Segregation Museum on the Washington Mall

Mall Site Is Chosen for Black History Museum

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 31, 2006; Page A01

The National Museum of African American History and Culture should be built on the Mall near the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian's Board of Regents decided yesterday.

Congress, which has had the museum under consideration since the 1980s, had instructed the Regents to pick among four sites, two on the Mall and two nearby. The location they selected, at the southwest corner of 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, had drawn widespread support.

"We believe we have picked the best possible site for this museum," said Roger W. Sant, chairman of the Regents executive committee. At an afternoon news conference announcing the selection, Sant said the location rose above the others because of its "cleanliness," beauty and iconic placement.

No permanent structure has ever been built on the land -- hence its "cleanliness" -- but the location is familiar as an assembly point for tourist groups, a shortcut for joggers and as the home of a temporary snack bar.

Backers of the museum hope it will open by 2016.

The five-acre plot has belonged to the government since 1791 and was endorsed as a suitable place for a building by both the major plans for downtown Washington, the L'Enfant Plan of 1791 and the McMillan Plan of 1901-02. The State Department planned to build there in the early 20th century and there was talk of putting the World War II Memorial there in 1995.

Many advocates for the museum -- including Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who in 1988 introduced legislation to establish it -- argued that a central location was imperative.

"I am more than happy and pleased," Lewis said yesterday afternoon. "I'm gratified and thankful that the Board of Regents saw fit to name this site for the museum. The Mall is really the front door to America, the front door to our democracy. If you want to see America and know America, including the history of the struggles, the Mall is the place to be."

Lewis was driving on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which commemorates the famous 1965 civil rights march, when he got the news. Lewis, a civil rights worker in 1965, was beaten and almost died at the hands of police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on "Bloody Sunday" when blacks began the historic march.

Yesterday's announcement was a significant step in making the long-sought museum a reality. As early as 1916 supporters asked Congress to erect a monument for black veterans and other notable African Americans. Various plans simmered until the 1980s, when members of Congress, historians and others pushed to have a museum that would be part of the Smithsonian Institution.

Lewis and two other Democrats, Rep. Mickey Leland of Texas and Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, advanced the plan by fits and starts. In 1994 a bill passed the House but Jesse Helms blocked it in the Senate. Undaunted, Lewis, along with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), continued to push and in 2003 a bill authorizing the museum was signed by President Bush. Neither Leland nor Simon lived to see the bill signed.

Yesterday's Board of Regents vote was taken in a closed-door session. Chief Justice John Roberts is by custom chancellor of the Smithsonian and head of the Regents. Sant said the vote was not unanimous. Of the 17 regents, only Vice President Cheney was absent.

So now we are going to place this obscenity on the Washington Mall. I say obscenity because it perpetuates one of the Liberal Myths, that Black History is different from American History. This is similar to the myths that blacks have a different justice from whites, that women have a different justice from men, etc.

Do we now need a Women's History Museum? What about a Hispanic History Museum or a Chinese History Museum? I suggest an Irish History Museum, or Italian History Museum would be appropriate next.

Liberals love to "Balkanize" the American people. It falls under the old divide and conquer strategy. Democrats and Liberals know that they cannot win on the merits of their arguments, so they select target audiences and tell them how oppressed and different they are; that they need to vote their own self-interest rather than voting for what is good for all Americans.

Full Story: Memorial to Balkanization

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Will Justice Kennedy Withstand the Liberal Assault

Kennedy Seen as The Next Justice In Court's Middle
Alito Expected to Tilt Conservative

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 31, 2006; Page A04

Should Samuel A. Alito Jr. be confirmed to the Supreme Court today, as expected, it will mark the beginning of a new Supreme Court era -- and, perhaps more important, the end of an old, familiar one.

For much of the past 24 years, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Alito would replace, has wielded the swing vote on a split court, usually casting her lot with the court's four other conservative justices, but siding with liberals on such crucial issues as abortion, affirmative action and campaign finance reform.

Alito's arrival, however, may turn the O'Connor Court into the Kennedy Court. If, as many expect, Alito forms a four-vote conservative bloc with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, that would leave Justice Anthony M. Kennedy -- a conservative who has occasionally voted with liberals on gay rights, the death penalty and abortion -- as the court's least predictable member.

"Assuming the predictions about Alito's views are correct, he turns Justice Kennedy into a swing vote on a lot of issues," said Pamela Karlan, a professor of law at Stanford University who teaches a course on the current Supreme Court.

No case illustrates the new dynamic better than the challenge to a Republican-drafted congressional redistricting plan for Texas, which the court will hear on March 1. The stakes in the case are huge and could include eventual control of the closely divided House.

The Texas plan, drafted at the request of then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) and rammed through the state legislature in 2003 over Democratic protests, created a first-ever majority-Republican congressional delegation to match the state's overall GOP voting preference.

But opponents say it was an unconstitutional, partisan gerrymander. The court has split down the middle on such claims in the past, with the four liberal justices -- John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer -- saying that the court can and should decide when partisanship goes too far.

Conservatives -- the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia and Thomas -- said the courts should stay out of this political thicket.

Kennedy, however, said that he would not rule out the possibility that a partisan gerrymander could violate the Constitution, although such a plan had not yet been found.

On this issue, at least, Alito, who acknowledged at his confirmation hearings that he was a youthful skeptic about the court's past efforts to fix legislative districts in the name of "one person, one vote," could vote as O'Connor did. If, as expected, Roberts followed suit, that would leave Kennedy to decide the case.

Another issue on which Alito faced sharp questioning at his hearings -- presidential war powers -- is also on the court's docket. The key case is a challenge to President Bush's plan to try terrorist suspects at military tribunals.

A former aide to Osama bin Laden, Salim Hamdan, claims that his pending trial before a tribunal is unlawful because it has not been authorized by a statute or the Constitution. He also argues that the federal courts should be allowed to enforce his rights as a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions.

This is no revelation, Kennedy has always been the predictable swing justice in a newly Conservative SCOTUS. In actuallity it is now just a balanced court. Kennedy has been almost as unpredictable as was Sandra Day O'Conner. The truth is all of the so-called Conservative Justices are unpredictable if you are results oriented. A true justice (and this has been the originalist argument all along) must be process oriented. The law is what it is, as stated in the Constitution and legislated by Congress. The problem with the Liberal view of what a SCOTUS justice should be is that it makes the Court a political football. When a justice is results oriented, then he is politicizing the one branch which must remain a political. It is only by remaining true to originalism and the Constitution as written and amended, that the SCOTUS can remain above the fray and hand down unbiased, objective decisions.

Full Story: The Importance of Remaining Conservative

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Katrina Recovery: Relying on Big Government Spending Means Big Bureaucracy Problems

Post-Katrina Promises Unfulfilled
On the Gulf Coast, Federal Recovery Effort Makes Halting Progress

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 28, 2006; Page A01

Nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, President Bush's lofty promises to rebuild the Gulf Coast have been frustrated by bureaucratic failures and competing priorities, a review of events since the hurricane shows.

While the administration can claim some clear progress, Bush's ringing call from New Orleans's Jackson Square on Sept. 15 to "do what it takes" to make the city rise from the waters has not been matched by action, critics at multiple levels of government say, resulting in a record that is largely incomplete as Bush heads into next week's State of the Union address.

The problems include the slow federal cleanup of debris in Mississippi and Louisiana; a lack of authority for Bush's handpicked recovery coordinator, Donald E. Powell; the shortage and poor quality of housing for evacuees; and federal restrictions on reconstruction money and where coastal communities can rebuild.

With the onset of the hurricane season just four months away, there is no agreement on how to rebuild New Orleans, how to pay for that effort or even who is leading the cross-governmental partnership, according to elected leaders. While there is money to restore the city's flood defenses to protect against another Category 3 hurricane, it remains unclear whether merely reinforcing the levees will be enough to draw residents back.

New strains emerged this week when Bush aides rejected a plan by Rep. Richard H. Baker (R-La.) to set up a government corporation that would buy back the mortgages of storm-damaged homes around New Orleans. Instead, the government limited the use of $6.2 billion in grants to the rebuilding of 20,000 homes destroyed outside federally insured flood zones.

Dismayed state and local officials said the president's approach does not provide help for an additional 185,000 destroyed homes. They warned that the federal government's halting recovery effort is undermining, at a critical juncture, the confidence of homeowners, insurers and investors about returning.

"They gave us a ladder to reach all of our housing needs, but the top rungs are missing," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) said in statement from Baton Rouge. "You can't fix a $12 billion problem with $6 billion."

Without a government mechanism to compensate homeowners and then clean up and repackage entire, devastated neighborhoods for developers, much of the city will never be rebuilt, Baker said.

Below are some of the major promises Bush made in his Jackson Square speech, and how the government has fared:

· Housing. Bush promised to empty shelters quickly, meet the immediate needs of the displaced, register victims, and provide housing aid in the form of rental assistance and trailers.

In Mississippi, 33,378 occupied trailers are meeting 89 percent of the estimated housing needs. But there have been 34,000 repair requests and maintenance complaints, according to Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.).

In Louisiana, trailers have been provided for about 37 percent of the estimated 90,000 displaced families in need of housing. Officials acknowledge production bottlenecks and in-state battles over sites. Trailer costs have swelled from $19,000 to $75,000 apiece.

You had to know that this would happen, promising $200 Billion in government money to Louisiana politicians is like chumming for Great White Sharks, there's gonna be some blood spilled. First, big bailout programs ignore the greater problem, New Orleans is a sinkhole both figuratively and actually. Figuratively because it is one of the most corrupt and crime ridden cities in the Nation. It is a classic example of what happens in a socialist state. Actually because the city is mostly below sea level and is sinking every year. Simply funnelling in money on a decidedly blank check "whatever it takes" is asking for the kinds of rampant inflation or prices cited above. I am again reminded of Janice Rogers Brown statement:

Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.

To which I would add when the government checkbook opens, corruption moves in on a massive scale. New Orleans before and after Katrina is a bald, unfiltered look at what Judge Brown was describing. When an entire city has been destroyed in the manner in which New Orleans was destroyed, it will require far more than a few months to recover. Meanwhile, we are rapidly approaching the start of another season, which we are foretold will be another corker. Do we really want to spend all that money for another disaster?

Full Story: Pouring Money into a Bottomless Bureaucratic Sinkhole

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John Kerry-Heinz: Yodelling in a Vacuum

Kerry Defends Senate Filibuster on Alito as 'a Vote of History'

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 28, 2006; Page A08

Sen. John F. Kerry cut short a European trip yesterday and returned to Washington, where he was greeted with praise from liberal groups and ridicule from Republicans for his role in postponing a confirmation vote for Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

In a largely empty Capitol, Kerry (D-Mass.) defended his call for a filibuster that effectively delayed until Tuesday the Senate confirmation vote, which both parties say Alito will win. "Why are we so compelled to accept in such a rush a nominee who has so clearly been chosen for political and ideological reasons?" Kerry said in a 30-minute floor speech. "This is not the vote of Monday afternoon. This is a vote of history."

He departed by a back staircase and kept walking as reporters chased him and asked why he had decided to interrupt his trip to a world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland. "I knew ahead of time that if there was a filing" to end debate, "I would be back," Kerry said before entering his car.

Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 presidential nominee, is considering another bid in 2008, and liberal groups that urged a filibuster will play important roles in the early primary process. Those groups strongly defended Kerry, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and others who refused to end debate on Alito this week despite the urging of Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

The Alliance for Justice "commends Senators Kerry and Kennedy for using all the means available to them to continue to fight the Alito nomination," said its president, Nan Aron. "We will continue to mobilize activists to support these senators in their principled stand."

If 60 senators vote Monday to end debate, the chamber will vote Tuesday on whether to confirm Alito, 55, to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Reid told reporters yesterday that he will vote against "cloture" -- or ending debate -- to emphasize that President Bush made a "bad choice" in tapping Alito. But he added: "Everyone knows there are not enough votes to support a filibuster."

Four of the Senate's 44 Democrats have signaled they are inclined to vote to confirm Alito. Three of them -- Kent Conrad (N.D.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.) -- face reelection this year in states that Bush carried against Kerry. Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) also supports Alito, and several other Democratic senators have said they will not support a filibuster.

Republicans mocked Kerry's role in extending the debate from Europe on Thursday, and they continued their sarcasm yesterday. The filibuster strategy "was apparently hatched in Davos, Switzerland, where Senator Kerry now is with those masters of the universe that are out there trying to figure our world economy out," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said in a Senate speech, even though Kerry was back in Washington by then. White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters, "Even for a senator, it takes some pretty serious yodeling to call for a filibuster from a five-star ski resort in the Swiss Alps."

Too funny Scott. I guess J.F.Kerry-Heinz and Albert Gore, Jr. can battle for the least relevent politician award. I am disappointed that common sense has returned to a majority of Senate Democrats. I really got my hopes up when Kerry first made this call for a filibuster, nothing like watching Democrats making idiots of themselves. No one does that better than Tweedle-Dee-Heinz and Tweedle-Dum, Jr. (or is it the other way around, I get confused). I guess the only real surprise in the floor debate was Sentor Byrd's announcement of support for Alito. I really have a hard time figuring him out. Last spring, he couldn't have worked harder to prevent President Bush's Conservative picks from being approved for the Circuit Courts, yet there he was Thursday talking about how he favors a Conservative Judiciary. I guess the best explanation was one I heard on some program, that Byrd loves his Constitution, but he loves his party more and didn't like the way the Democrats looked during the Alito hearings. He was embarrassed for his Party, and didn't want them to suffer any further black-eye. Sounds about right for that conniving old fool.

Full Story: The New York Lies Barks, Kerry-Heinz Jumps

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New York Times-Jazeerah Calls for Filibuster

Senators in Need of a Spine

Published: January 26, 2006
New York Times Editorial

Judge Samuel Alito Jr., whose entire history suggests that he holds extreme views about the expansive powers of the presidency and the limited role of Congress, will almost certainly be a Supreme Court justice soon. His elevation will come courtesy of a president whose grandiose vision of his own powers threatens to undermine the nation's basic philosophy of government — and a Senate that seems eager to cooperate by rolling over and playing dead.

It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle. Even a losing battle would draw the public's attention to the import of this nomination.

At the Judiciary Committee hearings, the judge followed the well-worn path to confirmation, which has the nominee offer up only the most boring statements and unarguable truisms: the president is not above the law; diversity in college student bodies is a good thing. But in what he has said in the past, and what he refused to say in the hearings, Judge Alito raised warning flags that, in the current political context, cannot simply be shrugged away with a promise to fight again another day.

The Alito nomination has been discussed largely in the context of his opposition to abortion rights, and if the hearings provided any serious insight at all into the nominee's intentions, it was that he has never changed his early convictions on that point. The judge — who long maintained that Roe v. Wade should be overturned — ignored all the efforts by the Judiciary Committee's chairman, Arlen Specter, to get him to provide some cover for pro-choice senators who wanted to support the nomination. As it stands, it is indefensible for Mr. Specter or any other senator who has promised constituents to protect a woman's right to an abortion to turn around and hand Judge Alito a potent vote to undermine or even end it.

But portraying the Alito nomination as just another volley in the culture wars vastly underestimates its significance. The judge's record strongly suggests that he is an eager lieutenant in the ranks of the conservative theorists who ignore our system of checks and balances, elevating the presidency over everything else. He has expressed little enthusiasm for restrictions on presidential power and has espoused the peculiar argument that a president's intent in signing a bill is just as important as the intent of Congress in writing it. This would be worrisome at any time, but it takes on far more significance now, when the Bush administration seems determined to use the cover of the "war on terror" and presidential privilege to ignore every restraint, from the Constitution to Congressional demands for information.

No surprise here. The New York Lies has always been anti-Constitution. They Don't believe in Congress, they believe in a dictatorial Judiciary. They believe in the old socialist line that man exist to serve the state. Liberals have deteriorated into a comedy act, hardly worth paying attention to. Chicken littles running around spreading panic simply because they finally are beginning to figure out that they no longer have any political power. People like Kennedy and Kerry-Heinz are nothing but sad caricatures of the Democrats of old and the Times-Jazeerah is but a yellow shadow of its formerly great self.

Full Story: Gray Lady Down
Fu

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You Go John Kerry-Heinz! Filibuster Alito Now!

Kerry Gets Cool Response to Call to Filibuster Alito

DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: January 27, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 — Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts could not attend the Senate debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Thursday. He was in Davos, Switzerland, mingling with international business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum.

In Newark, opponents demonstrated outside the Essex County Courthouse.
But late Thursday afternoon, Mr. Kerry began calling fellow Democratic senators in a quixotic, last-minute effort for a filibuster to stop the nomination.

Democrats cringed and Republicans jeered at the awkwardness of his gesture, which almost no one in the Senate expects to succeed.

"God bless John Kerry," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican on the Judiciary Committee. "He just cinched this whole nomination. With Senator Kerry, it is Christmas every day."

Steve Schmidt, a White House spokesman working on the nomination, said Mr. Kerry's move "says a lot less about Alito than it does about the Iowa primary in 2008," suggesting that Mr. Kerry, who lost the presidential race in 2004, was playing to his party's liberal base in a bid to recapture its nomination.

Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, sounded almost apologetic about Mr. Kerry's statements.

"No one can complain on this matter that there hasn't been sufficient time to talk about Judge Alito, pro and con," Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. "I hope that this matter will be resolved without too much more talking."

And on Friday, Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee who voted against Mr. Alito there, said he would not support a filibuster and doubted one would happen.

Speaking in a televised interview on CNN, Mr. Biden said that he thought the Republicans would inevitably force a decision, so Democrats should use their votes to "make a statement" without seeking a delay.

Mr. Kerry's call for a filibuster, an effort to stop confirmation by refusing to close debate and hold a vote, was joined by his fellow Democratic senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy.

Under Senate procedures, their objections blocked the Senate Democratic and Republican leaders from setting Tuesday as the date for a vote on confirmation.

Instead, the Senate will vote Monday on whether to close debate. Sixty votes are required for a full Senate vote on Judge Alito. More than 60 senators have already pledged to support him, and the leaders of both parties said they expected to hold the full vote on Tuesday.

Mr. Kerry offered an explanation for his position in a post on a liberal blog, the Daily Kos.

"People can say all they want that 'elections have consequences,' " he wrote. "Trust me, more than anyone I understand that. But that seems like an awfully convoluted rationale for me to stay silent about Judge Alito's nomination."

Mr. Kerry was celebrated by leaders of the coalition of liberal groups opposing Judge Alito's nomination.

"Senator John Kerry has called for a filibuster of the Alito nomination, heeding your calls to do everything possible to defeat it," People for the American Way cheered in an e-mail message to its supporters.

Mr. Kennedy said a filibuster might help focus attention on the nomination and give its opponents a last chance to sway the public and the Senate.

He acknowledged some "divisions in the caucus" over the advisability of a filibuster, but he said the effort had the support of a few others, including Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip.

A spokesman for Mr. Durbin confirmed that he would vote against closing debate.

"It is an uphill climb at this point," Mr. Kennedy said of a filibuster. "But it is achievable."

I know this surprises some of my readers, but I support Senator Kerry-Heinz's call for a filibuster. Go, Go, Go! Do it now. We want a filibuster! We want a filibuster! Nothing like watching Liberals make asses out of themselves. I encourage that whenever there's a chance for it to happen. Kerry-Heinz, Lady-killer Kennedy, Dullard Durbin; gimme more, gimme more! C'mon Chucky "Microphone Moth" Schumer, where is the courage of your convictions? Let's do it! The folks at DemocratUnderground and dailyKos are in your corner.

I doubt they will, I doubt they would have the guts to go it alone. I sure wish they would though. Talk about suicide. Talk about fun...if only.

Full Story: Kerry-Heinz/Kennedy for Filibuster

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Living in a Fantasy World

Al Gore, Sundance's Leading Man
'An Inconvenient Truth' Documents His Efforts To Raise Alarm on Effects of Global Warming

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 26, 2006; Page A01

PARK CITY, Utah -- Has ever a little indie film faced a greater hurdle? Imagine this sales pitch: Babe, it's a movie about global warming. Starring Al Gore. Doing a slide show.

With charts.

About "soil evaporation."

Improbable? Perhaps. So it's all the more amazing that "An Inconvenient Truth" had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday night before an enthusiastic audience that gave the former vice president and his movie a big standing O.

Among the film's lessons: Earth's glaciers are melting, the polar bears are screwed, each year sets new heat records. Al Gore sometimes flies coach. He also schleps his own bags.

The morning after his debut as leading man, Gore pronounces this whole Sundance thing "a most excellent time." He is wearing earth tones again. He seems jolly . He brought Tipper and the kids. He is attending parties and posing for pictures with his fans and enjoying macaroni and cheese at the Discovery Channel soiree. He's palling around with Larry David of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," who says, "Al is a funny guy." But he is also a very serious guy who believes humans may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan.

The core of the film is a one-man, ever-evolving multimedia slide show that Gore assembled himself. A little-known fact: Since his defeat by George W. Bush in 2000, Gore has traveled the globe with his bar graphs, staging event after event for small, invited audiences. Free of charge. And he's presented one version or another of this slide show, by his own estimation, a thousand times.

The official Sundance Film Festival guide calls the documentary a "gripping story" with "a visually mesmerizing presentation" that is "activist cinema at its very best."

In the film, Gore presents the latest evidence to demonstrate how the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other pollutants of the industrial age are increasing temperatures. In addition to timelines and bell curves and stuff about oxygen isotopes in Greenland ice cores, Gore includes several cartoons, one featuring a Mister Sunbeam trapped by the bullies known as Greenhouse Gases.

