ONE year before the invasion of Iraq, Australia's then ambassador to the United Nations, John Dauth, confidentially told AWB's former chairman, Trevor Flugge, that the Howard Government would participate in military action with the US to overthrow Saddam Hussein, new AWB documents reveal.--story
The LAT reveals on Page 1 that even though KB Home Chief Executive Bruce Karatz was forced to leave the company as a result of a stock-option controversy, he still stands to get as much as $175 million in severance pay
attribution
According to Steffen Schmidt, professor of political science at Iowa State University, the president and Republicans will prevail on Dick Cheney to resign as vice president and install Condoleezza Rice. This will position her for the 2008 nomination.
According to WHO's Jan Mikelson, Iowa has gone blue. Hillary Clinton has been governing as a moderate. She will concede Iowa to Vilsack. She won't have to campaign far enough left to win the Iowa caucuses. Then, she goes on as a moderate to take the '08 nomination in the broader contest.
Sweet, huh? First woman prez, guaranteed.
- Bryan Healy, Newton.
attribution
At the White House the Iranian President is even named Hitler.--INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE
Once again, the Iowa Family Policy Center, in its continual choral rant against gay marriage, asserts that New Jersey Supreme Court justices have exceeded their power. ("New Jersey Supreme Court usurped power of elected lawmakers," Nov. 4 letter).- Kathy Collins Reilly, Des Moines.
Tsk. Tsk. What we don't teach in school these days.
A reminder: The three branches of government each have their own power. The legislative branch makes laws, the administration enforces laws and the courts interpret the law, including the state's constitution. When a legislative act is at odds with one or more aspects of the Constitution, the constitutional provision prevails.
The New Jersey Supreme Court, in interpreting its own state constitution, concluded that such a provision for equal rights for all citizens trumps a "gays can't get married in N.J." law. That is what those "unelected, unaccountable, black-robed tyrants" are entitled to do.
The writer said this use of the courts is not what the founding fathers had in mind, and it borders on striking "We the People" from the Constitution. Not so. "We the People" still have power - to amend the state constitution.
WASHINGTON - Democrats wrested control of the Senate from Republicans Wednesday with an upset victory in Virginia, giving the party complete domination of Capitol Hill for the first time since 1994.--full story
USA Today leads with the federal government increasing its efforts to prevent prisoners in the United States from becoming terrorists while they are behind bars. Prison officials are being urged to conduct more stringent background checks on employees and volunteers who may have direct contact with prisoners. In addition, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are asking prison officials to train their staff to be on the lookout for those who might be turning to extremist activity.--story
Over the past several days, voters throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia have filed complaints of incidents aimed at suppressing voter turn out in heavily Democratic and African American neighborhoods. Today, the Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections Jean Jensen concluded that the incidents appear widespread and deliberate.--story
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- While half of New Jersey voters agree with the state Supreme Court that homosexual couples should receive the same rights as heterosexuals, just one in four think gay unions should be called marriages, according to a new poll.--story
Reports of GOP voter supression efforts are coming in from all around the country, in local, state, and federal races. Here are a few samples:
CLEVELAND -- A problem has been discovered with the optical scanner in connection with one race at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Friday afternoon.--story
During a test using an optical scanner, officials discovered that the machine was providing incorrect election results for the race for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
BOE officials said this is just one race out of hundreds in which a problem has been found.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The Rev. Ted Haggard agreed to resign Saturday from his New Life Church after its independent investigative board recommended removal, saying he was guilty “of sexually immoral conduct.”--story
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three years after he gave himself up to American soldiers without firing a shot, Saddam Hussein may be condemned to hang on Sunday if an Iraqi court finds him guilty of crimes against humanity.--story
A male prostitute alleges that he had a three-year relationship with prominent right-wing evangelical leader Ted Haggard, who has said that homosexuality is a "sin" and "devastating for the children of our nation and for the future of Western civilization." ... He claims to have recorded voicemails and a letter from Haggard, and that he had also witnessed Haggard use methamphetamine.--more
An Issaquah school bus driver fired for allegedly "flipping off" President Bush during a visit to Seattle in June is appealing her termination.--story
According to Issaquah School District officials, the incident happened when a district school bus stopped for the president's motorcade while returning from a field trip in Seattle. As the president waved to the school children from his limousine, the bus driver made an obscene gesture, said Sara Niegowski, a spokeswoman for the district.
