Center for a New American Socialist Democracy

Health Reform Bill “Bitter Compromise” for Women

noreply@blogger.com (karahwoodward) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:22:00 +0000

The health care “reform” legislation passed by the House on Saturday evening contains provisions that are under fire for limiting women’s access to abortion.

The 1990-page Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) – aimed at extending health coverage to 36 million low and middle-income Americans - narrowly passed the House with a vote of 220 to 215. The bill makes provisions for a government–run public option as well as a federally subsidized exchange for private insurers.

And although insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history, the bill’s anti-abortion language supports gender-based discrimination in medical coverage. The final bill contained the Stupak amendment, which in one fell swoop radically altered a woman’s right to choose.

Introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich), the amendment’s inclusion is being rejected by women’s rights and pro-choice advocates.

“This amendment is a back door way of overturning Roe v. Wade; it is a disservice and insult to millions of women throughout our country,” said Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, the co-chair of the Congressional Women's Caucus.

If enacted in the final healthcare legislation, the Stupak amendment will deny women who have private insurance - a right that they currently have: access to health insurance coverage for terminating a pregnancy.

Under the recently passed House bill, federal money cannot be used to fund abortions for those enrolled in the public option unless the mother’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape. Private insurers that participate in the federally established exchange will be held to the same coverage restrictions for abortion procedures.

Through the exchange, federal subsidies will be made available to private insurers to make premiums more affordable to low-income individuals and families who are ineligible for Medicaid.

Medicaid already restricts federal funds for abortions unless in the case of rape, incest or endangerment of the mother’s life. Following the federal government’s lead, these restrictions inspired 32 states and DC to limit their own funding of abortions through Medicaid to only cases of rape, incest or life endangerment.

“This amendment says that a woman CANNOT purchase coverage that includes abortion services using her own dollars; middle class women, using exclusively their own money will be prohibited from purchasing a plan including abortion coverage in every single public OR PRIVATE INSURANCE PLAN in the new health care exchange,” Schakowsky said. “This amendment is a radical departure from current law and will result in millions of women losing coverage they already have.”

According to Slate.com’s Timothy Noah, “Pelosi…accepted what was for her a bitter compromise on the issue of abortion in order to secure the votes needed to pass the measure.”

Pro-life Republicans and Democrats alike worked to satisfy the demands of the Catholic Church. Apparently the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops served an influential role during the health care debate on abortion. The Conference issued a memo criticizing compromise language in the bill, because it left “loopholes that could allow federal funds to go toward abortions,” reports CNN.

This begs the question – how could Congress so blatantly disregard the spirit of the First Amendment, which acknowledges the “separation of church and state”?

Initially Stupak's amendment failed in committee, but the Congressman kept fighting to incorporate it into the final House bill. The amendment made it into the bill on a Friday vote, passing 240 to 194.

“Here's the mistake people make. They think the public option is like public funding, but in truth the public option is funded with private money. So if you say a public option can't offer a legal medical procedure, what you are doing is greatly restricting a woman's right to choose,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, (D-Colorado).

One-fifth of the 6.4 million pregnancies in the U.S. will end in abortion, of which 48% are sought by women who are 25 years of age and older. The yearly cost of abortions in the U.S. is approximately $550 million, based upon the average cost for the procedure of $430. Abortions are higher among low-income women. These are just the sort of individuals who would most likely be covered by a public option or qualify for the subsidized premiums made available in the exchange.

Curiously pious Catholics are supportive of insurance re-imbursement for impotency drugs such as Viagra, but not for birth control, which would prevent most unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

In 2008, the Director of Education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center wrote: “one might say that Viagra fixes a broken system, while birth control breaks a perfectly working system.”

Even though the average age for ED prescriptions is around 60, men deserve this entitlement because a man is “capable” of fathering children at this age, says the Catholic Church.

Medicare eliminated its benefit for erectile dysfunction drugs in 2006 in the interest of saving money. Because getting it up ain’t cheap.