Gore argues -- with scientific evidence projected on big screens at his back -- that global warming may soon lead to catastrophic sea level rises, which could inundate cities such as New York (flooding the former site of the World Trade Center), producing scary nonlinear runaway spasms of extreme weather (bigger, badder hurricanes and typhoons), global pandemics and, depending on where you live, torrential rains or decade-long drought. It is not a pretty picture.

Gee, here's a novel revelation, Al Bore, discussing Global Warming, at Sundance, gets a standing ovation. Man, I never would have guessed that. A looney talking to loonies. Only an environmental extremist would even have considered this a good topic for a Sundance "Indie" movie.

The only real surprise here is the reporters expressed amazement that this film would be well received by the audience. "Has ever a little indie film faced a greater hurdle?" Answer, yes, any film about a Conservative politician shown at the Sundance film festival. The real question would be "Has any film been more of a shoo-in?"

Full Story: "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute," and They Were All at Park City

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Erring on the Side of Caution Where Chemicals are Concerned is Wise

Harmful Teflon Chemical To Be Eliminated by 2015

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 26, 2006; Page A01

Eight U.S. companies, including giant DuPont Co., agreed yesterday to virtually eliminate a harmful chemical used to make Teflon from all consumer products coated with the ubiquitous nonstick material.

Although the chemical would still be used to manufacture Teflon and similar products, processes will be developed to ensure that perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) would not be released into the environment from finished products or manufacturing plants.

PFOA -- a key processing agent in making nonstick and stain-resistant materials -- has been linked to cancer and birth defects in animals and is in the blood of 95 percent of Americans, including pregnant women. It has also been found in the blood of marine organisms and Arctic polar bears.

The voluntary pact, which was crafted by the Environmental Protection Agency, will force companies to reduce manufacturing emissions of PFOA by 95 percent by no later than 2010. They will also have to reduce trace amounts of the compound in consumer products by 95 percent during the same period and virtually eliminate them by 2015.

The agreement will dramatically reduce the extent to which PFOA shows up in a wide variety of everyday products, including pizza boxes, nonstick pans and microwave-popcorn bags.

While not as sweeping as the federal ban on DDT in 1972, yesterday's agreement is expected to have profound implications for public health and the environment. An independent federal scientific advisory board is expected to recommend soon whether the government should classify the chemical as a "likely" or "probable" carcinogen in humans, which could trigger a new set of federal regulations.

"The science is still coming in on PFOA, but the concern is there," said Susan B. Hazen, acting assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. "This is the right thing to do for our health and our environment."

The move, which came just a month after DuPont reached a $16.5 million settlement with EPA over the company's failure to report possible health risks associated with PFOA, drew applause from environmental groups that have frequently criticized both the administration and DuPont.

"This is one of those days when the Environmental Protection Agency is at its best. With its announcement today, the EPA is challenging an entire industry to err on the side of precaution and public safety, and invent new ways of doing business," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. "As harshly as we have singled out DuPont for criticism for its past handling of PFOA pollution, today we want to single out and commend the company and acknowledge its leadership going forward."

As someone who has spent more than twenty years working in the chemical industry, I have always believed that corporations should err on the side of caution. Too often, we have merely assumed that the chemicals we use are safe. The reality is most chemicals pose a threat and should be controlled where possible.

I do not agree with those who would ban chemicals, like DDT for instance, but tighter controls on the manufacture and use of the chemical, especially where casual emissions are concerned, is only prudent.

It was the government that mandated oxygenating chemicals like MTBE to be added to gasoline, and it was the corporations who chose MTBE over other alternatives. Both decisions proved to be disasterous. MTBE is now ubiquitous in our water supply, and is next to impossible to eliminate.

Bad decisions where chemicals are concerned are very often irreversible, hence caution and care should be the rule, not banning or carelessness.

Full Story: EPA Makes Good Move

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Houston Texans: Reeves to Replace Casserly?

Well, my contacts (I admit that I have very few in sports) tell me that Dan Reeves' visit to Houston this past year was no accident. "Advisor" Reeves is rumored to be the long expected replacement for Charley Casserly.

(courtesy of Google Images)

Dan Reeves

The source says that Casserly will remain the titular head of the team for the next several months, but that Reeves will be "eased in" to the front office position. This is the best news since Kubiak's selection.

(Courtesy of Denver Broncos Organization)

Gary Kubiak

In other news, it is also rumored that the "big choice" will fall primarily to Kubiak. Reportedly Mr. McNair has decided to allow Coach Kubiak to have his pick.

For my money, I would rather have a classic "pocket quarterback" like USC's Matt Leinart and drop the extra money on additional protection up front. A team without an effective offensive line will always be a loser.

Yes it's true that both Vince Young and Reggie Bush are great players, but it's a cinch that Bush, like all other "great" running backs, will not be able to run against the pros the way he ran in college ball, so the potential is there but there are no guarantees.

(Courtesy of USC Trojans Organization)

Matt Leinart-/-Reggie Bush

As for Vince Young, I know he's "bigger, faster, stronger, breaks the mold, etc." We've heard this over and over with McNabb, then with McNair, then with Vick, and now with Vince Young.

(Courtesy of OrangeBloods.com)

Vince Young

So far, the "Superman Quarterback" paradigm has yet to have panned out. Super Bowl teams have pocket quarterbacks with great throwing motions. They can still be big and strong and mobile, but they have to have a great arm.

Now I don't claim to be a great football sage, and any and all of these guys could prove me wrong. I do know that whatever happens, it's going to be a great and exciting time in Houston Texan's Football.

GO TEXANS!

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Nightline's Lies Exposed: More on Justice Scalia Story

Controversy Enters Day 2
Conservative Legal Group Calls for Investigation of ABC Report

by Robert B. Bluey
Posted Jan 25, 2006

Lawyers at the Federalist Society are drafting a letter to ABC News President David Westin calling for an internal investigation of two ABC News journalists responsible for a “Nightline” segment that accused Justice Antonin Scalia of ethical lapses, a source close to the conservative legal group tells HUMAN EVENTS.

ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross reported Monday for ABC’s “Nightline” that Scalia was out of town at a Federalist Society legal seminar on the day of Chief Justice John Roberts’ swearing-in ceremony. Ross’ report showed Scalia playing tennis at the hotel where he stayed—video that might have been obtained illegally, according to the Federalist Society.

In an effort to stem criticism of its report, ABC News on Tuesday invited Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo to appear on “Nightline,” but reneged twice after insisting that Ross conduct the interview or at least appear on the program following Leo’s appearance to defend his report, the source told HUMAN EVENTS. “Nightline” anchor Terry Moran was originally supposed to conduct the interview.

One of the attendees to the seminar, who has chosen to remain anonymous as "Rebelyell" on the Huffington Post, states:

"I was an attorney present at the Continuing Legal Education seminar taught by Justice Scalia and Professor Thomas Baker. He kept his engagment to speak because it had been planned for more than six months.

On the day he played tennis he taught a course from 8 a.m. to almost 1 p.m. We then took a four-hour break and he chose to play tennis. We met again at 5 p.m. for two more hours of lectures.

Each of us paid around $300 to attand this lecture, which is in line with what similar seminars cost.

Bottom line is that Justice Scalia was either lecturing, answering questions or on the podium ready to debate or be questioned by Professor Baker for about 12 hours over two days. I find the claim that this was a "junket" offensive.

We attorneys are required to take these courses, and there is nothing unethical about jurists teaching them. I found the course to be the finest I've ever attended, and would eagerly attend one taught by an outstanding jurist on either side of the politcal fence."

It appears that ABC is about to get a "black eye" similar to that received by CBS for the Rather/Mapes scandal. It is great to finally have the MSM called to the carpet for this kind of yellow jounalism. They have had a free reign for too long.

Full Story: Bearding the ABC Lion

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ABC's Callow Attempt to Impugn Justice Salia

EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Ethics Problem?

What Was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Doing on Day of Supreme Court Swearing-In?

Brian Ross
abc News
Jan. 23, 2006

At the historic swearing-in of John Roberts as the 17th chief justice of the United States last September, every member of the Supreme Court, except Antonin Scalia, was in attendance. ABC News has learned that Scalia instead was on the tennis court at one of the country's top resorts, the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bachelor Gulch, Colo., during a trip to a legal seminar sponsored by the Federalist Society.
Not only did Scalia's absence appear to be a snub of the new chief justice, but according to some legal ethics experts, it also raised questions about the propriety of what critics call judicial junkets.

"It's unfortunate of course that what kept him from the swearing-in was an activity that is itself of dubious ethical propriety," said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, who is a recognized scholar on legal ethics.

Scalia Mum

Scalia spent two nights at the luxury resort lecturing at the legal seminar where ABC News also found him on the tennis court, heading out for a fly-fishing expedition, and socializing with members of the Federalist Society, the conservative activist group that paid for the expenses of his trip.

At a press conference, almost two weeks later, Scalia was not inclined to tell reporters his whereabouts during Roberts' swearing-in.
"I was out of town with a commitment that I could not break, and that's what the public information office told you," he said.

It "doesn't matter what it was. It was a commitment that I couldn't break," Scalia continued when questioned further.

According to the event's invitation, obtained by ABC News, the Federalist Society promised members who attended the seminar an exclusive and "rare opportunity to spend time, both socially and intellectually" with Scalia.

"I think Justice Scalia should not have gone on that trip for several reasons," Gillers commented. "They are a group with a decided political-slash-judicial profile."

Quelle suprise? An avowed anti-Scalia New York University "recognized scholar" is critical of Justice Scalia's seminar trip. I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, to discover that ABC news would attempt to assassinate Justice Scalia's reputation. Don't these idiots ever get tired of doing the same old hack journalism they've been doing for so long. A pipsqueak Leftist reporter doing a hatchet job on a distinguished member of the Supreme Court, why am I not surprised. It would be nice to see a reporter actually do some serious journalism and completely research a story rather than trying for the cheap shot. Nothing like consulting only Liberal professors to get insight on the activities of a conservative jurist.

John Leo, in the Huffinton Post points out Justice Stephen Breyer attends Renaissance Weekends in Charleston, South Carolina, each New Year's...Renaissance...is a liberal group (I was one of seven or eight identifiable conservatives there this year, out of a total attendance of about 1,800) And there are lots of liberal lawyers around to shmooze with Breyer the way the conservative lawyers shmoozed with Scalia in Colorado...[it is run]as a non-political event, with no partisan comments allowed on panels, and no booing of the visiting conservative specimens either. Still, when panelists use the word "we," it's usually a reference to the Democratic party." [I provide the above link in case you think my editing for brevity might alter the meaning.]

Ther is nothing unethical about the trip, or about Justice Scalia (or Justice Breyer for that matter). What is unethical is the selective editing of information, by a reporter, in order to skew the information to promote a particular point of view, as hack reporter Brian Ross has done.

Full Story: Brian Ross' Hatchet Job

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Conservatives Win in Canada!

Canadian Voters Oust Incumbent for Conservative

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: January 24, 2006

TORONTO, Jan. 23 - Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party defeated the long entrenched Liberal Party in Canadian elections on Monday. A Conservative victory is a striking turn in the country's politics and is likely to improve Canada's strained relations with the Bush administration.

Prime Minister Paul Martin had hoped to build on a string of four consecutive Liberal national election victories in the past 13 years, but his campaign was damaged by two years of investigations into party scandals that spurred a backlash and a desire for change.

Mr. Martin tried to cut into Mr. Harper's lead in the final days with a campaign of rancorous advertising, as opinion polls indicated that many urban voters were wary of allowing the country to veer into uncharted ideological waters.

But in the end, Mr. Harper seemed to reassure the public that he had evolved into a centrist in recent years and that his government would emphasize cutting taxes and cleaning up corruption, rather than social issues like abortion and gay rights.

In a concession speech, Mr. Martin announced that he would leave the party leadership before the next national election. "I telephoned Stephen Harper and congratulated him on being chosen by the people of Canada," he said. "We differ on many things, but we all share the belief of the potential and the promise of Canada and the desire of our country to succeed."

Preliminary data showed that the Conservatives won more than 36 percent of the popular vote, and fell short of a majority in the 308-seat House of Commons.

Incomplete results showed the Conservatives leading in 125 districts to 102 for the Liberals, followed by the Bloc Québécois with 51 districts and the labor-aligned New Democratic Party with 29. One independent candidate won.

The Bloc Québécois fell well short of its goal of winning a symbolically important majority in Quebec because of the Conservative gains. The Conservatives showed strength across the country, but particularly in rural and suburban areas.

Mr. Harper, 46, is a free-market economist who expressed strong support for Washington at the time of the American-led invasion of Iraq and shares the Bush administration's skepticism of the Kyoto climate control protocol, which Canada has signed and ratified. His party was formed three years ago as a coalition of two conservative parties.

Such positions are in sharp contrast with those of Prime Minister Martin, who rejected cooperation with President Bush's missile defense program, ratcheted up criticism of American trade policies and caustically criticized Washington during the campaign for not supporting the Kyoto protocol.

Mr. Harper did not emphasize his closeness to the Bush administration during the campaign, and there was no indication that Canadians had suddenly embraced American foreign policy. Mr. Harper pointedly promised not to send Canadian troops to Iraq, and said he would be a tough bargainer in trade talks with the United States.

But he did promise $5 billion in new military spending, which would go to forming a new airborne battalion and buying large transport aircraft to airlift troops and supplies during world crises.

By falling far short of winning a clear majority in the House of Commons, Mr. Harper may lead a shaky government and could face another national election within two years.

He will probably have to compromise with lawmakers from three left-of-center parties to pass legislation and remain in power. But in foreign policy the prime minister has broad powers, and he is expected to reach out quickly to Washington to improve a relationship that has been declining since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Canada opposed.

"It is in the DNA of this Harper government to improve the relationship with Washington," Janice Stein, director of the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, said before the vote was counted."

In domestic affairs, Mr. Harper promised to provide allowances to families with children under age 6 to help with child care, to introduce mandatory prison sentences for serious drug trafficking and gun crimes, to reduce the national sales tax and to provide tax breaks for retirees.

Good riddance to Paul Martin, what a loser he was. I'm glad to see our neighbors from the North waking up.

Another warning for the Democrats, but they won't pay heed. Their arrogance won't allow them to believe that these results have anything to do with them and their approaching campaigns.

They will just continue down the same road of "no suggestions, only complaints" that they have been travelling for some time now.

It seems whining is about all Democrats are good for these days.

Full Story: Canadian Coup

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Katrina Warning: Too Late to Act

White House Got Early Warning on Katrina

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 24, 2006; Page A02

In the 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit, the White House received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property, documents show.

A 41-page assessment by the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), was delivered by e-mail to the White House's "situation room," the nerve center where crises are handled, at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, the day the storm hit, according to an e-mail cover sheet accompanying the document.

The NISAC paper warned that a storm of Katrina's size would "likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching" and specifically noted the potential for levee failures along Lake Pontchartrain. It predicted economic losses in the tens of billions of dollars, including damage to public utilities and industry that would take years to fully repair. Initial response and rescue operations would be hampered by disruption of telecommunications networks and the loss of power to fire, police and emergency workers, it said.

In a second document, also obtained by The Washington Post, a computer slide presentation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, prepared for a 9 a.m. meeting on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina made landfall, compared Katrina's likely impact to that of "Hurricane Pam," a fictional Category 3 storm used in a series of FEMA disaster-preparedness exercises simulating the effects of a major hurricane striking New Orleans. But Katrina, the report warned, could be worse.

The hurricane's Category 4 storm surge "could greatly overtop levees and protective systems" and destroy nearly 90 percent of city structures, the FEMA report said. It further predicted "incredible search and rescue needs (60,000-plus)" and the displacement of more than a million residents.

The NISAC analysis accurately predicted the collapse of floodwalls along New Orleans's Lake Pontchartrain shoreline, an event that the report described as "the greatest concern." The breach of two canal floodwalls near the lake was the key failure that left much of central New Orleans underwater and accounted for the bulk of Louisiana's 1,100 Katrina-related deaths.

The documents shed new light on the extent on the administration's foreknowledge about Katrina's potential for unleashing epic destruction on New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities and towns. President Bush, in a televised interview three days after Katrina hit, suggested that the scale of the flooding in New Orleans was unexpected. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm," Bush said in a Sept. 1 interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

President Bush was telling the truth. No one truly expected what happened during Katrina.

It is easy for a model to predict any number of scenarios, but seeing it occur is entirely different. Perhaps the White House should have taken the storm more seriously, but then what article reports is nothing new.

Engineers have been predicting the collapse of the levees under those same conditions for decades, but there is a difference between certainty, and the words in the report, "likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching".

What the report does tell us is why President Bush requested Governor Blanco declare a state of emergency as early as he did.

Everyone who was paying attention knew that Max Mayfield issued his dire warnings early on. If the NISAC report was delivered by e-mail at "1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, the day the storm hit," then it was already too late for the White House to respond.

Certainly the post Katrina reponse by all government officials concerned is up for due criticism, but to attempt, once more, to lay the fiasco entirely at the feet of the President, as this reporter is doing, is a bit beyond the belief.

Full Story: Still Trying to "Blame Bush"

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E.J. Dionne, Wrong and Loving It.

Rove's Early Warning

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Washington Post
Tuesday, January 24, 2006; Page A17

Perhaps it's an aspect of compassionate conservatism. Or maybe it's just a taunt and a dare. Well in advance of Election Day, Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, has a habit of laying out his party's main themes, talking points and strategies.

True Rove junkies (admirers and adversaries alike) always figure he's holding back on something and wonder what formula the mad scientist is cooking up in his political lab. But there is a beguiling openness about Rove's divisive and ideological approach to elections. You wonder why Democrats have never been able to take full advantage of their early look at the Rove game plan.

That's especially puzzling because, since Sept. 11, 2001, the plan has focused on one variation or another of the same theme: Republicans are tough on our enemies, Democrats are not. If you don't want to get blown up, vote Republican.

Thus Rove's speech to the Republican National Committee last Friday, which conveniently said nothing about that pesky leak investigation. Rove noted that we face "a ruthless enemy" and "need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in."

"President Bush and the Republican Party do," Rove informed us. "Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats."

Rove went on: "Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview, and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn't make them unpatriotic -- not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

Oh, no, those Dems aren't unpatriotic, just security idiots.

Here's why the same approach keeps working.

First, note that phrase, "the same cannot be said for many Democrats." This is Rove's wedge through the Democratic Party. Rove has always counted on Bush's capacity to intimidate some Democrats into breaking with their party and saying something like: "Oh, no, I'm not like those weak Democrats over there. I'm a tough Democrat." The Republicans use such Democrats to bash the rest of the party.

Moreover, these early Rove speeches turn Democratic strategists into defeatists. The typical Democratic consultant says: "Hey, national security is a Republican issue. We shouldn't engage on that. We should change the subject." In the 2002 elections, the surefire Democratic winners were a prescription drug benefit under Medicare (an issue Bush tried to steal), a patients' bill of rights, the economy and education. Those issues sure worked wonders, didn't they?

E.J., you still don't get it. The strategy works because it is the truth.

All you have to do is listen to the Democrat rhetoric of...oh, say the last five years to know it.

Compare what Bin Laden said in his most recent tape with the Democrat talking points. The two are virtually identical. The Democrats have been on the enemy's side virtually from the beginning of hostilities.

The "America is always wrong" message that Kerry, Murtha, Durbin, Kennedy, Pelosi, you and the rest have been putting out for years does not work.

Karl Rove doesn't fear letting you know the Republican strategy because you folks, in your arrogance and ignorance don't pay attention to what we say.

You Liberals are like the target of Carly Simon's song: You're So Vain, You probably think this election is about you.

Full Editorial: Dionne's Dementia

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Narcissistic Paranoia at the Post

I'm Feeling . . . Surveilled

By Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
Tuesday, January 24, 2006; Page A17

It's so easy, so seductive, such a reliable source of instant gratification. Just put your cursor inside that familiar unadorned rectangle, type a name or a few artfully considered words, click the search button -- I never click on "I'm Feeling Lucky" because luck has nothing to do with it; this is all about having mad skills, about Google mastery -- and within mere fractions of a second you can luxuriate in the illusion of perfect omniscience.

We Google because we think we must, but sometimes we Google simply because we can. When we're feeling especially cocky or especially insecure, we Google ourselves. When I do that, I get links to columns I've written, along with links to screeds that others have written about those columns. But I also get links to material about the pro football player who shares my name, and who once had the misfortune of being arrested for soliciting a prostitute, actually an undercover cop, the night before he was to play in the Super Bowl.

As if that weren't enough, now there's another intruder -- another writer, of all things, who has my name and is also African American. He seems to have worked mainly in magazines, not newspapers, and one link speaks of his "love of crime and mayhem" (only on the printed page, I presume) and his "belief in the transformative power of violence." Both these guys are younger than I am, and since I was here first, they really should be required to use a middle initial or something.

But I digress.

The point was omniscience, or apparent omniscience. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection. Google then uses its tens of thousands of servers to let you believe you know all there is to know about everything and everybody. In truth, of course, what you get from a Google search is an overload of information and pseudo-information. If you come across two versions of a fact -- the birth date of an aging world leader, say -- you can go with the one that gets the most hits, but you do so at your own peril. The mob can be dead wrong.

But if Google's search results aren't truly omniscient, it turns out that the company itself is potentially so. Google has the ability to track an individual's searches -- to record where your mind wanders when the boss isn't looking, what political commentators you read, what you're thinking about buying and what price you're willing to pay, even what kinds of fantasies you entertain late at night.

Google is able to know too much, and I guess it's no surprise that the Bush administration wants in on the action. The Justice Department's demand to see an entire week's worth of Google searches looks to me like an attempt by the administration to get its foot in the door, and if I'm right, it's even more of an Orwellian threat than the National Security Agency's snooping on phone calls and e-mails. The NSA snooping is illegal and unforgivable, to be sure, but the spooks want access to communications, and when we communicate with another human being we always censor ourselves to some degree. When we ask a question of Google, it's akin to being in the privacy of the confessional. We lay ourselves bare.

