Week Starting
May 14th 2006
Vermont becomes the third state in a year in which gender-identity anti-bias laws pass through legislatures only to be vetoed by a GOP governor.
Five particularly homophobic officials from India, the Netherlands, Russia, Nigeria and the good old U.S. of A. earn Human Rights Watch's scorn.
"See ya!" shouts a furious Russ Feingold to the leader of the Judiciary Committee after members vote to send a marriage ban to the full Senate.
More Bad News on Electronic Voting
Last week The New York Times and others reported on new concerns about Diebold touch screen voting machines. According to The Times:
"Computer scientists who have studied the vulnerability say the flaw might allow someone with brief access to a voting machine and with knowledge of computer code to tamper with the machine's software, and even, potentially, to spread malicious code to other parts of the voting system."
How many times do elections officials need to be warned about the serious problems with these machines? This is unacceptable. It is clear that all voting systems must produce a voter verifiable paper record. It is vital that audits which compare the paper records to the computer tallies be mandatory. If the machine malfunctions or there is tampering, we need to know.
What is Congress doing? Nothing. Right now HR 550, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act the bill, which would take care of these problems, is languishing in committee. The bill has 186 cosponsors, more support than most bills voted on in the House.
Call your Representative today. To find out who your Representative is Go Here.
On May 3, the federal government stopped granting security clearances to private-sector workers. The Defense Security Service (DSS), which grants the clearances, has a backlog of 3,000 applications, which take 12 to 24 months to process, a delay that experts say it "will undermine national security if it continues." Companies contracted by the government "will have to give unclassified pieces of classified projects to employees who aren't cleared" and "will have to pay more to attract and retain cleared employees, and they might be forced to settle on workers who don't have the desired skill." While DSS has charged that it needs more money from Congress, a new Government Accountability Office report ( PDF ) finds that the entire process has been disrupted because the Pentagon decided to back out of a deal. Last year, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) took over the security-clearance process from the Department of Defense, which "had made a royal mess of it." The Pentagon agreed to pay OPM a 25 percent premium on top of the costs for issuing the clearances. But in the end, the Pentagon decided it wouldn't pay. To date, there has been no resolution, although the Pentagon has announced that it has found funds to resume low-level clearances.
Kick the Oil Habit
The Senate Intelligence Committee this morning began hearings on the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While heading the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1999 to 2005, Hayden orchestrated a radical shift in the relationship between the intelligence community and the American public, one that occurred without any meaningful national debate or congressional oversight. Today's hearings represent a critical opportunity to move that debate forward. Hayden needs to fully explain his beliefs on several issues, including the legal opinions that govern the NSA's warrantless wiretapping and telephone data mining programs, the amount of latitude the intelligence community should be granted to pursue suspected terrorists, and what powers he believes are necessary for the CIA in this effort. Hayden has built a reputation as a capable manager, yet his record also demonstrates a willingness to aggressively assert himself into political debates and to shirk the mandates of congressional oversight. To be confirmed as CIA Director, Hayden must acknowledge these errors and pledge to rigorously avoid politicization and improper secrecy in his new position.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Supports Legislation to Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has joined 115 Members of Congress in supporting legislation to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel. Congresswoman Pelosi announced her support for The Military Readiness Enhancement Act (H.R. 1059) following a Capitol Hill lobby day organized by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN).
“Congresswoman Pelosi has joined a growing Congressional coalition who support strengthening national security, and guaranteeing equal opportunity for our men and women in uniform, through the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’” said SLDN executive director C. Dixon Osburn. “Congresswoman Pelosi’s home district of San Francisco ranks third in the nation for its per capita population of lesbian and gay veterans. Her support of repeal legislation honors their service and the service of 65,000 lesbian and gay Americans on duty today. Congresswoman Pelosi is a leading ally of the LGBT community, and we are proud to have her fighting for an end to discrimination in our armed forces.”