The spending per year on ED drugs is equal to roughly $2.4 billion. Yes, that‘s billion with a “B”.

Annually doctors prescribe impotence drugs to about 5 million men. Private insurers generally cover the drugs, which include Viagra, Cialis and Levitra among others. A 100-count bottle of Pfizer’s Viagra costs $1,457.

The price to prevent unwanted pregnancy is about $30 a month. But many insurers already require women to pay out-of-pocket for birth control pills.

H.R. 3962 will cost $1.1 Trillion over the next 10 years and funding for abortions would amount to a small percentage of that overall cost.

It is unclear whether there will be restrictions on male impotency drugs in the public option, but there is no reason to believe that private insurers would now deny men a benefit that they already possess. Why should women be any different?

Next the Senate must draft its own version of health legislation. Then the House and Senate bills must be reconciled, after which they must be approved once more by each chamber.

And while pro-lifers are up in arms about federal money being used to fund abortions, this process begs the question why it is acceptable for federal tax dollars to pay for faulty executions, botched police shootings or the collateral damage of war, but not terminate the life of the unborn.
Obama should refrain from signing any health bill that would federally subsidize discrimination against women, perpetuating the politicization of a medical procedure that is a private and painful decision for women, their partners and their families.

Ruling For The People

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:32:00 +0000

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

The Center for A New American Socialist Democracy commends the United States Supreme court for affirming the right “of the People” over the individual States' desire to strip inner-city populations of the same set of rights as those in rural areas.

In the history of socialism, many movements have used armed struggle to bring the varied conditions of affected populations to the public discourse. Though many times, as when dealing with arms, many innocents suffer and injury is deadly when movements resort to armed conflict. But a popular media slogan is stated, “when it bleeds it leads”; yet most of the violence involved in our struggles have to do with state oppression rather then violent socialist political action.

Groups in the past have picked up arms against their oppressors only after repeated paramilitary actions by Federal, State and Local law enforcement that have resulted in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of American Citizens of every persuasion. It has become clear in the most recent of times that social democracy movements around the world are progressing beyond a rush to arms in the pursuit of social justice and political reform. The gun should always be in the closet or the locker, as it basically guarantees that our peaceful & legal forms of protest are readily embraced, for the alternatives are the ideas of the past that has caused so many such pain…

An informed electorate, a sign of cardboard & peaceful civil disobedience make the best weapons in these days, and the internet may now make the Pen that much more mightier then the Sword. Modern struggle is defined by shooting out broadcast emails and putting up manifestos on websites. Fundraising, grassroots outreach and even the flash mob phenomenon make the idea & implementation of revolution all the easier. Guns are not now needed for a modern revolution, just an educated population with arms to hold those signs and make those phone calls.

But we are of the people that most gun laws were actually enacted against. With the intention to remove the right to bear arms to African, Latino and Native Americans, gun ownership was to be a right of the few rich and powerful. Political ideology aside, those populations most severely restricted or barred from owning a hand gun are communities of color. This is not a mistake or has it been legislated without forethought. Those localities wishing to remove guns from the hands of citizens have the highest crime rates when looking at crimes committed by law enforcement officers. In addition, when looking at permits issued in those municipalities, the racial and economic disparity is glaring. Keeping weapons out of the hands of the under-represented and the under-served is seemingly key in the push to again gentrify metropolitan areas in the United States by its Mayors and city managers.

We believe that the Framers of the constitution intended “the People” to be able to arm themselves in a way that such does assure protection from abuses of a state who has a disregard for the rights of its citizenry. As much as abortion & the death penalty, gun control we concur is a complex issue for many, but all of these issues are issues of individual rights over the rights of the state. With so many across the country witnessing the criminality of so many political leaders, it would be wholly unwise and against the idea of self-preservation to forgo protection that the Second Amendment afforded to “we the people” in pursuit of a more perfect union.