I am reminded of the old Buffalo Springfield song, For What It's Worth.

"Paranoia strikes deep,
Into your mind it will creep,
It starts when you're always afraid,
Step outta line, the man comes and takes you away..."

Man you Democrats are a pitiful lot. You have to lie and distort what's happening in order to score any points.

You live in fear and your purvey it to anyone unfortunate enough to listen to and believe your lies. Eugene, you're not right (you almost never are, but that's another editorial in itself).

First, the National Security Agency is not "snooping on phone calls and e-mails," as you would imply and have us believe they are, theat is unless you are in overseas contact with members of Al Qaeda.

Second, what the NSA is doing is neither illegal nor unforgivable, "to be sure."

No one, except for a few really naive reporters apparently, has any real expectation of privacy on the internet, never have and never will. That was settled sometime ago when it was determined that our employees did have the right to access what we are e-mailing and what we are "Googling" on their computers. It has been clear from the outset that all activities on the internet leave a trail that, with due diligence by police, or anyone else with the skill, can follow.

Time to beat a new drum Eugene, the Orwellian threat-which is actually a Leftist threat, not a conservative threat-has worn thin.

Full Editorial: Post-Lies from Eugene

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An Interesting Response Form Former Enron Employees

THE ENRON TRIAL
Former employees render a less-than-unanimous verdict
As trial nears, conflicted, varied views of Skilling and Lay emerge

By LYNN J. COOK and PURVA PATEL
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Long before Garrett Ashmore ever went to work for Enron, he knew Ken Lay as the kindhearted CEO who gave a scholarship check for several thousand dollars to him as a teenager, changing his young life and setting in motion a career course that would bring him into the fold of the once high-flying company.

That's why Ashmore, who glorified and glamorized Enron and its head honchos for so long, is so torn as the trial of former Chairman Lay and former CEO Jeff Skilling on fraud, conspiracy and other charges draws near.

Four years after the corporate implosion that wiped out the 401(k)s of Ashmore and thousands of other former Enron employees, the government takes its case to a jury starting Jan. 30.

Ashmore embodies the colliding and conflicting feelings about the company's downfall that some former Enron workers still grapple with. His emotions swing from vitriol and outrage to a latent hope that Lay may be able to prove his innocence.

"Disappointing does not do justice to how I feel," he said. "It's like your rich hero you've looked up to all these years ... the guy who changed your life and probably didn't even realize it ... could be responsible for taking away everything you ever had, too. It's been tough."

Some former employees harbor more sympathy for Lay, who was widely regarded as a fatherly figure in Enron's halcyon days, than for Skilling, the whip-smart and hard-charging Harvard MBA.

Tracey Michel spent six years in Enron's information-technology department and has always seen Lay as undeserving of the charges the federal government brought against him, though she adds that "might be naive."

"But if they do find them guilty, I hope they serve time," she said of both men.

One would think that these people would be much less charitable toward their former employers. Perhaps Ken Lay was just a dupe, but as it says in the full article, they don't make morons CEO's of Corporations, it just doesn't happen. These guys allowed themselves to stray way outside the bounds of acceptable conduct, and thousands of people suffered because of it. Members of my own family lost a limited but not insubstantial sum of money in their investment in Enron, though nothing like some of their former employees lost. It is surprising that some of those who lost their entire 401k by the mismanagement and deception by these characters are sympathetic to Lay and Skilling, or maybe not. We Americans have a hard time believing the worst about those we have come to have high regard for. Anyway, I am rooting for real justice to be done. I believe that if they're convicted, all of their assets should be seized, sold, and the receipt placed in a fund for the former employees or for all of those who lost money by investing in the corporation. It would be a small measure of justice.

Full Story: Judging Lay and Skilling

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Creating Doubt Where There Should Be None

As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security
In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System

By Zachary Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 22, 2006; Page A06

As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.

Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.

Sancho's most recent demonstration was last month. Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, manipulated the "memory card" that records the votes of ballots run through an optical scanning machine.

Then, in a warehouse a few blocks from his office in downtown Tallahassee, Sancho and seven other people held a referendum. The question on the ballot:

"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"

Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.

"Was it possible for a disgruntled employee to do this and not have the elections administrator find out?" Sancho asked. "The answer was yes."

Diebold and some officials have criticized Sancho's experiments and said his conclusions about the vulnerability of electronic voting systems are unfounded.

What Sancho did "is analogous to if I gave you the keys to my house and told you when I was gone," said David Bear, a Diebold spokesman. As Bear sees it, Sancho's experiment involved giving hackers "complete unfettered access" to the equipment, something a responsible elections administrator would never allow.

I agree with David Bear's assessment, about Sancho's tests, but with a paper trail there would be no doubt. I am not so paranoid as to believe the Democrat paranoiacs regarding the last election, but I do agree that if it can be easily accomplished, we need to retrofit the new machines to leave a "paper trail" so that votes could be confirmed by the voter. Even paranoid Liberals should feel comfortable about their votes being counted.


Full Story: Some Voter Concerns are Legitimate

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Another American Icon Falls to Poor Management

A Hard Kick From John Wayne's Gun

By STACEY STOWE
Published: January 21, 2006
Come spring, the Winchester rifle, immortalized as the gun that won the West and rode into the sunset with John Wayne, will be made in Portugal and Japan.

Workers were told of the decision to close the plant this month after executives learned in December that projected sales for 2006 were expected to decline by one-third.

Paul DeMennato, a company spokesman, did not provide production and sales numbers, but the New Haven mayor's office released a statement saying that only 80,000 guns had been produced at the plant last year. The factory is capable of producing 300,000 a year.

"It's just not profitable to continue to manufacture that small quantity of firearms," said Mr. DeMennato, whose father assembled Winchester guns in the 1940's, when the plant had 19,000 employees and maintained its own hospital and police department. "I still have my dad's guns. These products don't have a built-in obsolescence."

The Winchester repeating rifle became the gun of choice for Western settlers after it was introduced in 1866, Mr. DeMennato said. The lever-action breech mechanism allowed the user to fire a number of shots before having to reload. It became so ubiquitous, the gun assumed a stock role in Hollywood westerns and became a kind of sidekick for the actor John Wayne.

"Instead of saying, 'Get me my gun,' he'd say, 'Get me my Winchester,' " Mr. DeMennato said.

A 10-foot-high bronze statute of Wayne, eyes narrowed in concentration and left hand clutching a Winchester, stands in the lobby of the New Haven plant. On the wall behind it are the mounted heads of a stag and wild boar and a turkey in its entirety.

"I used to come down and polish John Wayne because I was proud he was here and proud to be here," said Dave Roy, 48, an electrician at the plant for 22 years. "Not anymore."

The Belgian-based Herstal Group owns the company, but the Winchester name is owned by the Olin Corporation, which makes Winchester ammunition. Certain models made in New Haven will be discontinued when the plant closes, but other Winchester guns will continue to be made in Japan and Portugal, Mr. DeMennato said.

Echoing several other employees who streamed out the doors after 3 p.m. on Wednesday, at the end of their shifts, Mr. Roy tied declining sales to a diminished product. He said in recent years, company executives worried more about saving money than making a good product, and the guns suffered for it.

But Scott Hoffman, who owns Hoffman's Gun Center in Newington, Conn., said that sales of the guns were lackluster because of the Winchester company's poor marketing strategy.

It's a real sad time when American Companies fall victim to bad European management. As a former employee of Shell Chemical Company, I have witnessed the incompetency of European management first hand. Now don't get me wrong, in many cases, that management steps in because of incompetence in the American led management. Such was the case with Shell. The Dutch moved in because the American management was performing so poorly, but the corporation deteriorated even more after they stepped in. To see the demise of Winchester saddens me greatly. There is one thing to remember, when American companies like Winchester are bought by foreign companies like Herstal, owners of Fabrique National of France, there is no allegiance to the iconic status of the company's name or traditions. Winchester may be inextricably linked to our West and our period of "Westward Expansion," but to a European company like Herstal, it is only a source of income. Were I a Liberal, I would be protesting the sale of an American iconic company to a foreign nation, but of course as it is an arms manufacturer, Liberals would never rally to their defense. As a conservative, who believes in a free market, I can only shake my head in sorrow at the loss. It is not the first, and it will not be the last. Such is the march of technology and progress. Perhaps this would not be occurring if Liberals weren't so violently afraid of guns that they wanted them eliminated.

Full Story: John Wayne Must Be Spinning in His Grave

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Wa-Post Ombudsman Discovers Truth About Liberals

Paper Shutters Blog After Ombudsman Post

Jan 19 7:28 PM US/Eastern
WASHINGTON

The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper's ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans.

At the center of a congressional bribery investigation, Abramoff gave money to Republicans while he had his clients donate to both parties, though mostly to Republicans.

In her Sunday column, ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties," prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog.

There were so many personal attacks that the newspaper's staff could not "keep the board clean, there was some pretty filthy stuff," and so the Post shut down comments on the blog, or Web log, said Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com.

"We're not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it," Brady wrote on the newspaper's Web site. "There are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech.

This is too funny. If this is the first time the Washington Post's ombudsman has been exposed to this kind of hate attack, then she is seriously naive about her newspaper's primary targeted audience. Liberals Hate. A brief visit to dailyKos.com or DemocraticUnderground.com will reveal this simple fact. The vitriole and obscene language that so offended MS. Howell is routinely used by the denizens of those pages and directed at those who disagree with them. A visit to similar conservative pages would reveal no parallel behavior. Conservatives may lash out on occasion, but the language used is usually tempered by our religious beliefs. Michelle Malkin has experienced this kind of hate and had Ms. Howell bothered to even read the jacket of Michelle's book, she would have expected this behavior. You will find the same lack of ethics if you spend anytime watching C-Span's callin programs. It is quite common to hear a Liberal Democrat call in posing as a Republican or Bush supporter, only to launch into an attack on the Republicans and President Bush. The converse very rarely happens. Liberals just can't control themselves, their hatred is just too great.

For the Post's ombudsman not to know this speaks volumes.

Original Post: Post Surprised by Liberal's Language

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Reid Forced to Apologize for Ethical Violation in Making Ethics Charges

Reid Apologizes for News Release on GOP
Document 'Went Too Far,' Democrat Says

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 20, 2006; Page A04

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) apologized to 33 Republican senators yesterday for a hard-hitting news release that accused them of ethical and legislative lapses, in an awkward about-face that tripped up Democrats' effort to keep the GOP majority on the defensive over alleged corruption.

"I am writing to apologize for the tone of this document and the decision to single out individual senators for criticism in it," Reid said of the 27-page statement sent by his communications office Tuesday. The release, titled, "Republicans cannot be trusted to end the culture of corruption," triggered sharp complaints from GOP officials, who said it violated Senate decorum and brought campaign-style mudslinging into the Capitol.

Reid, who headed a Democratic Party event Wednesday at the Library of Congress calling for clean government, basically agreed. The document, he wrote, "went too far, and I want to convey to you my personal regrets. . . . No one cares more about the Senate and its tradition of collegiality than I do."

Spokesman Jim Manley said Reid did not see the document before it was e-mailed to hundreds of journalists and others, but Reid did not say that in his one-page letter. The document began by stating, "Reid released the following report and statement on Republicans' abuse of power: 'The idea of Republicans reforming themselves is like asking John Gotti to clean up organized crime.' "

As partisan attacks go, the statement was hardly the most scathing seen on Capitol Hill lately. A freshman GOP House member nearly incited a brawl last year when she suggested, in a floor speech, that a Democratic veteran of the Marine Corps and the Vietnam War was a "coward." In July 2003, a Republican committee chairman in the House tried to get the Capitol Police to evict lounging Democratic lawmakers from a meeting room, then tearfully apologized to the full House. As in those earlier episodes, Reid's charges caused more discomfort for the accuser than the accused.

The document was largely devoted to linking GOP senators to indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff through campaign donations or legislative activities. But some senators with no ties to Abramoff were attacked for allegedly being "out of touch" after years of Republican control of Congress. Some purported offenses, most of them culled from newspaper articles, are years old.

For example, the document reached back into GOP Sen. George Allen's days as Virginia governor to note that he once "kept a noose and a confederate flag in his office and home" (a controversy dating from the 1993 campaign) and in 1994 called the federal government a "beast of tyranny and oppression." It said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2000 included a proposed Mississippi River flood-control levee on his list of congressional "pork."

The document accused Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) of saying "global warming is a conspiracy and a hoax." After noting that Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) had received many thousands of dollars from Abramoff clients, the document raised other complaints, including: "Burns reportedly told a female flight attendant that she could just stay home with her kids if her job was outsourced."

The document quoted a Web site devoted to news about Native Americans as saying "the chief of the Wyandotte Nation criticized Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) for taking 'dirty money' from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff." It also reached to the mid-1990s to tie Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) -- who was governor at the time -- to a more recently exposed state government scandal involving investment of public funds in rare coins. "Voinovich Administration approved Ohio's $25 million investment in Tom Noe's coin scheme," the document states.

The document drew modest attention when first released, in part because the Senate has no scheduled votes this week and few Republican lawmakers are in Washington. But as word of the press release spread in GOP circles, several senatorial aides -- including Majority Leader Bill Frist's chief of staff, Eric Ueland -- complained to Reid or his staff.

"It is beyond ironic that in an attempt to smear the ethics of others, the Democrat 'war room' chose to use taxpayer-funded staff and equipment to compile a blatantly political attack on Republican senators," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), one of the 33 named in the document. "Researching, compiling and distributing what amounts to nothing more than a campaign ad on the taxpayer's dime raises serious ethical questions."

Nothing will destroy the Democrats like letting them speak their minds. No matter how hard they try to conceal their hateful nature, if you give them enough room, they will eventually demonstrate their true feelings and intent. Reid would never have apologized for this breach of Senate Rules of Decorum had Republicans not called attention to the ethical questions raised by their using Senate staff and equipment to produce the scurrilous document. Republicans need to give the Democrats as much room as is feasible to destroy themselves, something as inevitable as the sun rising. Just as a leopard cannot change his spots, Liberals cannot hide their true nature.

Full Story: Senate Democrats Overstep Bounds of Propriety

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George Clooney Demostrates Typical Liberal "Class"

Abramoff's dad bashes George Clooney's 'glib and ridiculous attack' in Golden Globes speech

Erica Solvig
The Desert Sun
January 19, 2006

The Rancho Mirage father of controversial Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff is responding to actor George Clooney for what he’s describing as a “glib and ridiculous attack” on his son.

Frank Abramoff, in a letter addressed to Clooney and sent to The Desert Sun this morning, said he was watching the Golden Globes Monday night when Clooney, during his acceptance speech for best supporting actor, thanked Jack Abramoff “just because” and made a comment about the lobbyist’s name.

“Who would name their kid Jack with the last words ‘off’ at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up,” Clooney said during the internationally televised awards show.

In the letter, Frank Abramoff furiously defends the name, saying his son is named after Frank’s father. In the two-page letter, he calls Clooney’s acts a “lapse in lucidity” and an “obscene query.”

In a telephone interview with The Desert Sun this morning, Frank Abramoff said Clooney was “an idiot” and described the actions as “pure, unadulterated stupidity.”

“You want to make fun. You can do that, but you don't make fun of someone else's hardships and misery,” the 78-year-old Abramoff said. “We’ve gone through quite a bit in our family. But the political end of it and the media end of it and all the other areas are one thing. When you see something like that on a show for 500 million people, it was not only a slap in my son’s face but in my father’s.”

Clooney’s representative in Los Angeles declined comment, saying he had not seen Abramoff’s letter yet.

Jack Abramoff’s spokesman, Andrew Blum, also declined to comment.

In the letter, Frank Abramoff says he “wonders how your father would respond, were the roles reversed.”

Clooney’s dad, Nick, is an Augusta, Ky., resident who ran unsuccessfully for Congress and now writes a column for the Cincinnati Post.

In a phone interview with The Desert Sun today, Clooney said he wasn’t surprised by his son’s “off hand and flippant” remarks, but did relate with Frank Abramoff’s concerns.

“I understand what it is like to have one's son criticized in a very public way,” Clooney said. “It's very painful and it's very difficult.

“The difference here, and it must be said, is Mr. Abramoff's son, instead of pursing some positive efforts to do what he hoped would change the climate of the American politics has confessed and has been convicted by that confession of subverting the political process,” Clooney said.

“It’s not Mr Abramoff senior’s fault that he turned out to be who he is any more than it is to my credit that my son turned out to be what he turned out to be.”

Sorry Frank, your heartfelt and just criticism will fall on deaf ears. Liberals don't care. George Clooney will not miss one minute of sleep knowing that he hurt you, your 12 year-old granddaughter or anyone else in your family. You have to understand that Liberals HATE. Simply look at Nick Clooney's response. His son who has repeatedly spoken treasonously against the United States during this Iraq warand who vomited forth this insulting, hatefull dross, is a source of pride for him. Liberals just don't care about who they hurt. They live in the absolute delusion and certitude of their rectitude. They are "right" in their minds, so anything they say or do is justified. It would not surprise me if Clooney's genuine reaction to your letter is laughter, it is the Liberal way. I feel for you and your family and the painful experience through which you are going, but I suspect the Hollywood elitist don't and never will.

Original Post: Classless Clooneys

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Washington Post: Busted Again for Biased Reporting

Pakistanis Say Airstrike Killed Al Qaeda Figures

By Kamran Khan and Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 19, 2006; Page A16

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 19 -- A senior al Qaeda operative and a son-in-law of the group's deputy leader, Ayman Zawahiri, were among those killed in a U.S. airstrike in an area along the Afghan border last week, Pakistani sources said Thursday.

"Our intelligence agencies have received new information that has confirmed the death of several senior al Qaeda operatives in Bajur Friday morning," a Pakistani federal minister said on condition of anonymity. "We'll soon go on the record with an official statement, but some confirmations are awaited."

A senior Pakistani intelligence official who also spoke on condition of anonymity said Pakistan had received convincing reports Wednesday confirming that at least three al Qaeda operatives were killed, including Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, who uses the alias Abu Khabab al-Masri. The United States has posted a $5 million bounty for the reputed training camp leader and expert in explosives and poisons.

The intelligence official also said Abdul Rahman Maghribi, the son-in-law of Zawahiri, was killed. Maghribi was believed to have been al Qaeda's chief of propaganda for the region. A key operative in Afghanistan's Konar province, Abu Ubayida Misri, also died, the official said.

U.S. military sources declined to comment on the identities of the victims of Friday's attack, which was carried out by the CIA using a Predator drone and killed at least 13 people, including women and children.

If the Post and its reporters had any integrity and any self-respect they would apologize for their effort to smear the White House in their report of the 15th. You will notice, however the complete absence of any mention or even oblique reference to their previous article. It's as if they expect us to simply forget their pitiful, slanted, report. The Post is suffering from a declining readership, and this kind of ethical failure is directly responsible to a large part of that decline. I guess they expect congratulations for even reporting this new information. Even in reporting a direct contradiction to their report of the 15th, they can't help closing with a parting shot.

Original Post: More Post Cover-up

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1st Circuit Court Suppresses Barrett Report

Tony Snow this morning has news! In a midnight move more reminiscent of a bad "B" movie than of our Federal Government, on the eve of the release of the Barrett Report (an investigation into the activities of Henry Cisneros during the Clinton administration), the special division of the First Circuit Court of Appeals called former Independent Counselor David Barrett last night and ordered him to stop the release of his decade-long investigation. The 400 + page report has had as much as 40% of it redacted by the court.

It is unprecedented for such a report to be so redacted except when there are national security concerns; not the case in this instance. The redacted material is part of the investigation of the IRS and their abuse of their investigating powers under the Clinton Administration.

What are they trying to hide? What is it that is in the report that is so destructive that the Democrat's are fighting so hard to repress it? Who are these career bureaucrats that the courts are protecting? What is this cover-up about? What did the Clinton Administration do to generate such fear?

Yesterday the Democrats made a great show of calling for ethics in government. Okay Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid it's time to prove your bona fides, release the report. Apparently any congressman can access and release the report without fear of repercussion, so...do it. There are 535 members of Congress, surely one of them has the intestinal fortitude to step up to the plate and do what is right.

Congress...America is waiting...

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Hillary's Hubris: Criticizing the "White House"

Hillary Clinton calls for U.N. sanctions against Iran

By GEOFF MULVIHILL
The Associated Press
1/18/2006, 9:58 p.m. ET

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton called for United Nations sanctions against Iran as it resumes its nuclear program and faulted the Bush administration for "downplaying" the threat.

In an address Wednesday evening at Princeton University, Clinton, D-N.Y., said it was a mistake for the United States to have Britain, France and Germany head up nuclear talks with Iran over the past 2 1/2 years. Last week, Iran resumed nuclear research in a move Tehran claims is for energy, not weapons.

"I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and chose to outsource the negotiations," Clinton said.

While Clinton was critical of the administration, she never mentioned the president by name and did not engage in the same sort of sharp rhetorical attack against him or other Republicans as she did earlier this week.

Speaking Monday at a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial event in Harlem, Clinton said that the House of Representatives "has been run like a plantation" and called the Bush administration "one of the worst that has ever governed our country." The senator's remarks spurred heated reaction from Republicans.

