaks of the killer virus.

Bush asserted aggressive action could be needed to prevent a potentially crippling US outbreak of a bird flu strain that is sweeping through Asian poultry and causing specialists to fear it could become the next deadly pandemic. Citing concern that state and local authorities might be unable to contain such an outbreak, Bush asked Congress to give him the authority to call in the military.

The president has already indicated he wants to give the armed forces lead responsibility for conducting search-and-rescue operations and sending in supplies after massive natural disasters and terrorist attacks -- a strategy that could require a change in law and that some in the Pentagon have reacted to skeptically.

For some, the idea raised the image of soldiers cordoning off communities hit by disease.

''The president ought to have all . . . assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant," Bush said during a 55-minute question-and-answer session with reporters in the Rose Garden.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness, called the president's suggestion an ''extraordinarily draconian measure" that would be unnecessary if the nation had built the capability for rapid vaccine production.

''The translation of this is martial law in the United States," Redlener said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

>>>George Bush goes to a primary school to talk about the war. After his
>>>talk he opens the floor to questions. One little boy puts up his hand
>>>and George asks him what his name is.
>>>"Billy."
"And what is your question, Billy?"
>>>
>>>"I have 3 questions. First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the
>>>support of the UN? Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more
>>>votes? And third, whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?" Just then the
>>>bell rings recess. George Bush informs the kiddies that they will
>>>continue after recess.
>>>
>>>When they resume George says, "OK, where were we? Oh!
>>>That's right! -
>>>Question time. So who has a question?"
>>>
>>>Another little boy puts up his hand. George points him out and asks him
>>>what his name is. "Steve"
"And what is your question, Steve?"
>>>
>>>"I have 5 questions. First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the
>>>support of the UN? Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more
>>>votes? Third, whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?
>>>Fourth, why did the recess bell go 20 minutes early? And Fifth, what the fargh happened to
>>>Billy?"

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer
Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement

By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 2, 2005; Page A05

As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.

With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating the leak. (Kevin Wolf - AP)
His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.

Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.

In October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that he personally asked Libby and Rove whether they were involved, "so I could come back to you and say they were not involved." Asked if that was a categorical denial of their involvement, he said, "That is correct."

What remains a central mystery in the case is whether special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has accumulated evidence during his two-year investigation that any crime was committed. His investigation has White House aides and congressional Republicans on edge as they await Fitzgerald's announcement of an indictment or the conclusion of the probe with no charges. The grand jury is scheduled to expire Oct. 28, and lawyers in the case expect Fitzgerald to signal his intentions as early as this week.

Fitzgerald is investigating whether anyone illegally disclosed Plame's name or undercover CIA job in retaliation against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. In the summer of 2003, Wilson, a former diplomat, accused the White House of using "twisted" intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

He claimed firsthand evidence: At the behest of the CIA, he had flown to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the administration's assertion that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in the African nation for use in its nuclear weapons program. Wilson returned unconvinced the assertion was true. However, Bush himself made the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address, prompting Wilson to spread word throughout the government and eventually make public his rebuttal.

Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the operative's identity.

But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.

Lawyers involved in the case interviewed for this report agreed to talk only if their names were not used, citing Fitzgerald's request for secrecy.

One source briefed on Miller's account of conversations with Libby said it is doubtful her testimony would on its own lead to charges against any government officials. But, the source said, her account could establish a piece of a web of actions taken by officials that had an underlying criminal purpose.
Conspiracy cases are viewed by criminal prosecutors as simpler to bring than more straightforward criminal charges, but also trickier to sell to juries. "That would arguably be a close call for a prosecutor, but it could be tried," a veteran Washington criminal attorney with longtime experience in national security cases said yesterday.

Other lawyers in the case surmise Fitzgerald does not have evidence of any crime at all and put Miller in jail simply to get her testimony and finalize the investigation. "Even assuming . . . that somebody decided to answer back a critic, that is politics, not criminal behavior," said one lawyer in the case. This lawyer said the most benign outcome would be Fitzgerald announcing that he completed a thorough investigation, concluded no crime was committed and would not issue a report.

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating the leak. (Kevin Wolf - AP)

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The campaign to discredit Wilson's accusations came at a critical moment in the Bush presidency. It occurred a few months after the United States invaded Iraq and at a time when Bush, Cheney and the entire administration were under extraordinary pressure to back up their prewar allegations that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and was working on a nuclear weapons program.

The Niger claim was central to the White House's rationale for war, and Wilson was on a one-man crusade to disprove it. Early on, his actions caught the eye of the vice president's office, which was often the emotional and intellectual force pushing the United States to war based on fears of potential weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Cheney and Libby were intimately involved in building the case for the war, which included warnings that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons.

Cheney's staff was looking into Wilson as early as May 2003, nearly two months before columnist Robert D. Novak identified Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, according to administration sources familiar with the effort. What stirred the interest of the vice president's office was a May 6 New York Times column by Nicholas D. Kristof in which the mission to Niger was described without using Wilson's name. Kristof's column said Cheney had authorized the trip.

According to former senior CIA officials, the vice president's office pressed the CIA to find out how the trip was arranged, because Cheney did not know that a query he made much earlier to a CIA briefer about a report alleging Iraq was seeking Niger uranium had triggered Wilson's trip. "They were very uptight about the vice president being tagged that way," a former senior CIA official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. "They asked questions that set [off] a chain of inquiries."

By early June, several weeks before Libby is said to have known Plame's name, the State Department had prepared a memo on the Niger case that contained information on Plame in a section marked "(S)" for secret. Around that time, Libby knew about the trip's origins, though in an interview with The Washington Post at the time, he did not mention any role played by Wilson's wife.

By July 12, however, both Rove and Libby and perhaps other senior White House officials knew about Wilson's wife's position at the CIA and, according to lawyers familiar with testimony in the probe, used that information with reporters to undermine the significance of Wilson's trip.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)