Congressman Marty Meehan (D-MA) introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act in March 2005. The legislation would repeal the military’s prohibition on open service by lesbian, gay and bisexual recruits and replace it with a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Since 1993, more than 10,000 men and women have been discharged under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law at a cost of at least $363.8 million, according to a study from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
As former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), Hayden developed President Bush's illegal program of warrantless domestic spying. He was the program's "principal architect," according to The New York Times. And while managing the NSA, Hayden failed to follow federal law and the Constitution. He demonstrated a disturbing lack of judgment in administering a program knew was illegal – all because of pressure from President Bush. This record makes him unfit to lead the CIA. By rejecting his nomination, the Senate can protect the rule of law and show zero tolerance for government officials who break the law.
The proposed budget for our national parks for FY07 is the worst its been in years. This year's budget request of $2.15 billion is $100 million below the Park Service's current budget. Even the request for park operations does not cover fixed costs, whoucl could great impact visitor services and resource protection. This drastic cut in the Park Service budget con construction, maintenance and repair will hinder the ability of the Park Service to address the backlog plaguing so many of our national parks.
Incredibly enough, after 16 months during which members agreed on little more than refusing to meet, the House ethics committee has suddenly decided to launch investigations into a few members of Congress who are already under federal investigation for possible corruption.
We have one of the most indicent, immoral party controlling our government at this time....yet they want to spend time, tax payer's money and make a change in the Constitution to further push their right-wing, christian fundamental way of thinking, both seperating people and making it legal to make prejudism the "law" in America.
I wonder what Mary Cheney has to say about all this?
Each week, Senator Frist and the Republican Leadership make choices about the Senate agenda. They could focus our work on record high gas prices, the war in Iraq, or skyrocketing health care costs. But there's an ugly truth: it's election season and down-in-the-polls Republicans are turning to their same old playbook - fear and division. During the week of June 5th, Bill Frist, in an attempt to appease extreme right wing elements of the Republican Party, has promised that the Senate will vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment and attempt to write discrimination into the Constitution for the first time in 230 years. This divisive and unnecessary amendment that would undermine the Constitution has overwhelmingly failed each time the Senate has voted on it. We don't need another Terri Schiavo moment where we spend valuable time away from the important work that needs to be done. Now, more than ever, it's time to focus on security, solutions for the high cost of healthcare and gas prices. We need a President and a Congress that doesn't play divisive politics. At a time of war, Republicans should unite the country, not divide and undermine its founding principles.
Hollywood put out a green welcome mat Tuesday for former Vice President Al Gore and his film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." A longtime advocate for the environment, Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in the film, which is intended as a rallying cry to protect the planet. "It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely," said Gore.
The Center for Biological Diversity, along with more than one hundred environmental groups across the country, is strongly opposing Dirk Kempthorne's nomination to be the next Secretary of the Interior. As a former senator and current governor of Idaho, Kempthorne has established an abysmal record on protecting endangered species, habitat and public lands – the very duties of this job. Right now senators are forming their decisions on whether or not to approve his nomination, and it is essential that they hear from citizens who care about wildlife and wild places. Please contact your senators today and urge them to oppose Dirk Kempthorne's nomination!
The polar bear, the Arctic's top predator and an icon of the north, is threatened with extinction because global warming is rapidly melting the sea-ice habitat on which this magnificent creature depends. The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list polar bears under the Endangered Species Act in February 2005. The Fish and Wildlife Service has found that listing "may be warranted," and has requested comments from the public. Please use the form below to submit your comments today!
The New Jersey lawyers who filed the federal suit against Verizon in Manhattan yesterday, Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, said they would consider filing suits against BellSouth and AT&T in other jurisdictions. "This is almost certainly the largest single intrusion into American civil liberties ever committed by any U.S. administration," Mr. Afran said. "Americans expect their phone records to be private. That's our bedrock governing principle of our phone system." In addition to damages, the suit seeks an injunction against the security agency to stop the collection of phone numbers.