Clinton addressed several hotspots in the Middle East in her wide-ranging speech to some 800 Princeton students, staff and alumni gathered to inaugurate a new professorship, the S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in Middle East Policy Studies, at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Hillary still trying to walk the fine line between being the Extremist Liberal she truly is and the moderate Democrat she wishes to portray to the public in her bid to be..I can hardly write it without getting violently ill...President. In this case she is careful not to name the President specifically, but hides her criticism behind the broad generality "the White House." Such hubris. Had the Bush administration done exactly what she is now calling for, she would be criticizing them for not allowing the Europeans, with their closer ties to Iran, to take the lead in talks. Democrats are fond of offering Catch-22 choices to their Republican opponents. No matter what course the President chose, Hillary would criticize him.

Full Story: Sage Hillary's Foreign Policy Advice

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More Words of Wisdom from AARP's Man of the Year

Harry Belafonte Speaks at Duke
Belafonte talks about Martin Luther King's life and legacy

Duke News & Communications
By Sally Hicks
Monday, January 16, 2006

Durham, N.C. -- Entertainer and human-rights activist Harry Belafonte spoke for an hour and a half at Duke Chapel Sunday, telling anecdotes about his friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., recounting his rise from poverty to worldwide success as a singer and urging the crowd to pursue King’s dream by helping those in prison, victims of Hurricane Katrina and others in need.

Belafonte was the keynote speaker in Duke’s three-day celebration of the King holiday, which continues today (Monday) with a series of "Freedom School" discussions on contemporary social issues and a staged reading of the play "Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark," written by Duke literature professor Ariel Dorfman. It began Friday with a talk by film director Charles Stone III.

Belafonte also addressed the recent controversy over his recent trip to Venezuela, during which he criticized President Bush.

"I go where things are happening and see for myself," he said. "Such an experience recently has unfolded a new set of problems."

He said he went to Venezuela after President Hugo Chavez’s offer of help after Hurricane Katrina was rebuffed by the Bush administration.

"Our people called out in their pain and suffering and fear and our government did not respond," Belafonte said. "When the Venezuelan government stepped into this hollow moment...our president arrogantly dismissed it."

He was harsh in his criticism of President Bush, saying, "Killing is our easiest tool. When you look at the president who has led us into a dishonorable war that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, many our own sons and daughters, I ask myself what Dr. King would have asked...

"It is an act that has driven fear and terror into the hearts of the American people. What is the essential difference in quality of our humanity for those who would do the cruel and tragic deed of flying an airplane into a building and killing 3,000 innocent Americans and those who would lie and lead the nation into a war that has killed hundreds of thousands?[My emphasis]

"Excuse me, fellow citizens, if the line for me becomes a little blurred."

Belafonte’s speech was punctuated by applause and the occasional "Hallelujah!" as he told stories from his own life and also urged the crowd to action.

Belafonte was the son of a Jamaican immigrant to New York, and he said his mother quickly encountered limits to her success in America. After enlisting in the Navy, he returned to find that service in the fight against Hitler had not altered his status as a black man in America. After that, he said, "I read everything, I listened to everyone and gleaned from everyone anything that I could apply. At this moment...Martin Luther King walked into my life."

After finding success as a singer -- his "Calypso" album was the first to sell a million copies -- King sought out Belafonte’s support.

Belafonte said they met for what was supposed to be a 40-minute conversation and ending up talking for five hours in a church basement. King was 24 and Belafonte was 26.

"I came away knowing the course of my life had been set. I knew whom I was to serve," he said. "I understood his humanity. We shared the journey, up to and including the day of his death."

Belafonte -- whom King once described as a "tactical weapon" in the fight for Civil Rights -- said his fame also carried a responsibility. "If we are given that gift, the question is, what do we do with it. I had role models and mentors that fulfilled that question of what I should do with my life."

By all means, you conservative retired folks continue to support AARP. This is what their politics truly is. This is the voice of "AARP's Man of the Year."

I strongly recommend that any Conservatives join ASA (the American Seniors Association). They present the Conservative alternative to AARP's socialist agenda. Dues are $15.00/year with multi-year discounts. They don't offer all of the benefits yet, but they are striving to grow and broaden their offerings. [Pardon the advertisement, but I am a strong believer in this.]

For an allegedly pro-American organization to choose a strident, highly vocal, anti-American as their man of the year belies their claims of non-partisanship. AARP has never been a friend of the retired conservative. Their agend is one of hardline socialism. They are anti-Bush, anti-business, anti-freedom, and anti-American. It is time for a solid shift in retired people's allegiance to an organization which stands for the same beliefs our forefathers fought for. AARP's socialist agenda is the dead opposite of those aims.

Full Story: Belafonte Equates Our Troops with 9/11 Terrorists

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New York Times Defends Clinton Corruption

Inquiry on Clinton Official Ends With Accusations of Cover-Up

New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON and NEIL A. LEWIS
January 19, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 - After the longest independent counsel investigation in history, the prosecutor in the case of former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros is finally closing his operation with a scathing report accusing Clinton administration officials of thwarting an inquiry into whether Mr. Cisneros evaded paying income taxes.

The legal inquiry by the prosecutor, David M. Barrett, lasted more than a decade, consumed some $21 million and came to be a symbol of the flawed effort to prosecute high-level corruption through the use of independent prosecutors.

Mr. Barrett began his investigation with the narrower issue of whether Mr. Cisneros lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he was being considered for the cabinet position. He ended his inquiry accusing the Clinton administration of a possible cover-up.

His report says Justice Department officials refused to grant him the broad jurisdiction he wanted; for example, Attorney General Janet Reno said he could look at only one tax year. And after Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington took a Cisneros investigation out of the hands of district-level officials in Texas, the agency deemed the evidence too weak to merit a criminal inquiry, a conclusion strongly disputed by one Texas investigator.

Former officials of the Justice Department and the I.R.S. dismissed Mr. Barrett's conclusions in appendices attached to the report, saying the findings were the product of an inquiry that was incompetently managed from the start.

After being indicted on 18 felony counts, Mr. Cisneros pleaded guilty in 1999 to a misdemeanor charge of lying to investigators. He was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Barrett kept his office open more than six years after the law that created the independent counsel system was allowed to die. Lawmakers in both parties had wearied of the many inquiries that had failed to achieve the goal of removing political influence from criminal investigations of administration officials.

Some Republicans long contended that efforts to close down Mr. Barrett's operation were motivated by an effort to suppress information about the Cisneros investigation that could reflect badly on Mr. Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But to Democrats and other critics of independent counsels, Mr. Barrett's inquiry has stood as a prime example what went wrong with an important post-Watergate law. That legislation allowed prosecutors, outside the Justice Department's traditional criminal justice bureaucracy, and armed with virtually unlimited time and money, to pursue their subjects into areas few federal prosecutors were likely to venture.

No surprise here, the New York Times is doing its very best to take the Clinton side of this report. The Clinton administration was the most corrupt in living memory. Political abuse of government agencies was rampant. From the collecting of Clinton's opponent's FBI files by White House Security Officer John Livingstone to the abuse of the IRS in sending them to investigate the Clinton's politcal enemies; from the selling of pardons, to the theft of White House property when the Clintons moved out, the white trash White House carried corruption to new levels, and with a hubris unparalleled in recent history. This Barret Report is just a small sampling of what occurred.

Full Story: Clintons' White Trash White House

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Well, Al Gore Does Know More About Breaking The Law Than Most

White House Disputes Gore on NSA Spying
2 Groups File Suit to Close Program

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Page A06

The White House fired back at critics of President Bush in unusually tough terms yesterday as a pair of civil liberties organizations went to court in an effort to shut down the administration's domestic spying program as unconstitutional.

On a day that evoked the presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004 -- and perhaps that of 2008 -- Bush's chief spokesman lashed out at former vice president Al Gore for "hypocrisy" and at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for "out of bounds" criticism. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) joined the fray by accusing Bush of breaking the law.

The barrage was the latest episode in the uproar sparked by last month's disclosure that Bush authorized warrantless surveillance of telephone calls and e-mail between Americans and people overseas suspected of links to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. Bush has defended the program as a vital tool in a fast-moving battle against elusive enemies, and he has cited the inherent powers of the presidency in circumventing a long-established secret court that issues warrants in intelligence cases.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed separate lawsuits yesterday asserting that Bush exceeded his authority and violated Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures by ordering the National Security Agency's surveillance.

"The current surveillance of Americans is a chilling assertion of presidential power that has not been seen since the days of Richard Nixon," said Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU's executive director.

The ACLU suit named eight other individuals and groups as fellow plaintiffs, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations; Greenpeace; the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; writers James Bamford, Christopher Hitchens and Tara McKelvey; and scholars Larry Diamond of Stanford University's Hoover Institution and Barnett R. Rubin of New York University. The ACLU said that because of their work, the plaintiffs "have a well-founded belief that their communications are being intercepted by the NSA" but offered no evidence.

On Monday, Gore accused Bush of "breaking the law repeatedly and insistently," and called for a special investigation. Gore, who lost the presidency to Bush in 2000, was seconded yesterday by Kerry, who lost in 2004. "It is a clear violation of law," Kerry said on CNN.

Gee, three "Bastions of American Values" have spoken out against the President, pardon me while I yawn. You've got to be kidding, the ACLU? The most anti-American anti-freedom organization in the United States is speaking out? Duh, if it's Republican, then they're against it. Their record speaks for itself. As to Algore, as I said yesterday, Al knows corruption. Just ask the Chinese. Kerry-Heinz? Irrelevant, partisan nobody, Presidential wannabe. The fact remains that the President has the inherent power to do as he has done. No amount of hyperventilating and hyperbolizing is going to change that fact. If indeed the Supreme Court actually rules against the administration, no law was broken, and their can be no impeachment. It is an unadjudicated and disputed point of law. You Liberals just need to get over it. You lost, and you continue to lose because you are in the wrong.

Full Story: White House Takes the Offensive

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Arianna Huffington: The Harpy Shrieks

The President Needs to Denounce the Swift-Boating of Murtha... Now!

Arriana Huffington
The Huffinton Post

Last week, President Bush said that he would welcome "an honest debate about Iraq"-as long as "the tone of this debate is respectful."

Oh, really? Then he should start by denouncing the despicable smear campaign being launched against Jack Murtha.

The attacks, calling into question the military record of a decorated 37-year war veteran, and launched on the eve of Murtha's powerful appearance on "60 Minutes", are a vile, noxious, and blatantly obvious attempt to keep the press and the public from engaging in that "honest debate about Iraq."

They are the lowest form of character assassination -- cranked out by the GOP attack machine with ruthless efficiency (and almost comical predictability). A belly flop into the Beltway sewer that degrades a political culture already so befouled it might seem beyond further degradation. But then we get this effluvium -- and the stench hanging over our democracy becomes unbearable.

Bush must make it clear, immediately and in no uncertain terms, that, as a country, we need zero tolerance for this contemptible attempt to shove the reputation of a man who put his life on the line for his country into the media wood chipper. If Mrs. Alito cried over some of the questions asked of her husband, what should Mrs. Murtha do, slit her wrists?

Denouncing the swift-boating of Murtha would have the additional benefit of being something of a "do over" for the president -- a second bite at the Swift Boat apple. Another chance to finally do the right thing.

During the 2004 campaign, Bush was repeatedly asked if he would denounce the charges being leveled against John Kerry's war record by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But he refused, dancing around the issue by calling on Kerry to join him in condemning all ads paid for by 527 groups.

Poor Arianna, her Harpy-like shriek of outrage is illustrative of her and other Liberal's muddled thinking. To them telling the truth is a "smear attack." If Cybercast News Service is incorrect, and Jack Murtha's wounds were severe enough to warrant two Purple Hearts, then I will apologize to her on these pages, but the evidence they present is pretty compelling. We know for a fact that the Swiftboat Veterans were justified in their criticism in spite of the MSM's efforts to delegitimize their claims. The real point is that the Democrats continue to put people forward loudly proclaiming the "bona fides" by announcing their receiving Purple Hearts. One has to be careful of their claims. If you are going to make unwarranted claims, you need to make sure that all the witnesses are going to support your claim.

Smearing is what Ted "The Killer" Kennedy did in the Alito hearings by reading scurrilous passages from the publication of an organization with which Judge Alito was peripherally associated, implying that he would support those statements. Smearing is making false accusations to besmirch a person's reputation. Smearing is not telling the truth or shining light on a false claim.

Full Post: The Harpy of the Left Blogs

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"Conservatives" Weaving a Sticky Web in Opposing Assisted Suicide

Justices Uphold Oregon Assisted-Suicide Law
In a Blow to Administration, Ruling Paves Way for Other States to Follow Suit

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Page A01

The Supreme Court upheld Oregon's law on physician-assisted suicide yesterday, ruling that the Justice Department may not punish doctors who help terminally ill patients end their lives.

By a vote of 6 to 3, the court ruled that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft exceeded his legal authority in 2001 when he threatened to prohibit doctors from prescribing federally controlled drugs if they authorized lethal doses of the medications under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act.

The ruling struck down one of the administration's signature policies regarding what President Bush calls the "culture of life" and lifts the last legal cloud over the state's law, which is unique in the nation. It also frees other states to follow in Oregon's footsteps, unless Congress acts to the contrary.

It is unclear how many states would join Oregon; assisted-suicide initiatives have not fared well in recent years. Still, coming a year after efforts by Republicans in Congress to block the removal of a feeding tube from Terri Schiavo, and after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. faced questions from the Senate about their views on end-of-life issues, the court's decision could energize the political debate. Roberts dissented from the ruling, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Conservatives reacted angrily to the ruling. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a nonprofit litigation group founded by Pat Robertson, called it "a disturbing and dangerous decision that can only lessen the value of protecting human life."

But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called it "a significant victory for Oregon's voters," who twice approved the Death With Dignity Act in statewide referendums. Looking ahead to possible Republican efforts to change federal law, Wyden said, "I will fight tooth and nail any congressional attempts to overturn this court ruling."

Consistency should be a basic tenet of the Conservatives political agenda. You cannot claim to advocate personal freedom and then turn around and impose your personal moral limitations. You cannot advocate personal responsibility and take away the individual's choices. I am a very strong advocate of the right to life, believing that individual rights begin with life not birth. I am also a very strong advocate of individual freedom. I, unlike many Conservatives do find a "right to privacy" among the unenumerated rights in the Constitution. I believe that it is one of the most basic rights. That being so, then I find it inconsistent of other Conservatives to place arbitrary restrictions on the rights and actions of individuals when there is no injury to others.

We Conservatives begin to walk a dubious course when we decry big-brother government on one hand and then advocate government intervention on the other. You cannot be both for and against the same thing based solely on your personal preferences.

Full Story: Conservatives Must Remain Politically Consistent

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Hastert: Talking the Talk but not Walking the Walk

Loophole in Lobbying Bill Leaves Wiggle Room

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Page A04

Lawmakers are about to bombard the American public with proposals that would crack down on lobbyists. Several prominent plans, including one outlined yesterday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would specifically ban meals and privately paid travel for lawmakers.

Or would they?

According to lobbyists and ethics experts, even if Hastert's proposal is enacted, members of Congress and their staffs could still travel the world on an interest group's expense and eat steak on a lobbyist's account at the priciest restaurants in Washington.

The only requirement would be that whenever a lobbyist pays the bill, he or she must also hand the lawmaker a campaign contribution. Then the transaction would be perfectly okay.

"That's a big hole if they don't address campaign finance," said Joel Jankowsky, the lobbying chief of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of the capital's largest lobbying outfits.

The plans offered by Republican leaders yesterday would change two of the three areas of law or regulation that govern lobbyists' behavior: the congressional rules that limit gifts to lawmakers and the laws that dictate the amount of disclosure that lobbyists must give the public.

A third major area -- campaign finance laws -- would go untouched, an omission that amounts to a gaping loophole in efforts to distance lobbyists from the people they are paid to influence.

Anything that members of Congress can now do in the pursuit of money for their reelections will still be permitted in the future -- including accepting lobbyist-paid travel and in-town meals -- unless campaign finance laws are altered.

"Political contributions are specifically exempted from the definition of what a gift is in House and Senate gift rules," said Kenneth A. Gross, an ethics lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. "So, unless the campaign finance laws are changed, if a lobbyist wants to sponsor an event at the MCI arena or on the slopes of Colorado, as long as it's a fundraiser it would still be fine."

The result, he added, "may well be more out-of-town fundraising events than there are at the moment."

Paul A. Miller, president of the American League of Lobbyists, said of the loophole: "You may see a shift from what we're able to do now to the political fundraiser side where it is legal."

Republicans need to get serious about this reform business. If they fail to get meaningful reform, they are going to lose control of Congress, and deservedly so. If Republicans cannot control their avarice and ambition to be re-elected, they are going to get hammered in the next election. The American people are not stupid. They can tell the difference between superficial and substantive change and they will react very strongly if the Republicans do not achieve real, substantive, and permanent changes in the way in which lobbying and fund raising occurs. Full disclosure of all monies expended and contributed in real-time is the best form of reform. It is the old political adage, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." All money expended in lobbying and campaigning should be disclosed, all of the money and contributors to the "527" organizations must be revealed. That means all of the contributions to MoveOn.org, Swiftboat Veterans, People for the American Way, ACLU, and all advocacy groups; all parties who run issue or candidate advocacy advertisements must have their entire financial information available on line for all citizens to easily access. Any restriction on the amount of money that can be contributed/used is bound to fail. People will always find away around such restrictions.

Full Story: Full and Open Disclosure is Solution

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Democrat's Pet Moron Speaks.

Gore Says Bush Broke the Law With Spying
Warrantless Surveillance an Example of 'Indifference' to Constitution, He Charges

By Chris Cillizza
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, January 17, 2006; Page A03

Former vice president Al Gore accused President Bush of breaking the law by authorizing wiretaps on U.S. citizens without court warrants and called on Congress yesterday to reassert its oversight responsibilities on a "shameful exercise of power" by the White House.

"The president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently," Gore said in a speech at Constitution Hall in Washington. "A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government."

To restore a system of checks and balances to government, Gore proposed appointing a special counsel to look into the domestic surveillance program, developing new whistle-blower protections and not extending the Patriot Act. He urged members of Congress, only one of whom -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) -- was present, to "start acting like the independent and coequal branch of government you're supposed to be."

On the holiday marking the 77th birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Gore drew a parallel between the FBI's eavesdropping on the civil rights leader and the current eavesdropping by the National Security Agency on communications between Americans and what Bush has said are suspected terrorists.

He also sought to cast the domestic surveillance program as simply the latest extension of a "truly breathtaking expansion of executive power" by the Bush administration. Gore said this began when the White House used incorrect intelligence about whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to justify invading it and has continued through the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal and the debate over whether torture may be used to extract information from detainees.

"The disrespect embodied in these apparent mass violations of the law is part of a larger pattern of seeming indifference to the Constitution that is deeply troubling to Americans in both political parties," Gore said. The Bush administration's actions have "brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of the Constitution," he added.

While Gore's denunciation of the administration's domestic surveillance program drew cheers from the crowd at the event, sponsored by the Liberty Coalition and the American Constitution Society, national public polling shows that Americans remain divided on the issue.

In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 51 percent said that "wiretapping of telephone calls and e-mails without court approval" was an acceptable tool for the federal government to use when investigating terrorism. Forty-seven percent said it was an unacceptable for the government to use those methods in order to catch suspected terrorists.

First let's state categorically, Al Gore ought to know about breaking the law, he was part of the most corrupt administration in recent history. Second, any ideas old Board Brain comes up with is going to be a disaster. Whenever Algore speaks, I am once again reminded how truly lucky we are that George Bush won the election. We are at war against an implacable enemy who is dedicated to our distruction and his suggestion, let's end the Patriot Act, make false accusations against your political enemies, and hyperbolize every situation. Yep Al, that is definitely a plan for victory. You just keep going Al, tell 'em about it. You have my full support, you just go on and keep saying what you're saying.

Full Story: The Board Brain of Blame

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Proof Once More You Cannot Trust Democrats to Keep Their Word

Senate Panel's Vote on Alito Delayed Until Next Week
Democrats Aim To Shorten GOP Victory

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 17, 2006; Page A03

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee reached an agreement yesterday evening to wait until next Tuesday to vote on the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.

The agreement alters the schedule announced Friday, during the final moments of Alito's week-long confirmation hearings, by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who said he would conduct the panel's vote today. His announcement sparked a quarrel with the panel's ranking Democrat, Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), who said he would seek a delay. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) vowed that a vote in the full Senate, which has final say over all judicial candidates chosen by the president, would take place by the end of the week.

In the end, Specter and Frist essentially acknowledged the prerogative Democrats have under Senate rules to postpone any committee decision for one week. GOP leaders grumbled that Democrats had reneged on an earlier agreement about when the Alito vote would take place -- an agreement that Democrats denied ever existed.
As Republicans express confidence that they have mustered enough votes to confirm Alito, the timing of the committee's action and of the full Senate vote may not dictate whether he joins the court. But the timing plays into the short-term political calculus of both parties, as well as of a coalition of left-leaning advocacy groups that are continuing to air advertisements in an aggressive -- and, so far, relatively ineffective -- campaign to build broad public opposition to the nominee, who is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, most of whom have indicated they will vote against Alito's confirmation, were reluctant to cast their votes before a meeting tomorrow of the Senate's Democratic Caucus, at which senators plan to consider their strategy for the final phases of the confirmation process.

Democrats, anticipating that Alito ultimately will be confirmed, are trying to deny the White House that victory as long as possible, particularly in the days before the State of the Union address President Bush is to deliver Jan. 31. Although Senate rules do not enable them to defer the confirmation vote until after the speech, Democratic senators would like to reduce the victory period immediately before the speech, one of the broadest public stages the president commands each year.