Committing a crime with any weapon is exactly that, and could now be treated as such. Should a gun kill or a company’s product liability, each should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Socialists are among the most vociferous & activated against inner-city gun violence. Strict gun ownership laws have done nothing to curb said issue and the topic is a false argument in the act of removing “the people” from rights within the Constitution.

It is now with great hope that so called “liberals” will now advance to seeking ways to improve the lives of “inner-city” populations without the issue of Gun Control to divert attention from a lack of social investment of affected municipalities by the very politicians who champion more laws to control & imprison their poorer and minority populations.

Nader on Immigration & Latin America

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Warrior Media) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:44:00 +0000

In his own words, see 4 yourself!

The Business of Modern Slavery

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:57:00 +0000

LODI, Calif. -- On May 16th, a pregnant teenager pruning grape vines died in 100-degree heat. Yet, in the state of California, horses are not allowed to work but migrant workers are forced to without water.

On Wednesday, 500 farmworkers and their advocates capped a poignant, four-day march to the statehouse demanding safer conditions on thousands of vineyards and orchards.

Authorities in California -- the only state with a heat-illness standard -- suspect Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, a 17-year-old undocumented Mexican migrant, collapsed last month because her farm labor overseer had denied employees proper access to shade & water.

Some Democrats say no to war, sometimes...

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:23:00 +0000

U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday tabled legislation that would have ensured funded the war in Iraq for another year, in a surprise move that the Senate could overturn.

By a vote of 149-141, the Democrat-controlled House rejected a measure that would have given the Pentagon the budget to keep the wars against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan going strong through next summer, @ President George Bush's request.

A group of anti-war House Democrats voted against the funds. That, coupled with 132 Republicans just simply voting "present," meaning neither "aye" nor "nay," and tabled the war funding question for now.

Yet the vastly more hawkish Senate will pass its desire for a war-funding bill next week and will insure the money for further the criminal occupation of both countries in the coming year.

what to say? 50 Shots means innocent cops.......

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:59:00 +0000

Police officers who kill unarmed Black men are untouchable

Once again, the so-called justice system has proven that the life of a Black man has no value. First it was Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Black man, killed in a hail of 41 bullets.

Now, the three police officers who fired more than 50 shots and killed Sean Bell, 23, on the morning he was to be married in November 2006 have been acquitted of all charges.

Bell, on the day he was to be married to Nicole Paultre, was unarmed and was inside his car, attempting to get away from three armed men who approached him, wearing civilian attire, without badges displayed and without identifying themselves as police officers, by most accounts. They must have appeared as menacing thugs to Bell.

Anyone in his right mind would try to drive and get away from men approaching in such a manner early in the morning, at 4 AM, after a night of partying at Club Kalua to celebrate an impending wedding.

How can the judge who ruled on the case justify the firing of more than 50 shots into a vehicle? One of the officers admitted that he did not even realize he had emptied his magazine and loaded another clip and continued to fire into the vehicle. This means the officers did not even know what they were firing at--which also means they could not have known whether they were in danger or not. Bell’s friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield were both wounded in the shooting, with Guzman taking in 16 bullets.

The three officers most likely were drunk, and additionally possibly high on drugs, having spent all night at the club drinking while staking out the club. They supposedly went looking to prevent trouble; instead they committed the ultimate transgression--they murdered an innocent and unarmed man, likely because they were drunk, frightened and unprofessional.

Ironically, the Black Star News columnist Donald Winkfield predicted that this would be the outcome of this “trial” in his article two days ago.

Like the assassins of Amadou Diallo, these three killer cops, “detective” Michael Oliver, who reloaded his weapon and fired a total of 31 times, and “detective” Gescard Isnora walk away from charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment; “detective” Marc Cooper also laughs all the way home, having been acquitted of reckless endangerment. “Detective” Isnora fired 11 times, and “detective” Cooper, four times.

Justice Arthur Cooperman claims he found problems with the Queen’s County DA’s case, and that some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves; he also reportedly cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.