During a six-week span in 2002, four soldiers from Fort Bragg were accused of killing their wives. Three of them committed suicide. While the Army officials who investigated the cases said the killings were likely "due to existing marital problems and the stress of separation while soldiers are away on duty," many believe the true cause may have been Lariam, an anti-malaria drug. The drug has been given to over 20 million people, including U.S. soldiers, since it was approved in 1989. Three of the four soldiers who killed their wives, and later committed suicide, also took Lariam. The drug is known to cause neuropsychiatric side effects, including nightmares, depression, hallucinations, paranoia, psychosis and aggression. Internal documents from the drug's maker, Roche pharmaceuticals, even show that they have received over 3,000 reports of such psychiatric problems linked to the drug. "The military is drawing the wrong conclusion from those deaths," said public health specialist Sue Rose. "The true cluster, the true group you want to look at are those men who took Lariam, and of the men who took Lariam, who all served in Afghanistan, all three of them killed their wives and subsequently committed suicide." Others in the military community, as well as civilians, have experienced psychotic effects from the drug. Former Green Beret John Lown said his unit called the days they took Lariam "manic Mondays or wild Wednesdays," according to a CBS New report.
When someone is insisting on counting your votes in secret -- then you've got a problem.
To quickly grasp why your vote doesn't count anymore, and how we can restore honest voting, these few articles are a good beginning point, but also provide a fairly complete understanding of the basic issue.
An Anita Bryant-style "Save the Children" campaign is making a comeback both in the U.S. and Canada, says an authority on gay parenting.
The governor says he'll call a special legislative session if the Georgia Supreme Court doesn't act on this week's gay-friendly ruling by Aug. 7.
Proposed National Park "Richest of the Rich" in Terms of Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Threatened by Logging.
Illegal immigration -- and America’s efforts to control it -- has taken a heavy toll on America’s border wildlife. But this week we have a chance to do something to protect the jaguars, wolves and other wildlife along our borders. The Senate is now considering its immigration bill, and you can help ensure that wildlife is protected. Please call your Senators and urge them to support wildlife-sensitive border security. About half of the land along the Mexican border and a quarter of the land along the Canadian border are federal and tribal lands.
While the Democrats have a few of their own ethics problems, one can hardly read the newspaper every day without coming upon new examples of Republican operatives and elected officials who are neck deep in corruption - and don't see anything wrong with it. How about the case of a Republican political director who was charged today for criminal acts involving a plan to jam Democratic phone lines during the 2002 election in New Hampshire? Rather than condemning him or distancing themselves from him, the RNC is actually paying nearly $3 million of his legal bills!
Global warming poses an ever-growing threat to the earth’s biodiversity. The United States is the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, producing one-quarter of worldwide emissions. Public understanding of this urgent problem is growing, and pressure is building on Congress to take action. Now we need your help to advance this campaign to the next level!
The Verde made the list because the City of Prescott and Town of Prescott Valley plan to build a pipeline and divert water from its supporting aquifer, paving the way for further development. But the inclusion of the Verde River on the America's Most Endangered Rivers list presents a unique opportunity to change the course of the river's future. Please take a moment to join thousands of others who are contacting decision-makers and spreading the word about the Verde River. Action by citizens like you could make the difference for its future.
Four proposed hydroelectric dam projects threaten free-flowing rivers, rare tropical species, indigenous cultures and a biologically diverse World Heritage Park in the remote rainforest of western Panama. Promoted by the Panamanian government and major Columbian and U.S. corporations, the dam projects would forever alter the free-flowing rivers of the Changuinola basin.
"The Garden of Paradise" is a name local people have used for 200 years to describe the Lagodekhi, a mountainous nature reserve in
eastern Georgia, which boasts staggering landscapes and unique plants and animals. Now locals say this paradise is under threat from
intensive poaching.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted. The landmark legislation protects fundamental civil rights and ensures that all Americans have the right to participate in democratic elections. It is crucial that provisions of the VRA set to expire at the end of 2007 not be allowed to lapse.