It defies my understanding why Republicans continue to trust the Democrat Leadership when they make "commitments" in procedural agreements. Republican Leadership are acting like a continual patsy. It is a proven fact, beyond any question, YOU CANNOT TRUST DEMOCRATS TO KEEP THEIR WORD. Every agreement they have entered into with the Republicans has been broken. It is time for the Republican Leadership to ignore the Democrats whines and complaints and just do what they know is right. Democrat Congressmen cannot be trusted, so don't. Expect them to do everything they can to obstruct Republican efforts and plan around it. They are unworthy of our trust. If they ever return to an ethical philosophy of goverment, then once they prove their trustworthiness, then and only then, include them in policy decisions.

Even worse is the fact that, in spite of the fact they know they have lost the battle to stop Alito, they are doing what they can to delay his approval vote strictly for political reasons. They are sacrificing the needs of the American people for shallow political reasons. My contempt for Democrats continues to grow.

Full Story: Democrats Offer Lies and Political Games

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Denny Hastert: Is it Time to Change Republican Leadership?

Speaker Largely Silent Amid Scandal

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 17, 2006; Page A01

With his affable demeanor and his open-door policy, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert remains unchallenged in the most powerful post in Congress, even as a growing corruption scandal roils the Republican leadership and more Congress-watchers say the speaker bears some responsibility for the troubles that have developed on his watch.

As details emerged about unsavory dealings between lobbyists and lawmakers -- including his top lieutenant, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) -- the House speaker stood on the sidelines. As DeLay's legal peril mounted, Hastert backed him at every turn, attempting to change House rules to allow an indicted leader to stay in power and even altering the leadership of the ethics committee, which had been exposing misconduct by the majority leader.

Only now has Hastert publicly moved to address the ethics controversy, leading a push to tighten rules on lobbying and persuading Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) to temporarily relinquish the chairmanship of the House Administration Committee.

Although Hastert's job appears safe for now, there are rumblings among some lawmakers and aides that he waited too long to act -- and that his prior conduct has eluded close inspection, even when the speaker himself rubbed elbows with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients.

"I suppose that DeLay was simply a much more inviting target for the [Democrats], so Hastert is left alone," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "Maybe people will start focusing on Hastert now."

Hastert and his staff "take this laissez-faire attitude on things," grumbled one Republican source close to the House leadership. "They don't respond when things are bending, but they get very excited when they break."

DeLay's announcement this month that he had permanently withdrawn from the House GOP leadership after his indictment on political money-laundering charges has touched off a scramble among Republicans for practically every high-level leadership post except that of speaker. Hastert, an amiable onetime high school wrestling coach, enjoys tremendous personal loyalty from many in the House GOP conference, and he has been credited with holding together the sometimes warring factions within the party.

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), one of those calling for a major shake-up of the House GOP leadership, stressed that there is a consensus within the conference that "we totally support Speaker Hastert."

Yet some watchdog organizations have said Hastert deserves scrutiny. After all, they note, Hastert signed a letter to the interior secretary in 2003 on behalf of one of Abramoff's Indian tribe clients days after a fundraiser for Hastert at Abramoff's posh Washington restaurant, Signatures. Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group Democracy 21, said that the same easygoing personality and small-town attitude that Hastert has used to maintain the loyalty of colleagues have enabled him to skate through the unfolding scandal.

"What these scandals are revolving around is a way of life that does not appear to be Hastert's way of life," Wertheimer said. "That may be the principal reason why this scandal does not inure to him."

After years as a friendly backbencher and low-level leadership member, Hastert suddenly emerged to become House speaker in 1999. Newt Gingrich (Ga.) was drummed out of the post after a disastrous election season, and his heir apparent, Bob Livingston (La.), resigned amid allegations of an extramarital affair. DeLay, then majority whip, shepherded Hastert from the post of his chief deputy to a position two steps from the presidency.

Hastert took a laid-back attitude to his job, opening his door to lawmakers, soothing hurt feelings, fixing problems and holding the party together while the bare-knuckled DeLay, first as whip and then as majority leader, drove the political agenda. To some lawmakers, it was a "good-cop, bad-cop" routine.

But the limits of the arrangement began to emerge in the fall of 2004. That was when Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) approached Hastert aides with a proposal pregnant with possible political consequences: A Democratic prosecutor in Texas, Ronnie Earle, was closing in on DeLay, and the majority leader wanted to change Republican rules to allow a leader indicted by a state grand jury to retain his post.

Some on Hastert's staff feared that the change could have disastrous political consequences, former DeLay and Hastert aides say. But Hastert, dreading confrontation and trusting DeLay's political instincts, deferred to his second-in-command. The ethics rules change touched off a political firestorm, and within a few months it was repealed.

Even when DeLay's ethical problems began bursting into the open, Hastert maintained a low profile. DeLay was admonished three times by the House ethics committee for improper conduct, including the use of the Federal Aviation Administration to help track down Democratic Texas lawmakers who had left the state to avoid a vote on a redistricting plan engineered by DeLay.

I don't dislike Dennis Hastert, but I also don't believe that he has ever been the kind of leader we have needed in the House. I tend to believe in more dynamic, and visionary leadership. Hastert is the sort of leader you need if you want to maintain the status quo. We need term limits, the end of earmarks, lobbying reform, and a drastic reduction in the size of our government. We need innovative and dynamic proposals for the problems facing America today. Dennis Hastert seems to have been too tolerant of the system abuses which were occurring on his watch. It took a group of "rebel" group of young Congressmen to call for these much needed changes.

Full Story: A Call for New Leadership

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Democrats Lose on Alito...Heh, Heh, Heh

Senate Democrats Emphasizing Ethics, Not Alito
Unable to Keep Conservatives Off Court, Leaders Turn to Issues That Have More Traction With Voters

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 16, 2006; Page A02

Just as Samuel A. Alito Jr. was wrapping up three days of testimony in his bid for a Supreme Court seat -- which core Democratic groups desperately want to prevent -- the Senate's Democratic leader sent an e-mail statement to hundreds of journalists.

In it, Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) had this to say about Alito: not one word. The Thursday news release, trumpeting a "Republican Culture of Corruption" in big red letters, dealt with Republican lawmakers' alleged ties to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a theme of Democratic messages these days.

Later that day, after Alito had left the hearing room, Reid issued a criticism of the nominee but made no mention of a possible filibuster, seen as the only conceivable way Democrats might thwart the nomination in the GOP-controlled Senate.

The fact that Reid paid scant attention to Alito that day, amid heavy TV coverage, is testament to the faith that Democratic leaders place in the ethics-corruption issue as a winner in November's congressional elections.

On Wednesday -- when Senate Democrats return from recess and huddle on the Alito nomination for the first time since the hearing -- congressional, national and state party leaders plan a major Washington event. It will not focus not on Alito but on a proposed "honest leadership act" that would ban gifts to lawmakers, among other things.

These priorities hint at the difficulties Democrats have experienced during the past six months in pursuing the goal of keeping conservatives such as Alito and John G. Roberts Jr. off the Supreme Court. Roberts coasted to confirmation as chief justice last fall, and GOP senators predict Alito will be confirmed this month, albeit by a narrower margin. Analysts say Alito's confirmation in particular could move the court notably to the right.

The Supreme Court battles stand in contrast to last year's major Democratic victory, the stifling of President Bush's bid to restructure Social Security. Although key constituency groups poured money and time into both efforts, the outcomes differed dramatically.

"The reality is that Social Security hits people where they live," said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. "Nearly everyone feels they have skin in the game. It is harder to grab the public's attention on a court nomination."

Senate Democrats have learned this lesson the hard way. Now, forced to decide soon whether to launch an Alito filibuster that is likely to fail, several are asking whether it is worth the effort, party insiders say. One top Senate Democratic aide, who spoke on background because he did not have his boss's permission to talk publicly, predicted a closed debate Wednesday on whether it makes more sense to focus on the most promising issues, such as GOP ethics woes, and avoid being tarred as "obstructionists" for trying to derail a confirmation vote.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she will vote against Alito's confirmation but saw no reason to filibuster it. "I do not see the likelihood of a filibuster," she said yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I don't see those kinds of egregious things emerging that would justify a filibuster."

Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the second-ranking Democratic senator and one of Alito's sharpest questioners last week, spoke to the party's mixed feelings about a filibuster when he told reporters: "I'm not going to presume one way or the other whether my colleagues are even interested in it."

Hello, Associate Justice Alito. Another great victory for our country and a gread defeat for the extreme Left-wing control groups of the Democrat Party. NARAL, NOW, PFAW, MoveOn.org, and their not so stellar leaders like Kate Michelman, and Nan Aron have failed in their campaign of lies and distortion. Their hatred has been their downfall. It is further proof that Americans will not be conned by their message of hate, fear, and anti-freedom. Without wishing ill toward any current justices, I now hope that we can manage to get one more Conservative on the Court so that we can return to Constitutional government rather than government by Judicial Fiat.

Full Story: Alito...and America Wins

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Post Continues One-Sided Campaign Against Republicans

In Ga., Abramoff Scandal Threatens a Political Ascendancy

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 16, 2006; Page A01

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Ralph Reed, candidate for lieutenant governor, had just finished his opening statement to the Dawson County Republican Party when retired pulp paper executive Gary Pichon sprang from his seat with a question that cut to the chase:

"Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation?"

Silence enveloped the 60 or so Republicans in the auditorium, and Reed's cheerful manner turned tense. "No," he replied. "No to all these."

As everyone knew, Pichon was referring to Jack Abramoff, whose outsize Washington lobbying scandal has reached down to Georgia. Abramoff and Reed -- the former executive director of the Christian Coalition -- have been friends for 25 years, and until recently it had been a mutually profitable association. Now it is proving highly inconvenient for Reed, and threatens to stall a career that has been emblematic of the modern GOP.

Reed served as executive director of the College Republicans from 1983 to 1985 and led a revival of the Christian right in the 1990s. He founded a grass-roots lobbying firm in 1997, bringing in millions of dollars in fees, chaired the Georgia Republican Party in 2002 when the GOP took over the state, and served as Southeast director of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.

At age 44, he still has the choirboy looks that have been noted in dozens of profiles over the past 20 years. But the first major dent in Reed's carefully cultivated image came with the disclosure in the summer of 2004 that his public relations and lobbying companies had received at least $4.2 million from Abramoff to mobilize Christian voters to fight Indian casinos competing with Abramoff's casino clients.

Similarly damaging has been a torrent of e-mails revealed during the investigation that shows a side of Reed that some former supporters say cannot be reconciled with his professed Christian values.

"After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God," said Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member who had initially backed Reed. "We are righteously casting him out."

Among those e-mails was one from Reed to Abramoff in late 1998: "I need to start humping in corporate accounts! . . . I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts." Within months, Abramoff hired him to lobby on behalf of the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, who were seeking to prevent competitors from setting up facilities in nearby Alabama.

In 1999, Reed e-mailed Abramoff after submitting a bill for $120,000 and warning that he would need as much as $300,000 more: "We are opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back."

In 2004, when the casino payments to Reed were disclosed, Reed issued a statement declaring "no direct knowledge of their [Abramoff's law firm's] clients or interests." In 2005, however, Senate investigators released a 1999 e-mail from Abramoff to Reed explicitly citing the client: "It would be really helpful if you could get me invoices [for services performed] as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks ASAP."

One of the most damaging e-mails was sent by Abramoff to partner Michael Scanlon, complaining about Reed's billing practices and expenditure claims: "He is a bad version of us! No more money for him." Scanlon and Abramoff have pleaded guilty to defrauding clients.

Almost everyday I see articles in the Post about Republicans who have been tainted by the Abramoff scandal, but I have seen very few, if any, about the Democrats. This in spite of the fact that some of the biggest recipients of Abramoff's largess have been Democrats. Harry Reid, Bryon Dorgan, Max Baucus, to mention just a few of a long list. Much to the chagrin and embarrassment of the Democrat propaganda machine, this Abramoff scandal reaches deeply into the ranks of both parties. The primary difference between the two parties lies in the fact that the Republicans are trying to correct their "wrong path" choices, and the Democrats are busy trying to cover-up, lie about, or otherwise deny any culpability. There is no hay to be made by the Democrat party in this. We the public know that Democrats have been just as guilty as Republicans. Time for major reform in the Congress...on both sides.

Full Story: Abramoff Cuts Both Ways: Dems in Denial

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An Old Hardline Communist Sympathizer, Still Hates America

Cronkite: Time for U.S. to Leave Iraq

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer
Jan 16 1:13 AM US/Eastern
PASADENA, Calif.

Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose 1968 conclusion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, said Sunday he'd say the same thing today about Iraq.

"It's my belief that we should get out now," Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters.

Now 89, the television journalist once known as "the most trusted man in America" has been off the "CBS Evening News" for nearly a quarter- century. He's still a CBS News employee, although he does little for them.

Cronkite said one of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.

Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

The best time to have made a similar statement about Iraq came after Hurricane Katrina, he said.

"We had an opportunity to say to the world and Iraqis after the hurricane disaster that Mother Nature has not treated us well and we find ourselves missing the amount of money it takes to help these poor people out of their homeless situation and rebuild some of our most important cities in the United States," he said. "Therefore, we are going to have to bring our troops home."

Iraqis should have been told that "our hearts are with you" and that the United States would do all it could to rebuild their country, he said.

"I think we could have been able to retire with honor," he said. "In fact, I think we can retire with honor anyway."

Cronkite has spoken out against the Iraq war in the past, saying in 2004 that Americans weren't any safer because of the invasion.

Cronkite, who is hard of hearing and walks haltingly, jokingly said that "I'm standing by if they want me" to anchor the "CBS Evening News." CBS is still searching for a permanent successor to Dan Rather, who replaced Cronkite in March 1981.

"Twenty-four hours after I told CBS News that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday I was already regretting it and I've regretted it every day since," he said. "It's too good a job for me to have given it up the way that I did."

"The most trusted man in America..." what a joke. This is the man who turned the Tet Offensive from a huge American victory into a huge American defeat. He was the most biased against Republicans of all of the old network news anchors. I considered him the most reviled man in America. It's time for him to disappear from the public scene before he embarrass himself anymore.

Original Post: Cronkite Spews Anti-American Blather

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No Secret Here, I'm Pulling for Shaddeg

GOP Leadership Race Seen as Harbinger

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 15, 2006; Page A05

The leadership contest playing out this month in the House of Representatives represents more than a battle of personalities. At stake is the direction of a Republican Party that, by some lights, is facing the most serious confluence of problems in the decade since it roared to power on Capitol Hill.

In both good ways and bad, House Republicans have helped define present-day conservatism. The House in the late 1980s and 1990s was the incubator for many of the policy ideas and political strategies that produced the current era of GOP dominance.

The House is also home to a brand of confrontational politics that has played a large role in souring the Washington environment. And the transactional style favored by many House GOP leaders -- in which the trade of special-interest support in exchange for access to power became more open than ever -- contributed to the downfall of former House majority leader Tom DeLay, setting off the current race to replace him.

"I do think we're at a critical, pivotal moment for the Republican Party right now," said Vin Weber, a former Republican representative from Minnesota. "The problem we're facing today is that that hard-work effort to define a reform conservative agenda has taken a back seat to simply political, tactical efforts to retain power."

In Weber's analogy, the House Republicans represented the central nervous system of a party moving from minority to majority status. Their current problems come at a time when the GOP is besieged on many fronts. President Bush, despite recent improvements, continues to receive less than majority support in his approval ratings and, as a second-term president waging an unpopular war, is increasingly in a weaker position to advance bold new ideas. Nor has a clear agenda emerged from Republicans in Congress, where the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal threatens additional embarrassments or worse for an unknown number of lawmakers.

Few see Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) as the person to provide that vision for the House Republicans, given the workaday, low-key style that has defined his leadership since he replaced Newt Gingrich in 1999. It is also not clear who among the current candidates to replace DeLay -- House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) -- or among other prospective leaders may have what it takes.

What a number of Republicans fear is that the new leaders may define their roles in the most narrow and limited way -- passing minimal lobbying reforms, lubricating the gears inside the House, keeping their colleagues happy and enacting as much of Bush's agenda as possible but not much more. Gingrich has been outspoken in his warnings that, unless the House Republicans embrace a much broader reform agenda that goes well beyond the interaction between lobbyists and lawmakers, the party could suffer in the 2006 elections and beyond.

Over the past decade, House Republicans have been guided by the vision of three leaders: Bush, DeLay and Gingrich. Bush has played the dominant role in the past five years in defining his party and setting the agenda for Congress -- sometimes to the disgruntlement of conservatives in the House. But the contributions of both Gingrich and DeLay, however contentious they sometimes were, cannot be underestimated. The question facing House Republicans now is who among them has the same capacity, absent some of the baggage, of a Gingrich or a DeLay.

Their approaches were far different, and each, at least for a time, proved successful. Gingrich was all about taking power for the GOP; DeLay, about single-mindedly cementing that power in place. Ultimately, each ran aground. When Gingrich faltered, Bush was there to provide Republicans with an alternative vision. What replaces DeLay's approach is unclear. Bush remains part of the answer, but as his power over other Republicans begins to ebb, what happens in the House will influence, for good or ill, the party's fortunes.

"If you ask most Americans who represents the [Republican] Party, they're going to say George Bush, not any of the leaders of Congress," said John J. Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont-McKenna College. "Nevertheless, the congressional Republicans are already looking at the day when President Bush leaves office and they're still around. So they're looking for their own distinctive identity."

Proud of their role in powering the GOP ascendancy of the past generation, House Republicans jealously guard their prerogatives in helping to set the party's future.

"Remember, this Republican majority was not created by presidential victory," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). "It was not sustained by presidential victory. It grew for six years without presidential victory. We have a different kind of a Republican majority than they [Democrats] did with FDR, and if we have our way, it will outlast the Bush administration."

We need a return to the traditional values of the Republican party, smaller more efficient government, lower taxes and less spending. We need a fresh vision of the role of Congress in shaping America. True Republicans believe in freedom and liberty, small government and the empowerment of the citizens to shape their own lives. Over the last 5-6 years the Republican House, under the leadership (if you can call it that) of Denny Hastart, has slouched gradually toward big spending, large social programs, and the "secure and hold" strategy which offers nothing new, only protecting the gains previously made through boldness of vision and action. I am greatly hopeful that a change to Shaddeg would return that spirit of youth and vigor to the House membership.

Full Story: Time for a Change In House Leadership

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Olmert/Israel Making Huge Gesture Towards Peace and Inclusion

Israel to Allow Palestinians in E. Jerusalem to Vote
Plan Is the First Major Policy Shift Under Olmert

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 15, 2006; 11:09 AM

JERUSALEM, Jan. 15 -- Israel's cabinet agreed Sunday to allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote in parliamentary elections later this month, but under a plan that prohibits members of the radical Islamic party Hamas from entering the city to campaign.

The decision marked the first significant policy shift under Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who agreed to allow the voting under pressure from the Bush administration. But Palestinian officials said the plan does not resolve several issues that could affect voter participation, leaving the elections in some doubt.


Israel occupied East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, and Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their capital. Whether to allow Palestinian residents of the city to cast ballots in the Jan. 25 parliamentary elections, the first in a decade, has been a decision of symbolic and practical importance to both sides.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, now fighting for his life in a hospital here, banned voting inside the city because of Hamas' participation in its first national elections. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose governing Fatah party is facing a stiff challenge from Hamas, vowed to cancel the elections unless Israel allowed voting in East Jerusalem.

The plan approved Sunday will allow some of the estimated 120,000 Palestinians eligible to vote in East Jerusalem to cast ballots in five designated post offices. Palestinian official said they expect roughly 6,000 voters to do so.

The rest will cast ballots in polling stations outside the municipal boundaries, the same procedure that governed the 1996 and 2005 Palestinian national elections. But Palestinian officials said Israel has not guaranteed free passage for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem assigned to vote in the West Bank, which the Israeli military often closes during times of potential strife.

"Voting outside the city will be severely restricted," said a Palestinian official involved in the issue, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the subject. "If we're going to have Israeli participation in Palestinian democracy to some measure, we need some statement from them on this. The environment is still far from conducive in encouraging Palestinians to go out and vote."

The rules governing previous Palestinian elections prohibited the participation of parties that Israel classifies as terrorist organizations, including Hamas. It remained unclear Sunday whether Israel would allow candidates from Hamas, a party at war with Israel, to appear on ballots in the city. An Israeli foreign ministry official said the issue would be likely decided as the cabinet decision is implemented on the ground.

In comments made before the cabinet meeting, Olmert emphasized that "Israel will not allow Hamas entry into Jerusalem, including the carrying out of election propaganda."

"This position has been made clear to all in recent days and it is unequivocal," said Olmert, a former two-term mayor of Jerusalem.

Soon after the cabinet vote, Israeli police detained three Hamas candidates campaigning in East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities said the men, including Mohammed Abu Tir, who occupies the second slot on Hamas' national list, were convening unauthorized political rallies.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the cabinet decision raised the chances that parliamentary elections would proceed as planned. But he said all candidates should understand the special rules governing campaigns in East Jerusalem.

This is a big gesture on the part of the Israelis. Palestinian inclusion in the elective process would be a good step towards full participation by Palestinians in Israel. You can bet that Hamas will do all it can to disrupt this process. The terrorist organizations have a vested interest in the failure of any peace effort between Israel and the Palestinian government. With total peace comes the loss of power for the terrorist groups. This will be interesting to watch.

Full Story: What will Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. do?

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U.S. Strike in Northwest Pakistan May Have Gotten Ayman Zawahiri

U.S. Strike On Al Qaeda Top Deputy Said to Fail
Thousands Protest After Attack In Pakistan Leaves 17 Dead

By Griff Witte and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 15, 2006; Page A01

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 14 -- Pakistani officials said Saturday that a U.S. missile strike intended to kill al Qaeda deputy Ayman Zawahiri had missed its target but had killed 17 people, including six women and six children.