Habeas corpus, dating back to 1215, was a major victory against the English monarchy and is considered by many to be the first major step in making England a democracy.attribution
But President Bush, to fight terrorism, is chipping away at the very freedoms that make our country great.
"All men are born with certain inalienable rights" said our founding fathers. President Bush thinks they forgot to add "except when George Bush says otherwise."
Doug Williams, Clive.
Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding--story
Supreme Court of New Jersey's holding: "Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed samesex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to samesex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process."--decision
In the Register's Sept. 28 editorial, "Torturing American Values," you allude to the belief that our principles of justice set us apart from others who do not take our principles seriously.
Any competent student of history can point to numerous instances when we didn't take these principles very seriously either.
Our numerous broken treaties with the many and various Native American peoples can attest to this fact. We also had to fight the Civil War in order to free the slaves, long after most other advanced countries of the world outlawed the practice.
- Richard Crosser, Iowa Falls.
Since the election season started, your editorial page has continuously gone downhill in quality. Everyone knows that your ideology slants sharply to the left. You support the Democratic Party with rare exceptions. We have learned to live with your bias, but the quality of your editorial page is dismal and unacceptable.--attribution
his name is james e. wise, from des moines.
Hooray for David Yepsen - he hit the nail on the head. In his Oct. 10 column, he correctly defines the current political ads and suggests eight alternatives that make a lot of sense ("Culver, Nussle Need to Develop New Game Plans"). I bet there are tens of thousands of central Iowa voters who agree.
Pay attention, Jim Nussle, Chet Culver, Jeff Lamberti and Leonard Boswell. There is a lesson there for all of you to learn and learn quick. Kudos to Yepsen and the Register.
Democrat Deval Patrick has a commanding 27-point lead in the governor's race as independent voters abandon Republican Kerry Healey because of her negative attacks, according to a new poll released today by 7NEWS and Suffolk University.--stpru
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in the war on terror, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Monday.--story
The WP mentions a news conference held by the United Nations investigator on torture where he said some countries try to invalidate criticism of how they handle detainees by pointing out they are merely following the example set by the United States. "Today, many other governments are kind of saying, 'But why are you criticizing us; we are not doing something different than what the United States is doing,' " he said.
--story
WASHINGTON - Chris Carney wasn't in Congress in 2002, never voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war in Iraq and yet the Pennsylvania Republican Party accuses the Democrat of helping to start the war.
"Chris Carney failed our nation once ... now Chris Carney attacks the same war he helped start," reads the mailing sent to voters. "Don't give Chris Carney the chance to fail us again."
Carney, a former intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, is challenging Republican Rep. Don Sherwood. A lieutenant commander in the Navy reserves, Carney dismissed the mailing as a sign of desperation and argued that Bush - with Congress' blessing - took the country to war.
Sherwood voted to give the president the authority to use military force to oust Saddam Hussein.
"How can they dare attack my service? The accusation is that I'm responsible for the war. That is ridiculous," Carney said. "The intelligence community consists of 16 different agencies. I was but one voice in one agency."
--story
The brain may function, but in the service of promoting incompetence, vainglory, greed, and corruption.
The mouth may move, but the words are dead and empty.
The heart may beat, but it is lifeless.
Exploiting blocs of religious voters, Rove has no faith himself. Vicious in "victory," vindictive in mind-set, Rove has helped midwife what could well be the nadir of America's role in the world. The country remains a superpower, but the groundwork is laid for unspeakable disaster -- in the form of massive debt, national security risks, societal upheaval -- that is already evident in some areas.
There's a difference between success and getting what you want, and it would appear most in the Bush administration are oblivious to that fact, perhaps Rove most of all.
History will judge this empty and loathsome man very harshly indeed.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley made friends with a wide circle of teenaged House of Representatives pages, then singled out "hot" boys to write to, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The newspaper said it had identified four more former pages who said they were sexually solicited by Foley, who has resigned since the scandal broke last month.