The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, commonly known as hate crimes legislation, would combat the destructive psychological and physical impact of hate crimes by protecting every American community from illegal and morally reprehensible acts of violence. This legislation would promote increased cooperation between local, state and federal authorities to ensure that hate crimes offenders are brought to justice. In addition, this bill would broaden the definition of hate crimes to include all violent acts motivated by an individual’s race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, or disability status. On September 14, the hate crimes language passed in the House of Representatives as an amendment to the Sex Offender Registration bill. The Senate is now considering its own version of the Sex Offender legislation (S.1086), and a potential amendment to the bill including the hate crimes language.
Hamas—a terrorist organization committed to destroying Israel through brutal violence—is about to form the Palestinian Authority’s government. Most Members of Congress are home in their districts for this week’s recess. This is the perfect time to emphasize to them that the United States must remain firm in its commitment not to support the Palestinian Authority, nor otherwise carry on business as usual, while the PA is dominated by Hamas. The Palestinian Anti-terrorism Act of 2006—now pending in both houses of Congress—would restrict U.S. assistance to, or other engagement with, the Palestinian Authority while its leadership includes an unreformed Hamas. The legislation allows continued basic food and health assistance for the Palestinian people, via non-governmental organizations. The legislation would help assure that our country does nothing to prop up a Hamas-based regime, nor to enable Hamas to advance its violent, fanatical agenda.
Millions of people are currently living in the shadows throughout the United States, unable to access fundamentals such as health care and education. Moreover, the fact that we do not know who is entering or has entered our country presents a security risk for our country. As Congress considers legislation to replace our current broken immigration laws, a comprehensive approach is the only effective way to fix the flawed system and protect our homeland security. Comprehensive reform would increase our national security through enhanced border protections and effective enforcement, while also protecting immigrants and integrating them into our society through earned legalization and increased worker protections.
Last night when every politician in Washington was looking for a television camera to add their commentary to the immigration "debate," and most Washington reporters were trying to figure out whether Karl Rove will be indicted this week, little attention went to what could turn out to be the most significant story of the day. That should change when journalists wake up to the fact that they have apparently become the latest targets of the administration's eavesdropping.
Americans are fed up with big money dominating and corrupting the political process. Voters are fed up; community organizations are fed up; even most politicians locked in the endless fundraising chase are fed up.
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Farm workers who pick tomatoes for McDonald's hamburgers and Chipotle's burritos earn about 45 cents for every 32-pound container of tomatoes they pick, working from dawn to dusk without the right to overtime pay. That means they have to pick more than 3,500 pounds of tomatoes to earn $50. The 45-cent piece rate has not changed in nearly 30 years. Annual income for farm workers is extremely low--averaging $7,500 to $10,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The vast majority of these farm workers receive no benefits: no health insurance, no sick leave and no vacation pay. Some families live in 10-foot by 10-foot rooms and pay $160 a week in rent, while McDonald's earns huge profits--$2.28 billion last year.
Big Oil is drilling off our coasts in waters owned by all Americans, without paying royalties—costing us as much as $80 billion in lost revenue. A key House committee adopted language that, if signed into law, would help end Big Oil’s royalty rip-off. Please take a moment to write your Representative. Urge him or her to oppose any attempts to remove language ending Big Oil’s royalty rip-off from the Interior bill.
Now is a critical time for civil rights in our nation: Congress is poised to reauthorize the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA). The House could vote on its bill to reauthorize the VRA, H.R. 9, as early as this week. This bill must pass as drafted to ensure the continued protection of the voting rights of all Americans! Key provisions of the Voting Rights Act will expire in 2007 unless they are renewed by Congress. These essential provisions protect minority voters from discrimination, assist citizens who are not native English speakers in casting informed ballots, and provide for federal election observers. A bipartisan, bicameral bill has been introduced that would reauthorize the expiring temporary provisions of the VRA, “The Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006” (H.R. 9 and S. 2703). There is bipartisan support to pass this legislation this year, but your Representative in Congress needs to hear from you!