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis staged an angry anti-American protest near the remote village of Damadola, about 120 miles northwest of Islamabad, where Friday's attack took place. According to witnesses, the demonstrators shouted, "Death to America!" and "Death to Musharraf!" -- referring to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- and the offices of at least one U.S.-backed aid organization were ransacked and set ablaze.

In Washington, U.S. intelligence sources said it was too early to know whether the strike had killed Zawahiri, 54, an Egyptian physician who is al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top aide. "The outcome of this doesn't seem decided," said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials defended the strike, saying it was the right course of action based on timely intelligence about Zawahiri's whereabouts early Friday. Zawahiri had been under surveillance by the CIA for two weeks, security sources said.

The CIA, which military and intelligence sources say carried out the attack with a type of unmanned aircraft called a Predator, declined to comment Saturday.

Local authorities denied that any foreigners had been present in the area.

"We can say with full authority that those who were killed were all innocent permanent residents of the village Damadola," said Sirajul Haq, senior minister of Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. "Any independent probe would confirm that no foreigner was in the vicinity of the neighborhood targeted by the U.S. missiles."

Two officials with Pakistan's military intelligence service confirmed the local leaders' assessment. The Pakistani government in Islamabad, however, produced a more muted response, saying it had formally protested the strike to the U.S. government but conceding there may have been people in the area whom the United States would have an interest in attacking.

The strike was the latest in a series aimed at al Qaeda fugitives believed to be hiding in the region along Pakistan's porous and largely lawless border with Afghanistan.

After al Qaeda carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, U.S. forces and Afghan militias toppled the Afghan Taliban movement, which had sheltered and supported bin Laden's organization. Bin Laden, Zawahiri and many other al Qaeda leaders are believed to have crossed the border and taken refuge in Pakistan's tribal regions, where they have eluded capture.

At the same time, Pakistani security services have apprehended several key al Qaeda operatives in the country's teeming cities. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, reputed to have planned many of the organization's terrorist attacks, including those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was captured in Rawalpindi in March 2003. The previous September, the reputed coordinator of the Sept. 11 attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh, was captured in the port city of Karachi.

Zawahiri, who is considered by many to be al Qaeda's principal strategist, has released several videotapes in which he has urged Muslims worldwide to join a holy war against the United States. In a video released Jan. 6, he suggested President Bush's decision to reduce U.S. troop strength there constituted a victory for al Qaeda in Iraq.

Once more we see that the Post is pimping for Al Qaeda and taking a stand against American interests. We are told in the first sentence that "Pakistani officials said a U.S. missile strike...had missed its target but had killed 17 people, including six women and six children." Then in the third paragraph we are informed that U.S. intelligence sources said it was too early to know whether the strike had killed Zawahiri. Once they have told us the C.I.A.'s point of view, we are again treated to sources out of the Northwestern provinces saying:

"We can say with full authority that those who were killed were all innocent permanent residents of the village Damadola," said Sirajul Haq, senior minister of Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. "Any independent probe would confirm that no foreigner was in the vicinity of the neighborhood targeted by the U.S. missiles."

The problem with that emphatic statement is that it is directly contradicted by the official Pakistani goverment which was forced to concede there may have been people in the area whom the United States would have an interest in attacking.

Now they (the anti-American sources) could very well be telling the truth, I don't know, but my point is we are being treated first to sources which have, from the outset of the Afghanistan War, been stridently anti-American, anti-Musharraf, and pro-Taliban. We are given a statement of fact that the attack failed, in the title of the article, before any of the contradicting information is presented. And when that contradictory information is presented, it is buried deep in the story.

The entire focus of the article is "America is bad, America is wrong." The Washington Post truly stands foursquare against American interests and ultimately against the American people and their security. It is good to know who our true enemies are.

Full Story: The Washington Jazeerah Speaks

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Republican Ney, A Waterloo Redux?

Speaker Pressures Rep. Ney to Resign His Chairmanship

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 14, 2006; Page A02

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is pressuring Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) to relinquish the chairmanship of the House Administration Committee in the wake of a guilty plea from lobbyist Jack Abramoff that tied Ney to a far-reaching conspiracy to bribe public officials, leadership aides said.

"The Ney situation has changed after the plea agreement," said a House Republican insider close to the talks. "There are people that have pled guilty who have conspired to bribe him. It does not mean he is guilty. However, given this information and the fact that part of our reform agenda will come before his committee, it's a big problem in him leading it."

Ney was not named in Abramoff's plea agreement, but his staff has said he is the lawmaker identified in the court documents as "Representative #1." Abramoff acknowledged that he and former partner Michael Scanlon gave the lawmaker gifts including expense-paid trips to the Super Bowl, golf outings in Scotland, concerts and campaign contributions.

Ney allegedly advanced the prospects of a number of Abramoff's clients. Ney has denied any wrongdoing.

"Ney is confident that he has done nothing wrong and that his name will be cleared," said his spokesman, Brian J. Walsh. "He also recognizes, though, that these misleading allegations about him might be a distraction, and he wants to do what is right for the [GOP] conference. He is taking the weekend to evaluate things and will make a decision next week."

Hastert does not have the power to remove Ney, aides said, but can urge the House Republican Conference to act.

Hastert spokesman Ronald D. Bonjean Jr. said discussions between Hastert and Ney "have been ongoing."

There is a disturbing ring of familiarity for me, as a student of military history, to the name "Ney"

During the Battle of Waterloo, Marshall Michel Ney made the extrordinarily bad decision to send Napoleon's Cavalry against the British lines without infantry support (a suicidal maneuver). The British assumed a formation known at the time as "squares" and decimated the ranks of the French heavy cavalry. As a result, Napoleon's already sorely pressed Army was severely weakened.

Enough history, now the Republicans have their own Ney. It is an unfortunate but necessary result of our highly politicized society, that the guilt of a politician is assumed before the issues ever come to trial. It may be that "Representative #1" has a good defense and reasonable explantion as to why he was mentioned so prominently in Abramoff's guilty plea, but due to the political exigencies of the Republican Party in the face of the rapidly approaching 2006 elections, Mr. Ney has become a liability to the Party and needs to step down. We do not need to sacrifice our superior moral standing to the Democrat/MSN spin machine by allowing individuals like Ney to retain their seats. Mr. Ney maybe and most probably is a fine decent individual, but I fear he is going to fall prey to the Politics of mutual destruction which are now in vogue.

Perhaps after the dust has settled, and he is found innocent, he will return to his former exalted status, but it is doubtful, and thus unfortunate.

Full Story: Politics of Money a Dangerous Game

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Time to Refresh the Republican Leadership

Shadegg Enters GOP Contest
Conservative Takes On Blunt, Boehner for Majority Leader

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 14, 2006; Page A02

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) jumped into the race for House majority leader yesterday, hoping to force the two better-known candidates to embrace a stronger message of change and a legislative agenda that returns the GOP to its small-government roots.

Shadegg's entry scrambled the leadership race on a day when the public interest group Public Citizen fired a broadside at the apparent front-runner, House majority whip and acting majority leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), and his close ties to lobbyists. Shadegg also opened up a new post for the Feb. 2 leadership election, resigning as Republican Policy Committee chairman and pointedly declaring it inappropriate "to try to retain one position in our elected leadership while running for another."

That raised the pressure on Blunt to relinquish the majority whip's office, which would ensure an election for a post already being sought by four candidates.

"In the past decade, particularly recently, we seem to have lost sight of our ideals," the conservative Shadegg wrote in a letter to his colleagues. "I believe that in order to reconnect with the American people, and retain and grow our Republican Majority in the House, we need to recommit to our principles."

Those principles include a smaller federal government, a ceding of power to the states and lower taxes, Shadegg said.

In an interview this week, Shadegg said he could not compete with the vote-winning operation of Blunt or Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. But Shadegg said he believes a bloc of House Republicans is not convinced either Blunt or Boehner represents true change in the face of a growing lobbying and bribery scandal.

Hours after his announcement, Shadegg picked up the endorsement of the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee; two conservative publications; and one of the House's young conservative firebrands, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.). A conservative House aide said that fewer than half of the 100-plus members of the conservative Republican Study Committee have declared for either Boehner or Blunt. All three candidates will make presentations at a Baltimore retreat of conservative lawmakers before the election.

If Shadegg does not win enough votes to propel him to the second-highest position in the House Republican Conference, he still may gain enough to deny Blunt or Boehner outright victory in the first round of voting. If he finishes third, Shadegg will not be able to run in the second round, but he could extract policy promises for his endorsement, advisers to Blunt and Boehner say.

Shadegg's entry in the race for majority leader "is further proof the Conference isn't happy with the status quo," Boehner said in a statement. "Between the two of us, we're going to make this race about reforming how the House does business and providing a real alternative to the status quo."

Go Shadegg! We need a good solid Conservative. We need to return to being the party of small government. We need to return to being the party of individual freedom and respect for the Constitution. In the last five years the federal budget has grown by an average of 6.6%/year. This compares rather unfavorably with the "Clinton years" in which the budget grew at an annual rate of 3.3%. Once again this explodes the myth of "Bush the Conservative."

Republican Congressmen have succumbed to the temptations of power, and President Bush hasn't used his veto pen once. The FY 1995 Transportation appropriations bill contained only 322 earmarks at a cost of $1.5 billion; by FY 2004, the Transportation section of the Omnibus had 2,179 earmarks at a cost of $5.7 billion. The FY 1995, Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill contained 45 earmarks totaling $104 million; but by FY 2004, the Commerce-Justice-State section of the Omnibus bill had 1,137 earmarks at a cost of $1.9 billion. This latest Tranportation Omnibus has over 6,000 earmarks totaling over $24.2 billion.

This is profligate spending whatever your definition. That combined with records of some Republicans like Roy Blunt in alledgedly taking questionable "in kind" or actual contributions from lobbyists like Abramoff, illustrates the dire need for new Republican leadership. Shadegg gets my vote.

Full Story: New Republican Blood

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President Bush's Unwarranted and Grossly Unsuccessful Venture into Socialism

The States Step In As Medicare Falters
Seniors Being Turned Away, Overcharged Under New Prescription Drug Program

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 14, 2006; Page A01

Two weeks into the new Medicare prescription drug program, many of the nation's sickest and poorest elderly and disabled people are being turned away or overcharged at pharmacies, prompting more than a dozen states to declare health emergencies and pay for their life-saving medicines.

Computer glitches, overloaded telephone lines and poorly trained pharmacists are being blamed for mix-ups that have resulted in the worst of unintended consequences: As many as 6.4 million low-income seniors, who until Dec. 31 received their medications free, suddenly find themselves navigating an insurance maze of large deductibles, co-payments and outright denial of coverage.

Yesterday, Ohio and Wisconsin announced that they will cover the drug costs of low-income seniors who would otherwise go without, joining every state in New England as well as California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Jersey.

"This new prescription drug plan was supposed to be a voluntary program to help people who didn't have coverage," said Jeanne Finberg, a lawyer for the National Senior Citizens Law Center. "All this is doing is harming the people who had coverage -- America's most vulnerable citizens."

Hailed as President Bush's signature domestic achievement, the program, which began Jan. 1, offers drug coverage for the first time to 43 million elderly and disabled Americans eligible for Medicare. At the same time, 6.4 million low-income beneficiaries who were receiving their medications through state Medicaid plans were switched into Medicare for their drug benefits and told they would not be charged the standard $250 deductible or co-payments.

But interviews with two dozen people -- state officials, pharmacists, advocates for seniors, and Medicare clients -- revealed a host of problems. Many poor seniors were never enrolled or were enrolled in plans that do not cover their medications. Others received multiple insurance cards, creating confusion at the pharmacies. Some were charged the deductible and unaffordable co-payments. And some, such as Laurine League, left empty-handed.

"For years I've had no problems, going to the same pharmacy," said League, 49, a Queens, N.Y., woman with severe mental illness. "The pharmacist told me one drug was going to cost $198. I don't have that kind of money."

The states that have stepped in to help have already incurred several million dollars in unexpected drug bills, but Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said he did not have the authority to reimburse them. He urged states, pharmacists and providers to work with his agency to collect reimbursements from insurance companies administering the prescription program.

Acknowledging that some of the 6.4 million low-income beneficiaries known as "dual-eligibles" have been overcharged or denied medication, McClellan said: "That is simply not acceptable. We have been working around the clock and around the country to make sure those beneficiaries get the prescriptions they need."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), announcing his intention to spend as much as $70 million to provide two weeks' worth of medicine, said he expects a reimbursement. "While I am confident the federal government will resolve the problems with this transition, these people need our help now," he said, "and we're going to be there for them."

Politicians in both parties were quick to rise to the defense of a particularly vulnerable population. As a group, dual-eligibles have incomes below the poverty rate of $9,570 a year and take an average of 15 medications a day. More than half are women, 40 percent have cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer's and 20 percent do not speak English, according to Finberg.

"The dual-eligibles should have been the last group enrolled because they are the hardest to get going," said Thanh Lu, who focuses on Medicare issues at the Progress Center for Independent Living in Illinois. Clients who are in nursing homes, who have schizophrenia, or who are deaf or blind are ill equipped to tackle the complex new system. Medicare compounded the problem by sending out a handbook that incorrectly told low-income seniors they could enroll in any plan at virtually no cost, he said.

No surprise here folks. This is what happens whenever government steps in where it doesn't belong. Socialism is an abject failure and always has been. It has failed wherever it has been tried. Why should anyone be surprised when this socialist program fails as well. Anytime you place a portion of the public at the mercy of an unfeeling, uncaring bureaucracy, you are going to get this kind of disaster. This program is also a dagger in the heart of the Bush is a Conservative myth. Socialism is not a Conservative policy.

History has proven time and again that the only things a central government can do well is defend the nation and its people (its only legitimate function and it does this well) and spend tax-payer money indiscrimately (it's even better at this). That is the reason that government's involvement in social affairs should be severly constrained. A large bureaucracy cannot possibly be as responsive as local government. Medical care is better provided for and regulated by private the private sector. They can perform the same function faster more effectively and cheaper in all cases than can the Federal government. The government's role should be stringent oversight and the the relentless prosecution of abusers of the system.

Even now anyone caught abusing the system and our senior citizens in need should be mercilessly prosecuted. This nation cannot afford to allow our most vulnerable citizens to be abused by anyone.

Full Story: Your Socialist Government In Action

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Maryland Takes Another Big Step Towards Socialism

Md. Legislature Overrides Veto on Wal-Mart Bill

By John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 13, 2006; Page A01

Maryland lawmakers bucked the will of the state's Republican governor and the nation's largest retailer yesterday, voting to become the first state to effectively require that Wal-Mart spend more on employee health care.

In a veto reversal that was closely watched nationally, lawmakers in the Democrat-led General Assembly voted largely along party lines for a measure that legislatures in more than 30 states are considering replicating.

"Maryland is not a shrinking violet -- no, far from it," said Sen. Gloria G. Lawlah (D-Prince George's), a lead sponsor of the legislation, which drew strong backing from labor unions and health care advocates. "Maryland is a leader. Let us light the torch today. Let us lead."

The Senate voted 30-17 for the bill after a filibuster attempt by Republicans. The House followed last night with an 88-50 vote that handed Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) a defeat early in the legislative session on a bill he argues is an unwarranted government intrusion into business.

The bill will require private companies with more than 10,000 employees in Maryland to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on employee health benefits or make a contribution to the state's insurance program for the poor. Wal-Mart, which employs about 17,000 Marylanders, is the only known company of such size that does not meet that spending requirement.

Wal-Mart spokesman Nate Hurst said the votes were driven by "partisan politics."

"This vote was never about health care," Hurst said. "In allowing a bad bill to become a bad law, the General Assembly took a giant step backward and placed the special interests of Washington, D.C., union leaders ahead of the well-being of the people they serve. And that's wrong."

Hurst said the company's lawyers were certain to look into questions raised by business groups about whether the bill violates federal law. The Maryland Attorney General's Office issued an opinion this week dismissing those concerns.

The legislation has resonated in Maryland and beyond in part because it is viewed as a relatively easy and inexpensive way for lawmakers to expand access to health care and because Wal-Mart, a company with a reputation for stingy benefits, is considered an easy target.

"We don't want to kill this giant. We want this giant to behave itself," said Del. Anne Healey (D-Prince George's County), the lead sponsor in the House. "We want this giant not to be a bully."

The bill drew spirited opposition from Republican legislators, who argued that supporters were trying to punish an unpopular company and help its unionized rivals. Opponents also predicted that lawmakers would gradually expand the bill to include smaller businesses.

"This is a revenge bill," said Sen. E.J. Pipkin (R-Queen Anne's). "This isn't about health care."

Yep, the Maryland Democrats have sold their souls to the Unions...Oh, alright, I know all Democrats did that long ago, but this is a confirmation of that fact. I always thought that America was supposed to be a bastion of freedom. Those 17,000 don't have to work at Wal-Mart if they don't like it there. No one is holding a gun to their heads. If they don't like the policies of the company, they can work somewhere else. Besides, most of the employees work part time. Unions are the most anti-American organizations immaginable. In states where they are all powerful, productivity suffers. I have worked around and with union workers and non-union worker in the same fields, and I have always gotten higher quality and more productive results from the non-union workers. Unions are anti-American because in non "right to work states," they tell you, "Even if you are the most qualified and capable electrician (carpenter, plumber, whatever trade you choose) you cannot practice your chosen career unless you join our club. Freedom is the antithesis of that policy.

Full Story: Shame on the Maryland Legislature

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Poor Democrats, No Agenda, No Principles, No Truth, No Victory

Alito Likely To Become A Justice
Liberals See Slim Chance Of Blocking Confirmation

By Charles Babington and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 13, 2006; Page A01

Samuel A. Alito Jr., an appellate judge who could shift the Supreme Court significantly to the right, appeared headed for the high court yesterday after completing three days of interrogation without a serious misstep.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee made a final stab at challenging Alito on presidential powers, the death penalty and other matters. But their efforts sometimes seemed halfhearted, and even the most liberal advocacy groups acknowledged privately that they saw slim hopes of preventing his confirmation later this month in the full Senate, where Republicans hold 55 of the 100 seats.

President Bush called Alito from Air Force One "to congratulate him for doing a great job during the hearings," the White House said. Committee member John Cornyn (R-Tex.) predicted the nominee "will be confirmed," adding that "the unfounded attacks on Judge Alito had about as much traction as bald tires on an icy road."

When the hearings began Monday, liberal activists said their best hope was for Alito to commit a gaffe or lose his composure. When his 18 hours of testimony ended at lunchtime yesterday, and Republican senators scurried to shake his hand, both sides agreed he had done neither.

The committee could vote as early as Tuesday on whether to recommend Alito, 55, to the full Senate. All 10 Republicans on the panel appear virtually certain to support him, while several senators predicted all eight Democrats will oppose him.

Liberals fear Alito's potential impact on the court because Bush tapped him to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has sided with liberal justices in several high-profile 5 to 4 decisions over the years. Alito, a New Jersey-based federal appellate judge for the past 15 years, praised O'Connor's work ethic yesterday without addressing her often moderate views.

"I would try to emulate her dedication and her integrity and her dedication to the case-by-case process of adjudication," he told Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.). "I am my own person, with whatever abilities I have and whatever limitations I have."

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) predicted that Alito will win the backing of all 55 GOP senators, including those who support abortion rights and those who joined a bipartisan effort last year to avert a showdown over judicial filibusters. He practically dared Democrats to try a filibuster, a tactic in which they could block a vote on Alito's confirmation unless 60 senators agreed to end debate. Democrats used the procedure to block several appellate court nominees in Bush's first term.

"If they want to filibuster, frankly, bring it on," Hatch said. In return, he predicted, Republicans would change Senate rules to ban judicial filibusters.

Democrats generally avoided mentioning the tactic. "We've still got a ways to go to figure what the strategy is going to be," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the committee's best-known liberal, said in an interview.

Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) issued a statement criticizing Alito but not mentioning a filibuster. "I have not forgotten that Judge Alito was only nominated after the radical right wing of the president's party forced Harriet Miers to withdraw," he said, referring to Bush's earlier choice for the slot.

The White House thinks Alito will win 60 to 70 votes for confirmation, short of the 78 votes Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. received last year, said an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending senators' sensibilities. One Senate Democrat, Ben Nelson (Neb.), said yesterday that he has seen nothing "that I would consider a disqualifying issue against Judge Alito."

I just love it. The Liberals are just stewing now. This was to be "THE FIGHT," but armed with lies, contrived statistics, and distortion as their only weapons, they had failed before they entered the hearing room. Their campaign to destroy the reputation of a decent, good, highly ethical, man has backfired on them. They can no longer get away with distorting a judges record. With the internet, any distortion or misrepresentations are almost immediately exposed. A perfect example is the big dust-up between Arlan Specter and Ted "the Killer" Kennedy over the CAP records. They were alleged to contain the stake to drive through Judge Alito's heart. Teddy (the Killer) threw a "hissy fit" over getting access to the records, and once he got his way, the subject was uncerimoniously dropped.

This is just further proof that old threadbare, bankrupt, ideals and dishonesty won't carry the "Party of Roosevelt" very far these days.

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, I'm LOVING IT!

Full Story: Dem's Come Up Short...Again

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Is It Possible That Germany is Returning to Sanity?

Bush, Merkel Take Firm Stance Against Iran

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 13, 2006; 3:21 PM

President Bush and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today they are pursuing diplomatic efforts to get Iran to end a suspected nuclear weapons program that Bush said was "unacceptable" and a "grave threat" to world security.

After a lengthy private meeting in the White House, Bush and Merkel said they were working together to formulate a common approach to Iran by the world's major powers and were not yet ready to call for specific sanctions by the U.N. Security Council.