One former page, who was not identified, said Foley sent him e-mails when he was 16 asking about "my roommates, if I ever saw them naked." Later, the former page said Foley hinted about a job opportunity "because I was a hot boy," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Two years later, the page, now 22, said, he wrote Foley to ask about hotels in Washington. "You could always stay at my place. I'm always here, I'm always lonely, and I'm always up for oral sex," he quoted the disgraced former member of Congress as saying.
--story
"Somehow, the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated. Somehow, nobody is accountable for this."ESPN
--Kevin Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman
Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.
Immediately after Bush signed the act into law Tuesday, the Justice Department sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asserting the new authorities and informing the court that it no longer had jurisdiction over a combined habeas case that had been under consideration since 2004. The U.S. District Court cases, which had been stayed pending the appeals court decision, were similarly invalid, the administration informed that court on Wednesday.
The administration's persistence on the issue "demonstrates how difficult it is for the courts to enforce in the face of a resolute executive branch that is bound and determined to resist it," said Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor involved in the detainee cases.
--story
Iraq, said the speaker, is "a setback. You can't sugar-coat that. We've reached a point where we've got to get real. This is not going to be a near-term success for American foreign policy. The Iraq situation's not winnable in any meaningful sense of the word 'winnable.' So what the United States needs to do now is look for a way to limit the losses and costs."--story
This wasn't just any old armchair observer talking on Thursday. It was Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the President's foreign policy team. Haass worked for Ronald Reagan, for Bush's father and, as the policy planning boss at State under Colin Powell during Bush's first term. By virtue of his post at CFR, he is as close as you can come these days to the voice of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
What no one seems to want to report is that Tom DeLay promised the garment industry in the Marianna Islands that the government would stay out of their sweat-shop affairs. DeLay got Abramhoff to get Mehlman to make sure the right guys were in control. That’s because the garment industry of the Islands had basically kidnapped Asian woman who paid a price to get to the United States for work. Since the Marianna’s are a US commonwealth, the garment industry can technically put “Made in the USA” labels on their products, but in reality, the garments are made in mediocre-paying sweat shops by captive labor who are also forced into prostitution and also forced to get abortions if they get pregnant. This is what DeLay, Mehlman, Abramhoff and company were getting paid to protect. Let’s get that story out, please.--story
Bush's wishful-thinking model of policy-planning appears not to be exclusive to the Iraq war, according to the Post, which buries this detail deep down in the story: "Bush has been preparing his post-election agenda in a series of meetings, sitting down one-on-one with nine members of his Cabinet in the past month to review ideas. Bush insists that the sessions not consider a victory by Democrats, participants said."
--story
NEW YORK Vice President Dick Cheney, as he is wont to do during difficult times for the administration, appeared on Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show today, where he declared that the current government in Iraq is "off to a good start" and "they're doing remarkably well." Americans are concerned, however, because the war, which began in March 2003, "wasn't over instantaneosly," he explained.--story
During a panel discussion about the role of teenage congressional pages in the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) on the October 14 edition of Fox News Watch, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas declared that congressional pages "have been painted as some kind of virginal, hermetically sealed young people" by "the media," when if "[y]ou talk to the Capitol Police, as I do," the "untold story" is "there are a lot of these kids, including female pages, who undress in front of windows with the shades up and who -- who cavort in the pool topless and naked." Thomas added: "[T]here's been no media reporting on who all of these pages are."
--story
Shortly after the Mark Foley scandal blew up, Speaker Dennis Hastert boasted to Rush Limbaugh that there was no knocking him off stride -- he was planning to campaign in thirty different districts in the month preceding the election.--story
DES MOINES, Iowa - House Majority Leader John Boehner on Friday accused Democrats of endangering House pages for political gain.--source
Boehner, speaking at a campaign event for 3rd District Republican candidate Jeff Lamberti, said Democratic operatives have known about inappropriate e-mails sent by former Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, to young male pages for some time. He said Democrats had been shopping the information around Washington as a political ploy.
"Someone who had this information allowed those 16-year-old pages to be at risk while they were playing their political games," said Boehner, R-Ohio. "I do not believe thus far that Republicans knew about these sexually explicit instant messages."
Boehner, a 16-year veteran of the House, found himself at the center of the page scandal when he claimed to have talked with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, about improper contact between Foley and the pages.
Hastert said he doesn't recall the conversation with Boehner.