In the next few days, the House of Representatives will decide whether or not to expose our beautiful coasts and marine wildlife to the perils of offshore drilling when they vote on the Interior and Environment Appropriations bill. Expanding offshore drilling is a short-sighted policy that would industrialize our coastline, threaten marine mammals, and threaten coastal communities and economies. Offshore drilling would do nothing to ease our energy crunch or lower prices at the pump. Any new natural gas that was discovered wouldn’t come on line for at least SEVEN years! We can’t drill our way out of this problem. We need REAL energy solutions, not more drilling and giveaways to ExxonMobil. We consume 25% of the world's oil, yet we sit on just 3% of world reserves. The US can never drill our way to energy independence. Rather than offering up our last special places for more drilling, we need to focus on real energy solutions like efficiency, renewable energy and conservation.
When a forest has been burned, the best thing for recovery is to leave it alone. Commercial logging activities after events like forest
fires impede recovery, causing erosion, decreased water quality, compacted soils, and the elimination of the very nutrients a forest will
need to recover. But Congress will soon vote on a bill introduced by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) which runs directly against this scientific consensus, and would fast-track logging projects all across America in the name of forest recovery. The bill also disregards important protections for clean water and wildlife, eliminates meaningful environmental analysis and public involvement, and would misleadingly define even rain or windstorms as “catastrophic events.” This timber industry’s dream come true could come to the House floor this week! Please, ask your representative to oppose this “log first, ask questions later” legislation!
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President Bush's immigration speech on Monday May 15th, was peppered with the tough talk that the administration hopes will appease the more conservative voices in the Republican Party.
Here is a heads up for right wing conservatives;
BUSH USED YOU LIKE HE USED EVERYONE TO STAY IN POWER !!!
Conservatives Point to Spending and Immigration.
Speaking of conservatives and those who hate, look how far Iraq has come since we "freed" them from Sadam's dictatorship;
In a recent highly publicized incident, a 14-year-old boy was shot by Iraqi police officers for the apparent crime of being gay. The boy reportedly slept with men to help support his poverty-stricken family.
"The neighbor saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body."......... Human rights groups have condemned the murder, which is part of a pattern of anti-gay killings in Iraq, rights groups say.
Your Member of Congress will be critical in deciding if important U.S. funding reaches Haiti, Liberia, Darfur, and U.N. peacekeeping operations worldwide. Urge them to maintain funding levels for Haiti, Liberia, Darfur and U.N. peacekeeping operations.
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.
ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.
One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.
Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports.
People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.
Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.
The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.
A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators.
The emphasis of this year's International Conscientious Objectors' Day (15 June) is on GIs who want to leave the US military over
the war in Iraq
Many famous and not-so-famous mothers spent the weekend at the White House calling for an end to war and the return of their sons and daughters from Iraq.
A Beaverton man has filed a $1 billion federal lawsuit against Verizon Northwest, claiming the company violated his privacy rights
by releasing his telephone records to the National Security Agency. The filing in U.S District Court in Portland by Darryl Hines says
Verizon passed his information to the spy agency without permission or after-the-fact notification. Hines, through Portland attorney Christopher Slater, asked the case to be certified as a class action to cover the estimated 1 million Verizon customers in Oregon,
Washington, Idaho and California.
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Write to your members of Congress today and urge them to oppose funding for the reprocessing of radioactive nuclear waste.
President Bush’s budget request for fiscal year 2007 calls for $250 million to fund the reprocessing of waste from commercial reactors in the United States. Reprocessing, the separation of uranium and plutonium from irradiated fuel, is an extremely expensive and polluting process that would increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. The United States stopped commercial reprocessing in the 1970s after India tested a nuclear bomb made with separated plutonium from reprocessing technology that the US gave to India.