"I'm not going to prejudge what the United Nations Security Council should do," Bush told a joint news conference after the meeting. "But I recognize that it's logical that a country which has rejected diplomatic entreaties be sent to the United Nations Security Council."

He said the United States and other Western countries have "made it abundantly clear to the Iranians that the development of the know-how and/or a nuclear weapon was unacceptable. And the reason it's unacceptable is because Iran armed with a nuclear weapon poses a grave threat to the security of the world."

Merkel described as "totally unacceptable" recent Iranian statements on Israel and the Holocaust and said that "we will certainly not be intimidated by a country such as Iran." She referred to comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad calling for the annihilation of Israel and characterizing the Nazis' mass killing of Jews in the Holocaust as a "myth."

The meeting came a day after the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain and France said Iran should be referred to the U.N. Security Council for violating its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The ministers said protracted negotiations with Iran reached a dead end this week when the Iranians broke International Atomic Energy Agency seals on uranium enrichment equipment at a nuclear facility at Natanz in Isfahan province. Iran said it was merely resuming nuclear research, but the IAEA said Iran planned to enrich uranium. The process of enriching uranium can produce fuel for nuclear reactors as well as material for nuclear weapons.

Iran has threatened to end all cooperation with the U.N. agency if it is referred to the Security Council.

After his White House meeting with Merkel, Bush declined to answer questions directly about the kind of sanctions that might be sought against Iran or whether they should include the threat of force.

"What we're doing now is beginning to lay out the strategy of what happens in the Security Council," Bush said.

Countries such as China and Russia have their own opinions, Bush acknowledged. "Our job is to form a common consensus," he said. "Our job is to make it clear to all parties that it is in the world's interest that Iran not have a nuclear weapon."

Bush said that "we'll reach out to the Chinese and remind them, once again, that it's not in their interest or the world's interest for the Iranians to develop the capacity to . . . build a [nuclear] weapon and/or to possess a weapon."

Merkel said it is "absolutely crucial for the Iranians to see how serious we are about all of this." She added: "It does leave an impact if as large a number of nations in this world as possible makes it abundantly clear we are not accepting a stance that says, in effect, the right of existence of Israel is questioned. You're trying to lie to us, you're trying to cheat; this is something that we don't accept."

This is a mildly promising beginning. It would be nice to be able to counterbalance the Cowering French with a stand-up strong German Government. Merkel looks promising in this first encounter. Iran is the next biggest problem we have to face and it would help having Germany on our side since France appears to be turning into Arabia-North. We know that the Iranian people do not support their Islamicist Theocracy. If we could help them oust the Ayatollahs, Iran would probably be the next democratic state to appear in the Middle East.

Full Story: Is Germany Finally Awakening?

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Is Anybody Really Surprise by This?

Marash moves to Al-Jazeera news

BY VERNE GAY
STAFF WRITER NewsDay.com

January 13, 2006

Dave Marash, the veteran "Nightline" correspondent who left the program late last year, has landed at Al-Jazeera International, the new English-language news channel that will be spun off from Al-Jazeera later this spring.

Separately, former "Nightline" host Ted Koppel - who has already joined Discovery to produce documentaries - yesterday signed with National Public Radio as a senior news analyst starting in June. In addition, Koppel will be a contributing columnist for The New York Times, appearing periodically in the opinion and editorial section beginning Jan. 29, the paper announced yesterday.

Marash - who will be chief anchor and correspondent based in the 24-hour channel's Washington bureau - said yesterday, "I really don't know the [format] details yet," but that four hours each day would be devoted specifically to news out of Washington. He will also co-anchor a full-hour regular newscast from 7 to 8 p.m.; his co-anchor has yet to be appointed.

The Arabic-language Al-Jazeera - although hugely popular throughout the Arab world - was controversial for its alleged anti-U.S. bias since 9/11. "I don't think [the controversy] is entirely dead and gone," Marash said. "But conventional and, dare I say, informed opinion is that the channel is thoroughly respected."

Gee! I'm so surprised. An MSM correspondent is moving to Al Jazeera, the primary propaganda machine for Islamic Terrorism. My only surprise is that Ted Koppel didn't take the job. Now we can at least admit that the MSM is clearly anti-American and spends a majority of the Iraq War coverage undermining our troops moral and that of their families. I wouldn't be surprised if his reports are be carried by the network. Remember that Al Jazeera has been Osama bin Laden's chosen outlet for his communications efforts as well as that of Zarawahiri, and Zaraqawi. Not much mystery as to whose side the MSM is on.

Original Article: Osama's Newest Spokesperson

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Bob Barr's New Role: Dupe for Gore

Al Gore, Republican to Attack Bush 'Police State'

by Robert B. Bluey
Posted Jan 13, 2006

Former Vice President Al Gore will attack President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program at a Washington, D.C., speech on Martin Luther King Day—with a Republican by his side.

Gore is teaming up with former Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican, for the policy address, sponsored by the liberal MoveOn.org and libertarian Liberty Coalition. Barr is an outspoken critic of Bush on issues of national security. He led the drive to impeach President Bill Clinton, Gore’s partner in the White House for eight years.

“The speech will specifically point to domestic wiretapping and torture as examples of the administration's efforts to extend executive power beyond Congressional direction and judicial review,” according to a MoveOn.org press release. “The extent of bipartisan concern over these issues is highlighted by former Republican Rep. Bob Barr's introduction of the Vice President and by the organizations cosponsoring the speech.”

Gore’s speech marks the second time in two weeks he will make a sympathetic plea to Republicans. On Jan. 5, he appeared before a group of center-right activists at Grover Norquist’s popular Wednesday Group meeting to talk about global warming.

MoveOn.org made a last-minute offer Friday for tickets to Gore’s speech: “Don't worry if you get a waitlist ticket. We expect that everyone on the the waiting list will be able to get into the event, we just can't guarantee it.”

The speech will be held at DAR Constitution Hall, the same location Gore used for a Nov. 9, 2003, speech that denounced Bush and then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft for their “assault on civil liberties.”

This is why Republicans don't have a large enough Conservative presence in Congress to vote cloture on Democrat filibusters, their too stupid. I honestly thought Bob Barr would have more intelligence than this. I swear it boggles the mind. Republicans should know by now that you cannot trust Liberal Democrats to keep their bargains any more than we could trust the old Soviet Union to keep theirs. For Bob Barr to be so naive as to believe that this appearance is anything but an Al Gore for President 2008 campaign stop just boggles my mind.

Now I am sure that Bob Barr thinks he is doing what is right. He has long had real problems with the administrations "Patriot Act." That's perfectly alright. I too have some real problems with our sacrificing our freedoms for security, but there are appropriate venues for Conservatives to express themselves about these encroachments by the Executive Branch. George Will hasn't missed an opportunity to object, in no uncertain terms, to Administration policy. There are Republican members of Congress expressing the same misgivings as Mr. Barr, but for him to join with Al Gore, as if Al Gore has anything but his own self-promoting ambitions in mind is just plain stupid. Al Gore as President would be the first to usurp as much power as he felt necessary "for our own good."

Remember Bob, it was Al Gore who suggested raising taxes on gasoline so that prices would be so high that people would have to drive less. This to lower "greenhouse gases." It is Al Gore who would sacrifice the entire American economy by having us sign the Kyoto Accords out of his blind faith in the ever more discredited theory of human civilization driven "Global Warming." Al Gore is a Liberal, and that means he is pre-disposed to subjugate "the people" to the will of "the state." Yet you actually believe he is sincere in his opposition to administration policy? The only reason Al Gore is opposing this administrations policy is because it is George Bush's administration rather than Al Gore's. You are truly a fool.

Original Article: Bob's Folly

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Liberals Only Believe in stare decisis When It Supports Liberal Causes

Alito Seeks to Distance Himself From Previous Abortion Statements
Nominee Faces Senators in Second Day of Hearing

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 10, 2006; 11:48 AM

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., facing tough questioning on the second day of his Senate confirmation hearings, distanced himself today from a statement he made 20 years ago in opposition to abortion, saying he would approach the issue differently if it came before him as a Supreme Court justice.

But Alito said his 1985 statement -- that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion -- accurately reflected his view at the time, and he cautioned that the principle of respect for Supreme Court precedents is not "an inexorable command" binding justices in future rulings.

Alito, a federal appeals court judge nominated by President Bush to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, made the statements in response to questioning from the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a supporter of abortion rights.

Alito said he agreed "that the Constitution protects a right to privacy," the main underpinning of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationally. He also agreed with Specter that stare decisis, meaning to stand by that which is already decided, "is a very important doctrine" that must be considered.

Asked by Specter whether he regards a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade as a "super precedent," Alito demurred.

"I personally would not get into categorizing precedents as super precedents or super-duper precedents," he said. "Any sort of categorization like that sort of reminds me of the size of the laundry detergent in the supermarket." But he said that "when a precedent is reaffirmed, that strengthens the precedent."

However, Alito added, "Now, I don't want to leave the impression that stare decisis is an inexorable command, because the Supreme Court has said that it is not."

Alito said his 1985 anti-abortion memo was "a correct statement of what I thought" at the time, when he was an attorney in the Reagan administration.

"That was a statement that I made at a prior period of time when I was performing a different role, and as I said yesterday, when someone becomes a judge you really have to put aside the things you did as a lawyer at prior points in your legal career," Alito said.

If the issue were to come before him today, the first consideration would be precedent, he said. "If the analysis would get beyond that point, I would approach the question with an open mind," he said. He repeated his remark in his opening statement yesterday that a judge "doesn't have an agenda" and is obliged to follow the law.

Abortion rights groups have come out in strong opposition to the confirmation of Alito, arguing that he would become a key swing vote on a court that would then be more likely to strike down the right to an abortion.

Alito also came under persistent questioning on executive power, an issue that has come to the fore with a controversy over Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In response to questions from Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alito said that "no person in this country is above the law." But he said some issues related to executive powers fall into "a twilight zone" where presidential authority is at a low point.

Specter only believes in stare decisis when it suits them. If they truly believed in precedent, then they would be in favor of repealing Roe v. Wade. Whenever new law is created by the court, as it was in Roe v. Wade, it is a violation of stare decisis. What Democrats do in these hearings is despicable. The Supreme Court is supposed to be the least political branch of government. Ideally it should be completely apolitical. Yet the Democrats repeatedly insist on attempting to inject their political agenda into the discussion. Anytime a congressman calls for result oriented justice, he is calling for a political court. The interpretation of law must remain blind to results. If a certain result is desired, then it is the obligation of Congress, and only Congress to pass a law to achieve that result. We live in a democratically elected republic. If your agenda is embraced by a majority, then you can pass a law to achieve that end. If it is not then it is not the place of the courts to overcome the politician's inablility to pass the desired legislation and create law by judicial fiat. Democrat congressmen, being in the minority, are apparently unable to accept the fact that they do not have the "jets" to pass their agenda, so they want justices who support their agenda, rather than justices who support the law and Constitution.

Full Article: Democrat Hypocrisy: A Rule not an Exception

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Another Bogus Report from a Bogus Committee

Report Rebuts Bush on Spying
Domestic Action's Legality Challenged

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 7, 2006

A report by Congress's research arm concluded yesterday that the administration's justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments.

The Congressional Research Service's report rebuts the central assertions made recently by Bush and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales about the president's authority to order secret intercepts of telephone and e-mail exchanges between people inside the United States and their contacts abroad.

The findings, the first nonpartisan assessment of the program's legality to date, prompted Democratic lawmakers and civil liberties advocates to repeat calls yesterday for Congress to conduct hearings on the monitoring program and attempt to halt it.

The 44-page report said that Bush probably cannot claim the broad presidential powers he has relied upon as authority to order the secret monitoring of calls made by U.S. citizens since the fall of 2001. Congress expressly intended for the government to seek warrants from a special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before engaging in such surveillance when it passed legislation creating the court in 1978, the CRS report said.

The report also concluded that Bush's assertion that Congress authorized such eavesdropping to detect and fight terrorists does not appear to be supported by the special resolution that Congress approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which focused on authorizing the president to use military force.

"It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here," the authors of the CRS report wrote. The administration's legal justification "does not seem to be . . . well-grounded," they said.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has pledged to hold hearings on the program, which was first revealed in news accounts last month, and the judges of the FISA court have demanded a classified briefing about the program, which is scheduled for Monday.

"This report contradicts the president's claim that his spying on Americans was legal," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of the lawmakers who asked the CRS to research the issue. "It looks like the president's wiretapping was not only illegal, but also ensnared innocent Americans who did nothing more than place a phone call."

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the president and the administration believe the program is on firm legal footing. "The national security activities described by the president were conducted in accord with the law and provide a critical tool in the war on terror that saves lives and protects civil liberties at the same time," he said. A spokesman for the National Security Agency was not available for a comment yesterday.

Other administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the CRS reached some erroneous legal conclusions, erring on the side of a narrow interpretation of what constitutes military force and when the president can exercise his war powers.

Bush has said that he has broad powers in times of war and must exercise them to target not only "enemies across the world" but also "terrorists here at home." The administration has argued, starting in 2002 briefs to the FISA court, that the "war on terror" is global and indefinite, effectively removing the limits of wartime authority -- traditionally the times and places of imminent or actual battle.

Some law professors have been skeptical of the president's assertions, and several said yesterday that the report's conclusions were expected. "Ultimately, the administration's position is not persuasive," said Carl W. Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor and an expert on constitutional law. "Congress has made it pretty clear it has legislated pretty comprehensively on this issue with FISA," he said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "And there begins to be a pattern of unilateral executive decision making. Time and again, there's the executive acting alone without consulting the courts or Congress."

What a crock! Who are the people on this Congressional Research Service? What are their political backgrounds? What is their agenda? If their anything like the CBO, I would have very little faith in their opinion. Anybody who would use the word "impliedly" when they mean "implicitly" (yes I know it is listed as a word NOW but it is poor usage and a product of this new "education system") doesn't carry much weight with me. Illiteracy is a sign of poor intellect. There is plenty of information out there justifying this Administration's policy. I do not find any extraordinary or compelling reason to take this body's opinion as more valid than any others which have been expressed of late. The only people who will find this statement compelling are those who have been critical of President Bush from day one (like the Washington Post).

Full Story: Another BS Opinion from a "Non-Partisan" Congressional Service

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I Wonder If Bill Gates Helped the Chinese Government Jam Chen's Phone

Blind China activist under house arrest since Sept

Fri Jan 6, 2006 9:08 AM ET
By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - A blind activist in China and his family have been placed under house arrest for four months and he was beaten by thugs when he tried to venture out, after exposing forced abortions in his home province on the east coast.

Club-wielding goons believed to be hired by local authorities have been posted outside Chen Guangcheng's one-storey brick home in Dongshigu, a farming village in Shandong province, since September 6 to prevent him, his wife and 71-year-old mother from leaving, Chen said.

"China is lawless," the 34-year-old activist told Reuters by telephone. "They're worried I will expose more of their crimes."

"Do (President) Hu Jintao and (Premier) Wen Jiabao know? If they know, why have they not done anything?" Chen asked.

Authorities have jammed signals to and from Chen's mobile phone but they could not block calls on Friday due to a power failure. His home phone has also been cut.

Up to 30 people have been guarding Chen's house in each shift round the clock. The only visitor allowed is Chen's older brother.

Chen and his family have survived on food bought by the goons, who have beaten him at least twice when he tried to leave his home. He was denied medical treatment.

The goons once dragged Chen's 30-year-old wife, who gave birth to a girl last July, back into the house when she tried to go out, he said.

Chen's whistleblowing prompted the government to sack and detain several officials in Shandong's Linyi city, state media have said.

But Chen said he has not heard of any punishment.

Officials from Yinan county, which administers Dongshigu, forcibly brought back Chen to his home from a hiding place in Beijing last September.

Of course while this is going on, Bill Gates is busy shutting down bloggers in China who are blogging for freedom. Hey Bill, proud of yourself? Maybe the Chinese goverment is sending you private tapings of the beatings for you to enjoy. I tell you what, these two stories really make me want to by Microsoft products. Mr. Gates, you should be ashamed of yourself and you should be doing everything in your corporations power to assist those in China seeking more freedom, not assisting the Chinese government oppress them. SHAME ON YOU! Mr. Bill Gates.

Full Story: Chinese Repression Continues

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Microsoft Corporation Aids China in Repressing Its People

Microsoft Shuts Down Chinese Blog

By JOE McDONALD
Associated Press Writer
Jan 06 8:53 AM US/Eastern

BEIJINGMicrosoft Corp. has shut down the Internet journal of a Chinese blogger that discussed politically sensitive issues including a recent strike at a Beijing newspaper.

The action came amid criticism by free-speech activists of foreign technology companies that help the communist government enforce censorship or silence dissent in order to be allowed into China's market.

Microsoft's China-based Web log-hosting service shut down the blog at the Chinese government's request, said Brooke Richardson, group product manager with Microsoft's MSN online division at the company headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Though Beijing has supported Internet use for education and business, it fiercely polices content. Filters block objectionable foreign Web sites and regulations ban subversive and pornographic content and require service providers to enforce censorship rules.

"When we operate in markets around the world we have to ensure that our service complies with global laws as well as local laws and norms," Richardson said.

Richardson said the blog was shut down on Dec. 30 or 31 but wouldn't give any other details about the reason.

But the blog, written under the pen name An Ti by Zhao Jing, who works for the Beijing bureau of The New York Times as a research assistant, touched on sensitive topics such as China's relations with Taiwan. Last week, he used the blog to crusade on behalf of a Beijing newspaper.

Reporters at the Beijing News, a daily known for its aggressive reporting, staged an informal one-day strike after their chief editor was removed from his post. The editor's removal and the strike attracted comments on Chinese online bulletin boards, which censors then erased.

Online bulletin boards and Web logs have given millions of Chinese an opportunity to express opinions in a public setting in a system where all media are government-controlled.

But service providers are required to monitor Web logs and bulletin boards, erase banned content and report offenders.

Foreign companies have adopted Chinese standards, saying they must obey local laws.

Microsoft's Web log service bars use of terms such as "democracy" and "human rights." On the China-based portal of search engine Google, a search for material the Dalai Lama, Taiwan and other sensitive topics returns a message saying "site cannot be found."

Where is the outrage on this? Is this what we expect from an American Corporation? Has making money now come to mean more than supporting the kind of freedom which spawned the Microsoft Corporation? Mr. Gates, tell me could you have begun your Microsoft Corporation in China? Why isn't this a topic for national debate and reason for penalizing the Corporate management? I guess as a Liberal and Democrat, it's only natural that Mr. Gates is willing to suppress words like "democracy" and "human rights." I mean afterall their just words in our most important documents. Whey shouldn't Bill Gates carry the water for one of the most oppressive and murderous regemes in history. Bill's got his Billions, why should he help those unimportant losers in China? After all if they really wanted freedom they would move to America, right? This is disgusting and utter madness that it is a buried story.

Full Story: Bill Gates the Next Best Thing After Mao Tse Tung?

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Once More Into the Breech Dear Annie, Once More!

WHY WE DON'T TRUST YOU WITH NATIONAL SECURITY

by Ann Coulter
January 4, 2006

It seems the Bush administration — being a group of sane, informed adults — has been secretly tapping Arab terrorists without warrants.

During the CIA raids in Afghanistan in early 2002 that captured Abu Zubaydah and his associates, the government seized computers, cell phones and personal phone books. Soon after the raids, the National Security Agency began trying to listen to calls placed to the phone numbers found in al-Qaida Rolodexes.

That was true even if you were "an American citizen" making the call from U.S. territory — like convicted al-Qaida associate Iyman Faris who, after being arrested, confessed to plotting to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. If you think the government should not be spying on people like Faris, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

By intercepting phone calls to people on Zubaydah's speed-dial, the NSA arrested not only "American citizen" Faris, but other Arab terrorists, including al-Qaida members plotting to bomb British pubs and train stations.

The most innocent-sounding target of the NSA's spying cited by the Treason Times was "an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden." Whatever softening adjectives the Times wants to put in front of the words "ties to Osama bin Laden," we're still left with those words — "ties to Osama bin Laden." The government better be watching that person.

The Democratic Party has decided to express indignation at the idea that an American citizen who happens to be a member of al-Qaida is not allowed to have a private conversation with Osama bin Laden. If they run on that in 2008, it could be the first time in history a Republican president takes even the District of Columbia.

This article once more illustrates why the Lefties so hate Ann Coulter. No one makes a fool look more foolish than Miss Ann. I am constantly astounded by those who take the Democrats seriously. If incompetence had a national organization it would be the Democrat Party. Speaking of which, what's with California and their women politicians? It's like watching the Three Queens of Comedy: Diane (the straight man), Barbara (the moron), and Nancy (the shrill hyperbolist). And you people voted them in? It's no different in the rest of the party, the entire party leadership is like a parody. How can anybody take what they say seriously?

Full Editorial: Ann: Telling It Like It Is, One More Time

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Time For Pat Robertson's Frontal Lobotomy

Robertson Links Sharon Stroke, God's Wrath

By SONJA BARISIC
Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 5, 6:12 PM ET

NORFOLK, Va. - Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land."

"God considers this land to be his," Robertson said on his TV program "The 700 Club." "You read the Bible and he says `This is my land,' and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, `No, this is mine.'"

Sharon, who ordered Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year, suffered a severe stroke on Wednesday.

In Robertson's broadcast from his Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, the evangelist said he had personally prayed about a year ago with Sharon, whom he called "a very tender-hearted man and a good friend." He said he was sad to see Sharon in this condition.

He also said, however, that in the Bible, the prophet Joel "makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who 'divide my land.'"

Sharon "was dividing God's land and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU ( European Union), the United Nations, or the United States of America," Robertson said.