The Bush administration is claiming that its proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) will solve the nuclear waste problem created by nuclear reactors. In fact, reprocessing will make more waste streams that must be managed and does not eliminate the need for a geologic repository. Waste from reprocessing in the 1960s and 1970s continues to threaten important drinking water sources, and the Department of Energy estimates that it will cost US taxpayers $100 billion to clean up. Tell your Senators and Representative to oppose funding for reprocessing radioactive waste.
The House of Representatives is expected to be vote on amendments to the Marine Mammal Protection Act the week of May 15, and we urgently need your help to uphold this important conservation law. The bill most likely to move (H.R. 4075) is sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and would severely weaken many of its key provisions. Please call or write your member of Congress and urge him or her not to "kill the Dolphin Deadline" and to oppose H.R. 4075 or any other effort to weaken the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act was enacted more than 30 years ago to reverse the decline of dolphins, whales, seals, polar bears and other marine mammals. In 1994, Congress amended the law to specifically address the harm caused to marine mammals by commercial fishing operations. Its “Zero Mortality Rate Goal” requires commercial fishing operations to reduce the serious injury and death of marine mammals to insignificant levels.
Congress set April 2001 as the deadline to reach the Zero Mortality Rate Goal. But today – five years after it passed – this deadline still has not been met. This has disastrous repercussions for marine life, as every year that it is not achieved, approximately 1900 dolphins, whales and other marine mammals are seriously injured or killed.
Campaign Expiration Date: May 21, 2006
Critical Habitat for the endangered California condor in southern California is at risk of development. The Tejon Ranch Company is currently seeking a blanket "incidental take" permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which would allow it to harm, harass, and even kill endangered condors during construction and operation of its proposed major developments on Tejon Ranch in the Tehachapi Mountains.
Okinawa has been called the “Galapagos of the East” and is home to ecologically significant coral reefs that support more than 1,000 species of reef fish, marine mammals and sea turtles, a diversity of marine life second only to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Creatures like the highly imperiled dugong, a critically endangered and culturally treasured animal, rely on these reefs for their very survival. Three types of endangered sea turtles, protected under international as well as American and Japanese domestic law, also depend on these ecosystems. The United States and Japanese governments have plans to build a new American military base atop a healthy coral reef that supports at least nine species threatened with extinction and myriad other types of animal life.
The Forest Service has initiated a process by which it will be designating routes, trails and areas for motorized use in our national
forests. Moving the process forward is essential to help rein in off-road vehicle (ORV) abuse, and that means the Forest Service needs to
hear from you now! Each national forest will be engaging the public as part of this process. If you would like to help ensure protections for any forest in Arizona or New Mexico please contact the Supervisor for that forest and let him or her know you would like to be involved and kept informed of when public input will be solicited and/or when public meetings will be held.
The Tejon Ranch Company has proposed the Tejon Mountain Village development, an upscale resort and sprawl development project in southern California that would seriously threaten the recovery of the California condor. TRC has proposed converting over 28,000 acres of oak-studded mesas and canyons on the west side of Tejon Ranch, near Bakersfield, into an exclusive residential resort and golf course development. Tejon Ranch harbors wildlands essential to the survival and recovery of the endangered California condor. The development is proposed for the western side of Tejon Ranch near Lebec. Tejon Ranch, which lies in the Tehachapi Mountains at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, is an important ecological corridor connecting the southern Sierra Nevada to the Transverse Ranges of the coastal mountains. TRC wants to build 3,450 residential units, 750 hotel units, four golf courses and 160,000 square feet of commercial space on 28,250 acres, including areas designated as critical habitat for the California condor.
For those of you keeping an eye on Mary Cheney, the Vice President's daughter who is coming out with a book, and making the rounds on the television, you know one of the big selling points is that she is a lesbian.
Is she just an idiot? Does she not realize that one of the Republican selling points is "anti-gay marriage". I know she has said she is not a one issue person, we all need to look at the 'big picture, I agree, but this is just stupid. The very people she supports, hate her and want to treat het as a sub-human, someone who does not have the same basic rights as everyone else.
I know I have stated my opinions about this issue before, it is just that I am amazed at such a blazing and brazen issue, can make a, what seems to be an intelligent person, act like a a-hole.
“Those who would sacrifice liberty for a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
We can vote all we want, but if we do not pay attention to what happens to those votes... ( need I remind you of how Al Gore won the election and George Bush didn't ) the Republicans will win in 2006 and 2008......leading the United States, along with the rest of the World, into Hell;
With primary election dates fast approaching in many states, officials in Pennsylvania and California issued urgent directives in recent days about a potential security risk in their Diebold Election Systems touch-screen voting machines, while other states with similar equipment hurried to assess the seriousness of the problem… The new concerns about Diebold's equipment were discovered by Harri Hursti, a Finnish computer expert who was working at the request of Black Box Voting Inc., a nonprofit group that has been critical of electronic voting in the past. The group issued a report on the findings on Thursday. Computer scientists who have studied the vulnerability say the flaw might allow someone with brief access to a voting machine and with knowledge of computer code to tamper with the machine's software, and even, potentially, to spread malicious code to other parts of the voting system.
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The disclosure of the NSA’s domestic call-tracking program has drawn criticism from some of Bush’s key allies:
“I am concerned about what I read with regard to NSA databases of phone calls.”
“While I support aggressively tracking al-Qaida, the administration needs to answer some tough questions about the protection of
our civil liberties.”
"The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?”
ABC News: U.S. Military Chiefs Planned to Orchestrate Terrorism in U.S.
"In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities." ~ ABC News, 5/1/01
Government documents released through the Freedom of Information Act show that the top Pentagon generals once approved plans to kill innocent Americans and foment terrorism in major US cities.
To access 15 highly revealing pages of declassified U.S. military documents on Operation Northwoods as posted on the National Security Archive of George Washington University, see the link at the Operation Northwoods Information Center. Instructions are also provided to access all 181 pages of these once top-secret documents on the website of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
These astonishing documents were approved in writing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the top generals of each branch of the U.S. military. Only rejection by the Kennedy administration kept them from being implemented. They were classified top secret so that the American public would not know how it was being manipulated. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request just a few years ago brought them to light for the first time. The current administration ( **see below ) is working hard to keep information like this from reaching the public.
April 17, 2006, New York Times
The National Archives signed a secret agreement in 2001 with the Central Intelligence Agency permitting the spy agency to withdraw from public access records it considered to have been improperly declassified, the head of the archives, Allen Weinstein, disclosed on Monday. Mr. Weinstein, who began work as archivist of the United States last year, said he learned of the agreement with the C.I.A. on Thursday and was putting a stop to such secret reclassification arrangements, which he described as incompatible with the mission of the archives. The disclosure of the secret agreements provides at least a partial explanation for the removal since 1999 of more than 55,000 pages of historical documents from access to researchers at the archives. The removal of documents, including many dating to the 1950's, was discovered by a group of historians this year and reported by The New York Times in February. In a brief interview, Mr. Weinstein said he was particularly disturbed that the archives had agreed not to tell researchers why documents were unavailable. The C.I.A. agreement said archives employees would "not attribute to C.I.A. any part of the review or the withholding of documents."
‘People…Are Going To Be Shocked’ CongressDaily reports that former NSA staffer Russell Tice will testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee next week that not only do employees at the agency believe the activities they are being asked to perform are unlawful, but that what has been disclosed so far is only the tip of the iceberg....
Here again.....Bush caught lying......Lying us into a war where over 2000 Americans needlessly died and some 16,000 are now handicap, some missing limbs.....
The Washington Post reported last month that a U.S. fact-finding mission confidentially advised Washington on May 27, 2003, that two truck trailers found in Iraq were not mobile units for manufacturing bioweapons, as had been suspected. Two days later, President Bush still asserted the trailers were bioweapons labs, and other administration officials repeated that line for months afterward. On May 29, Bush assured Polish television: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell later made similar statements. As late as January 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney called the trailers "conclusive evidence" of Iraqi WMD, one of the reasons given for invading Iraq.