In discussing what he said was God's insistence that Israel not be divided, Robertson also referred to the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had sought to achieve peace by giving land to the Palestinians. "It was a terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless he was dead," he said.

The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement urging Christian leaders to distance themselves from the remarks. Robertson made similar comments as the Gaza withdrawal occurred, it said.

"It is outrageous and shocking, but not surprising, that Pat Robertson once again has suggested that God will punish Israel's leaders for any decision to give up land to the Palestinians," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the group, which fights anti-Semitism. "His remarks are un-Christian and a perversion of religion. Unlike Robertson, we don't see God as cruel and vengeful."

It is an unfortunate truth that we on the Right have our own share of hateful, small-minded, idiots, and Pat Robertson is one of them. I admit it, Robertson is a Right-wing Christian Conservative, and he probably votes the same way I do 90+% of the time. Yeah, so what? The mere fact that we have many of the same beliefs in no way implies that we have all the same beliefs. It has more to do with proving that you can be an idiot and still be right 90% of the time. When a man lifts himself up to the status of defining for the rest of us what is or is not God's intention, he at once departs from the level of humility necessary to spiritually connected. In my opinion, you cannot be spiritually connected and present yourself as God's spokesman at the same time...unless you are Jesus. Anybody can "carry the message" but as soon as you insert your own interpretation into events, you cease to be carrying the message and begin to place yourself in the role of Messiah. The two are irreconcilable.

Pat, sit down and shut up! You are making an ass of yourself...and in my opinion, you are blaspheming.

Oh yeah! Pat is not a spokesman for the Christian Right, he is a spokesman for a relatively small group of Christian fundamentalists and as asinine as his opinions may be, he is entitled to them. Expect the Left to claim him for the main-stream Right.

Sull Story: Idiot's to the Left of me, Idiots to the Right of me...

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Even Other Democrat Congressmen Know: Pelosi Unqualified

Robert Novak: House Democrats have major problem with minority leader

HOUSE MINORITY Leader Nancy Pelosi had just finished a floor speech shortly before the year-end adjournment when a very liberal member approached her second-in-command, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, and whispered in his ear: “Steny, is it not time for a coup?”

It obviously was not time to oust Pelosi and replace her with Hoyer. House Democrats do not get rid of their leaders with coups, as Republicans have during the last half-century. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with Pelosi’s performance is pervasive across the ideological spectrum. Her colleagues grumble that under her leadership, the party lacks focus and a clear agenda necessary to take advantage of Republican disarray.

This deficiency is referred to by some House Democrats as “the Nancy problem,” but it really transcends failings of their party leader. They remain tied to obsolete practices that freeze in place aged committee leaders. Their rhetoric betrays inability to free themselves from New Deal tax-and-spend policies. The Republican majority looks divided, out of gas and threatened by serious scandals. But Democrats fear they are ill-equipped to seize their opportunity.

The Democratic caucus vote that propelled Pelosi to power was cast Oct. 10, 2001, when Pelosi defeated Hoyer for party whip, 118 to 95. But the authenticity of that outcome always has been questioned inside the caucus because of the exaggerated influence by Pelosi’s fellow Californians. Thirty of the outsized California delegation’s 31 Democrats voted for Pelosi, some reluctantly. Minus them, Hoyer had a clear edge over Pelosi of 95 to 88.

Many Democrats inside and outside of Congress see the wrong person elevated as their House leader by accident of geography. It is hard to deny that Hoyer surpasses Pelosi in backroom strategy sessions, in floor debate or in television interviews. The man from southern Maryland seems a better voice for a party trying to expand its base than the woman from San Francisco.

Today’s gap between minority leader and minority whip is wide and visible. Hoyer is no conservative and delivers the partisan stemwinders expected of a party leader. But he also is unapologetically pro-business and pro-national defense, while Pelosi consistently runs in the opposite direction. Hoyer voted to go to war and for bankruptcy reform, while Pelosi was against both.

When Rep. John Murtha in effect called for immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, Pelosi in the secrecy of the party caucus embraced that dangerous political course. After two weeks of internal debate, Pelosi backed down to Hoyer’s position of effectively letting the House members individually pick their own way.

Gee, it only took the House Democrats four years to become disgruntled with the total incompetence of their leader Nancy "Stretch" Pelosi. Looking more like a deer caught in headlight than a sage and savvy political player, Pelosi's performances in public over the years have been laughable at best, disasterous when examined closely. She has been the but of Conservative jokes for years. I honestly hope Democrats don't rock the boat this year and she maintains her position, but if I were one of her colleagues I would be lobbying my fellow House Members to oust her.

Full Story: Is Nancy Out?

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Time For a New "Throw the Bums Out" Campaign

After Abramoff, a GOP Scramble
DeLay's House Colleagues Anticipate a Leadership Shake-Up

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 6, 2006; Page A01

An internal battle is underway among House Republicans to permanently replace Rep. Tom DeLay (Tex.) as majority leader and put in place a new leadership lineup that is better equipped to deal with the growing corruption scandal.

Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt (Mo.) will ask House Republicans to make his temporary tenure permanent early next month if, as is likely, DeLay is unable to clear his name in the gathering corruption and campaign finance scandals, according to a member of the GOP leadership and several leadership aides.

The move would almost certainly touch off a GOP power struggle between Blunt, whose rise to power was heavily aided by DeLay and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), and House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (Ohio), a former House leader who has been maneuvering for a comeback.

But other potential candidates could add unexpected twists, especially if rank-and-file Republicans decide that neither Blunt nor Boehner would present a fresh response to the corruption scandal triggered by Jack Abramoff, a GOP lobbyist with close ties to DeLay.

Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, recently said in an Internet chat that he had "no present intention of seeking any leadership position at this time" but that circumstances could change.

A potential bid by Pence, who has angered some members with what they consider grandstanding on a host of issues, has prompted some conservatives to reach out to the low-key Rep. John Shadegg (Ariz.) as an alternative. Rep. Zach Wamp (Tenn.) has announced his intention to run for a leadership post, saying yesterday that "the leadership of Congress needs to be above reproach." Other dark horses could emerge as members scramble for a consensus candidate.

Hastert appears secure in the speakership, despite his own ties to Abramoff-related fundraising and other activities. Abramoff's guilty pleas have renewed scrutiny of a letter the speaker sent to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton in June 2003 urging her to block a casino opposed by Abramoff's Indian tribe clients. The letter was sent just days after Abramoff's tribal clients contributed more than $20,000 to Hastert's political action committee at a fundraiser at Signatures, the swank restaurant the lobbyist owned at the time.

Abramoff's guilty pleas this week and pledge to cooperate with federal prosecutors in investigating members of Congress could significantly add to DeLay's legal problems. But the more immediate threat is the legal battle in Texas over his indictments on campaign finance violations. DeLay had hoped that the court battle with Travis County Prosecutor Ronnie Earle over the money-laundering charges would be well underway by now, if not over. Instead, the case is dragging on over multiple appeals and pretrial motions.

"I would have told you a month ago we'd be in trial by now, but that was before Ronnie Earle pulled his shenanigans with his frivolous appeals," said Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's lead attorney in the case.

Now, the Justice Department's bribery and corruption investigation has forced one former DeLay aide, Michael Scanlon, to plead guilty to corruption charges, while another, Tony C. Rudy, has been implicated in Abramoff's plea agreement.

Leadership aides and DeLay allies said that, in light of the Texas case and Abramoff's plea agreements, they now expect DeLay to soon renounce claims to the leadership post he was forced to relinquish under GOP House rules when he was indicted in September -- and certainly before a planned House Republican retreat on Feb. 9.

"The environment has changed. I don't even need to qualify that," said the GOP leadership member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he does not want to be seen as pressuring DeLay to step aside.

Once again we see the press ascribing the to the GOP alone, a patently false implication. What is becoming clearer and clearer is that there is a fundamental problem in Congress with incumbency and the "revolving door" of members of government who leave federal employment and then return to Washington as very highly paid lobbyists. We need a combination of term limits and full disclosure. Congressmen should have to reveal every single cent they receive and from whom they receive it, in a real time database. Congressmen should be limited to four, two-year terms in the House and two, six-year terms in the Senate.

Incidently, this business of members of Congress "returning" the monies received from Abramoff or his representatives and groups is total bunk. If these folks were serious in their desire to be absolved of guilt, they would not have waited until Abramoff pled guilty to do this. Any person of genuine character would have done so as soon as it became clear that these contributions were of a questionable nature. What they are doing now is just a smoke screen, and as such, disgusting. As far as I can see, no one in Congress has aquitted himself well in this.

Full Story: Term Limits Time

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Gingrich Pointing the Way for Republicans

When a Firebrand Burns His Bridges

By Dana Milbank
Thursday, January 5, 2006; Page A04

The fiery phrases and righteous anger were straight out of 1994. But this time, Newt Gingrich was turning his famous indignation on fellow Republicans:

"Cronies behaving as cronies!"

"Indifference to right and wrong!"

"A system of corruption!"

"Clean up this mess!"

A day after former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff's first guilty plea, the former House speaker was in the Hotel Washington yesterday, telling a group of Rotarians how rotten the capital has become -- and warning that the Republican Revolution is being betrayed.

"There are a series of behaviors, a series of attitudes, a series of crony-like activities that are not defensible, and no Republican should try to defend them," Gingrich fumed.

The ex-speaker is an imperfect messenger on such matters (he had to pay $300,000 in 1997 to settle ethics violations). But Republicans who remember how Gingrich vanquished the Democrats in 1994 with charges of corruption have reason to worry: His charge of cronyism echoes one of the Democrats' campaign slogans this year.

"It's very important to understand this is not one person doing one bad thing," he advised. "You can't have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member or a corrupt staff. . . . This was a team effort."

But will his former colleagues hear his warning? Gingrich's venue yesterday was decidedly second-tier. Vice President Cheney had booked the Heritage Foundation, so Gingrich joined the little-known Rotary Club of Washington, D.C., in the basement of the down-at-the-heels Hotel Washington in a ballroom scented strongly by pot roast and decorated with felt Rotary banners and balloons from a previous party.

The former speaker found himself in a meeting reminiscent of Fred Flintstone's gatherings at the Water Buffaloes Lodge. After the ringing of a bell, Gingrich was compelled to join hands in "the sacred Rotary wheel" and join in a Native American benediction praying to the "Great Spirit" for the "return of robins and other creatures." He declined to join Rotarians in singing "Hail to the Redskins," though he could not avoid drawing the raffle winner at the end.

It was an incongruous setting for the dire alarm the former speaker sounded, calling the scandal "central to the survival of the United States" and "a serious, profound challenge" to our system of government. "The Abramoff scandal has to be seen as part of a much larger and deeper problem," what the Founders would see as "a system of corruption," Gingrich said.

"The election process has turned into an incumbency protection process in which lobbyists attend PAC fundraisers to raise money for incumbents so they can drown potential opponents, thus creating war chests that convince candidates not to run and freeing up incumbents to spend more time in Washington PAC fundraisers. So, in effect, this city is building a wall of money to protect itself from America."

Gingrich's assessment was at odds with those of President Bush and GOP leaders in Congress.

Asked whether Bush worries about "a culture of favors" in Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan, at a briefing just after Gingrich's speech, replied: "Well, you're speculating based on facts that aren't known at this point."

In this case, Gingrich is right, and all those Republicans in disagreement are wrong. Being the party in power is NOT as important as being the party of high moral and ethical standards. It was those high ethical standards which won the House for Republicans for the first time in forty-seven year back in 1994, and if they lose the moral high ground now, they are no better than those Democrats who seek to replace them. I would rather be true to my ethical and moral standards than be in a majority. Historically it has been the province of the Left to believe that the ends justifies the means. That is a basic tenent of the Socialism. We Republicans must hold ourselves to a higher standard.

I believe it is time for Republicans to once more vote on, and this time adopt term limits for all members of Congress. I suggest four terms for Representatives and two for Senators. We don't need "experienced professional politicians," we need representatives of the people who are more interested in doing the work of the people than they are in getting re-elected.

By the way. Mr Milbank, once again allows his politics to trump the truth. Newt Gingrich did not "have to pay $300,000 to settle ethics violations," he agreed to reimburse the Committee $300,000 for the cost of prolonging the investigation. The payment was described as a "cost assessment" rather than a "fine" by the Committee.

Hey Dana, try sticking with the truth, it does a lot to help your rather shakey reputation for accuracy.

Full Story: Gingrich Get's It Right (Again)

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Go Cheney! You're Probably Correct on This

Cheney Cites Justifications For Domestic Eavesdropping
Secret Monitoring May Have Averted 9/11, He Says

By Jim VandeHei and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 5, 2006; Page A02

Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks might have been prevented if the Bush administration had had the power to secretly monitor conversations involving two of the hijackers without court orders.

As part of an effort to sell Americans on the administration's recently disclosed program to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant, Cheney told a small group of conservatives at the Heritage Foundation that instead of being able to "pick up" on the terrorist plot "we didn't know they were here plotting until it was too late."

But Cheney did not mention that the government had compiled significant information on the two suspects before the attacks and that bureaucratic problems -- not a lack of information -- were primary reasons for the security breakdown, according to congressional investigators and the Sept. 11 commission. Moreover, the administration had the power to eavesdrop on their calls and e-mails, as long as it sought permission from a secret court that oversees clandestine surveillance in the United States.

The bigger problem was that the FBI and other agencies did not know where the two suspects -- Cheney's office confirmed that he was referring to Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar -- were living in the United States and had missed numerous opportunities to track them down in the 20 months before the attacks, according to the Sept. 11 commission and other sources.

In his speech, scheduled as part of a White House offensive to defend the recently disclosed surveillance program, Cheney painted an ominous portrait of U.S. security without the controversial practice. Critics said the surveillance has been unconstitutional, carried out without explicit congressional approval or court oversight. The administration said it gained broad powers from a congressional resolution after Sept. 11.

Cheney said the National Security Agency program, combined with the expanded surveillance powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, has saved lives -- and thwarted terrorist attacks.

"No one can guarantee that we won't be hit again, but neither should anyone say that the relative safety of the last four years came as an accident," Cheney said. "America has been protected not by luck but by sensible policy decisions."

Under a secret order signed by President Bush after Sept. 11, the NSA was freed from its normal restraints and allowed to eavesdrop on the international communications of U.S. citizens and residents. Bush and other administration officials have said the spying has been limited to cases involving suspected al Qaeda associates here or overseas. "This wartime measure is limited in scope to surveillance associated with terrorists," Cheney said.

A few hours earlier, Bush met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top officials at the Pentagon and offered an optimistic appraisal of progress in Iraq and the broader terrorism fight. Bush highlighted the recent decision to slightly reduce troop levels in Iraq and suggested that additional withdrawals could come this year.

"Later this year, if Iraqis continue to make progress on the security and political sides that we expect, we can discuss further possible adjustments with the leaders of a new government in Iraq," Bush said. The White House is planning speeches in the next few weeks to highlight progress in Iraq and defend the spying program, which has come under heavy criticism from Democrats and some Republicans. The program is expected to be scrutinized in hearings later this month.

Cheney said if the administration had the power "before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon."

Even without the warrantless domestic spying program, however, the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies had important clues about the Sept. 11 plot and the hijackers before the attacks, according to media reports and findings by Congress and the commission.

Why is it Post reporters seem completely unable to report without expressing their opinions? It is not Jim VandeHei's or Dan Eggan's job to opine about what Vice President Cheney says. If they feel compelled to do so, they need to be on the Op-Ed page, not posing as reporters. The entire third paragraph is opinion and response to Cheney's statement. Why don't you allow the reader to form his own opinion? Consulting the court was not deemed a reasonable or necessary step in surveillance of this kind. The President's office has the inherrent power to do warrantless wire taps. It is opinion only that they must consult the court. Precedence supports the President's stance on this, not the complainers.

Full Story: Cheney Correctly Defends NSA Policy

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To quote the Major from Hogan's Heroes, "Heads Vill Roll!"

Bush to Give Up $6,000 In Abramoff Contributions

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 5, 2006; Page A01

Republican Party officials said yesterday that President Bush will give up $6,000 in campaign contributions connected to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, joining an expansive list of politicians who have shed more than half a million dollars in tainted campaign cash.

The announcement came as Abramoff pleaded guilty in a second criminal case, acknowledging that he conspired to defraud lenders in the purchase of a fleet of Florida casino boats five years ago. The court appearance in Miami came a day after Abramoff pleaded guilty before a federal judge in Washington to defrauding Indian tribe clients of millions of dollars, conspiring to bribe members of Congress and evading taxes.

Under plea agreements negotiated in the two federal cases, the once-powerful lobbyist promised to provide evidence and testimony in a wide-ranging Justice Department investigation of the lobbying of Congress and of federal agencies.

Fearful of the adverse political fallout from the expanding corruption investigation, Republicans in both houses of Congress moved forward with face-saving legislation to tighten lobbying regulations and to discourage dealings between lawmakers and influence-peddlers.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) called again for a limit on "pork-barrel" projects in annual spending bills, which Abramoff himself has called "favor factories."

And the conservative National Review -- a staunch defender of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in his fight against campaign finance charges in his home state -- urged the lawmaker to give up his bid to return to the GOP leadership, citing his close connections to Abramoff.

Republican leaders in Washington hope the legislative moves and campaign refunds will insulate their party as Abramoff begins cooperating with one of the largest congressional corruption investigations in decades.

"The problem is that power corrupts, and we simply have too much of it," Flake said.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that Bush does not know Abramoff personally, although the two may have met at holiday receptions.

Abramoff raised more than $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, making him an honorary Bush "Pioneer." But the campaign is giving up only $6,000, which came directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes the lobbyist represented. The money will be donated to the American Heart Association.

The gesture was criticized by the watchdog group Public Citizen, which called for an accounting of all the money that Abramoff had raised for the campaign.

"President Bush needs to . . . reveal just how much money Abramoff raised for him and who that money came from," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

Well, the Washington Post continues it's record of biased reporting. I note, scrupulously missing from the first 3/4 of this article is the mention of any Democrat recipients (and there were plenty) of Abramoff related funds. I believe in the principle, "Right is right, and wrong is wrong." If Republicans broke the law or allowed themselves to unduly influenced by the monies received, they need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law (with some degree of proportionality). By the same token, I believe that the same should be so for Democrats. From the reactions I have seen, the Democrats are consumed in the mentality of "Republicans did it!" while turning a blind eye to their own party.

My regret is that Republicans are scrambling to cover themselves and their fellows without regard to whether of not some are guilty. I have always believed that we Republicans should adhere to the highest ethical standards. It is obvious that I share that belief with the Washington Post staff, unfortunately they and the Democrat rank and file members apparently hold no such expectation of their Democrat leaders.

Full Story: More Post Bias in Abramoff Coverage

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President Bush Setting the Right Balance Between Security and Liberty

Bush Defends Spying Program As 'Necessary' to Protect U.S.
But President Acknowledges Civil Liberties Concerns

By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 2, 2006; Page A02

President Bush today mounted his third defense in two weeks of his secret domestic spying program, calling his order authorizing warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens a limited, legal program that Americans understand is protecting their security.

Taking questions from reporters after a brief stop at an Army hospital in San Antonio to visit wounded troops, the president acknowledged concerns that monitoring overseas telephone calls and e-mails of citizens with suspected ties to terrorism may violate civil liberties. But he called his directive to the National Security Agency (NSA) after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "vital and necessary" to protect the country.

"This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America, and I repeat limited," Bush said before flying back to Washington after six days cloistered on his ranch in Crawford, Tex. "I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking.

"If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why."

The president's first public comments of the new year after no public appearances last week offered a glimpse into how his administration intends to deflect congressional inquiries into his authorization of wiretaps on terrorism suspects -- with a vigorous defense of the program as a matter of national security. Bush acknowledged in a live radio address last month that he authorized the four-year-old surveillance program and defended it as "critical to saving American lives," a tool to prevent another attack on U.S. soil. Two days later, he defended the legality of domestic spying in a lengthy year-end news conference at the White House.

"It seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al Qaeda or an al Qaeda affiliate and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why," Bush said at the Brooke Army Medical Center, where he met with about 50 wounded soldiers, Marines and airmen and their families. He also awarded nine Purple Hearts to troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. "They attacked us before, they'll attack us again."

The NSA is empowered to monitor international telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens and residents without the warrant usually required by a secret foreign intelligence court. Government officials have said that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people have been under surveillance.

Questions about whether Bush overstepped his constitutional authority and violated a law intended to prevent the government from spying on its citizens without court approval are likely to be central to hearings planned this month by lawmakers, who stepped up their criticism today.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he supports a Senate investigation into who leaked classified information on the spying program. But he said the issue of whether the president skirted the law when he embarked on the program is more important than who leaked the information.

Schumer said today that he has sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) calling on him to request testimony from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and former attorney general John D. Ashcroft. Specter, who has expressed "grave" doubts about the program, has vowed to conduct hearings this month.

"I hope the White House won't hide behind saying, 'Oh, executive privilege, we can't discuss this,' " Schumer said on "Fox News Sunday." "That's the wrong attitude."

Along with the Senate, the Justice Department announced last week that it has opened a criminal investigation into disclosures about the domestic wiretaps, revealed last month by the New York Times. Today, Bush said the leaks could cause "great harm" to the United States. "There's an enemy out there."

The President is correct, there is an enemy out there and he has a lot of allies in America, particularly the Leadership of the Democrat Party. Chuck Schumer is dead wrong when he states that the question of whether or not the President over stepped his powers is more important than who leaked the story. A government which cannot maintain secrets in a time of war is crippled in its efforts to fight that war. The individual or individuals who leaked this information are traitors who have placed their political agenda above the security of our nation and our people.

Full Story: Time to Find the Traitors

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