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency to stop the Bush Administration's illegal wiretapping. Working Assets has joined the ACLU by signing on to an amicus (friend of the court) brief filed on behalf of six business leaders, arguing that warrantless eavesdropping threatens the credibility of American businesses and undermines our economy. The following is a statement by Michael Kieschnick, President of Working Assets.
"Protection from warrantless search and seizure is the fundamental right of all Americans, and the law is clear that wiretapping must be supported by a warrant. History shows us that when warrantless wiretapping is permitted, the government, under the guise of fighting crime, intercepts communications to further its own political purposes. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the target of warrantless wiretapping. Opponents of the Vietnam war were targets of warrantless wiretapping.
"As the president of Working Assets, a telephone company, it is my special privilege to facilitate communications among my fellow citizens, to enable conversations on matters personal, commercial, social and political. It is therefore my special obligation to oppose warrantless interference into those communications, whatever the government's justification may be.
"There is no justification for wiretapping without a warrant. Congress has given this Administration every weapon it has sought for fighting terrorism, including a 72-hour window for obtaining a warrant after wiretapping has occurred. As a telecommunications provider, as an American, as a father of children coming of age in today's America, I stand with the ACLU in calling upon our courts to do what this Administration has so dramatically failed to do: protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."
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Bush's Spying Operation Against Americans Exposed as Massive
'USA Today' Reveals "Largest Database Ever Assembled in the World"
USA Today’s bombshell front page story of May 11 unmasks the breadth of Bush’s criminal violations of the law and the Constitution. "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans," according to the USA Today of May 11. Under the direction of President Bush the NSA program "reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans -- most of whom aren't suspected of any crimes."
Bush and Nixon: The Comparison Deepens
Bush’s approval rating has plummeted to 29%, a number just slightly higher than Richard Nixon’s 24% approval rating prior to his August 1974 resignation. The poll was conducted by the Wall Street Journal.
Only 24 percent of the 1,003 people asked between May 3-8 said they believed the United States was "heading in the right direction." According to the Journal, 69 percent said "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track".
The impeachment of Nixon began as a grassroots movement. At first it seemed impossible but within two years after Nixon won a landslide election, he resigned in the face of certain impeachment.
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Tell Nancy Pelosi Impeachment Is Good for Democrats
Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi has instructed the Democratic Caucus and promised the corporate media that the Democrats will not impeach Bush and Cheney even if they win a majority in Congress. Of course, such timidity is the most likely way for the Democrats to not win a majority in Congress. While 90% of Democrats and 81% of Independents disapprove of Bush in the latest Harris poll, only 67% of Republicans approve of him. Every poll done on impeachment shows very strong support among Democrats and weak opposition among Republicans. Moreover, an off-year election is won by inspiring your "base" to turn out in higher numbers, and nothing inspires Democratic voters like impeachment.
Here is a excerpt to get you motivated;
Should Bush and Cheney Be Impeached for the Iraq War
(2) On March 18, 2003, Bush and Cheney deliberately lied to Congress when he claimed in writing that continued U.N. inspections would endanger the national security of the U.S. and undermine enforcement of U.N. Resolutions, and that Iraq planned or aided the attacks of September 11, 2001.
(3) By invading Iraq without any threat or just cause, Bush and Cheney launched a War of Aggression in violation of U.S. obligations under the U.N. Charter.
(4) In the conduct of the War, Bush and Cheney violated the Geneva conventions by failing to protect civilians (including journalists) and by authorizing torture of prisoners, which also violated the War Crimes Act of 1996.
radio host Neal Boortz, (nationally syndicated radio host) the winner of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" award, this time for stating
that schools should never provide psychological counseling for students, even after the traumatic shootings that occurred in 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Following a 700 Club segment about black ministers who oppose abortion, Pat Robertson claimed that Planned Parenthood supports "black genocide" and wanted to use Rev. Martin Luther