Question to “Justice” Cooperman: What’s the relevance to the critical facts of the case? The officers fired with reckless abandon into Sean Bell’s car without even knowing whom they were firing at considering there were three people, all unarmed, inside the vehicle. Once the first officer started firing, the others, all presumably drunk, also opened up.

So this is standard police operation now.

We doubt that “Justice” Cooperman will have the last say on this matter.

Bell is survived by fiancée, Nicole Paultre, and daughters, ages five and one.

BLACK STAR PRESS

America's New Proxy War In The Balkans

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:16:00 +0000

The United States has supervised independence of Kosovo from Serbia against the wishes of the latter is expected to create a precedent for currently unrecognized states. Such a precedent would prioritise the self-determination of prospective states at the expense of the territorial integrity of the host state, thus stimulating separatism. The consequences of Kosovo independence are expected to involve territorial disputes in several unrecognized states in Eastern Europe.

Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci announced a date for independence "will be made public very soon" claiming it would be "a good surprise, made fast in the coming days" though he did not specify when the announcement would be made. Kosovo's parliament is expected to adopt a statement of intent to proclaim independence on February 17. Serbia has responded to plans for independence by passing a resolution threatening to cut ties with any nations that recognize Kosovo and possibly halt membership talks with the European Union and rule out membership in NATO. Serbia's president Boris Tadic also threatened to send the Serbian army to protect Kosovo Serbs if they came under attack. Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Army said independence and a declaration of a state of emergency would not mean enhancing military engagement on the part of the Serbian Army or an operation. He also said he received no orders to mobilize the army in the event of independence. Serbia plans to bring any nation recognizing independence into the International Court.

In the event of a declaration of independence Deputy Prime Minister Božidar Đelić said on November 23rd Serbia "should be prepared for the worst case scenario," however Defense Ministry plans for reacting to an independence declaration were not revealed. Dušan Proroković, Serbia's state secretary with the Kosovo Ministry, has said an action plan for Kosovo has been made that involves establishing Serbian institutions to administrate Kosovo. An office set up in northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica will serve as part of a Serbian parallel government after Kosovo's independence.

The Albanian National Army is reportedly mobilizing its troops to send into the Serb majority regions in Northern Mitrovica and Northern Kosovo to protect Albanians once Kosovo declares its independence, though he would not reveal the size of the force. Reports say Northern Kosovo is already effectively part of Serbia with Serbian police sizing up everyone who cross the bridge over Ibar river into the Serb area of Mitrovica and posters of Serbian generals and politicians on several buildings. Some policemen are reported by Reuters to actually be undercover Serbian security forces and one told a reporter: "If they [Albanians] want to take the north by force, we'll defend ourselves. Serbs are ready."

Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic warned "A Pandora's Box could open up there and cause partition of Kosovo, something Serbia does not want" referring to threats by some Kosovo Serbs to secede from Kosovo after a declaration of independence. In response to partition the Albanian National Army said they would "do everything to unify and protect our territories." To prevent a secession from Kosovo Germany has 500 troops and the U.S. has 200 troops stationed along the border.

As Kosovo will be partitioned, Prime Minister Agim Ceku has suggested Kosovo & Albanians in four other countries may want to unite with Albania.Nait Hasani, a member of the Kosovo government has also said Kosovo may try to unite with Albania. Hasani was quoted as saying to a Polish paper, "First there should be supervised independence as proposed by Ahtisaari. But it is known that Kosovo and Albania citizens are one nation who want to live in one state."

Kosovo's independence is another act in the Balkanization of former empires. But it creates principles which can only exacerbate problems in other countries. In place of acceptance of minority autonomy within a single state structure there will be fights to the bitter end between centralism and separatism.

President Bush received a hero's welcome in June of 2007 when he arrived in the Albanian capital of Tirana, a marked contrast from the protests that greeted the president on his summer'07 European tour. Mr. Bush was the first U.S. president to visit the country, where the "decider" was extremely popular for reasons made painfully apparent in the Last 72 hours.

Russia may have well been privy to such intelligence since, therein explaining the resumption of cold war like tensions with the West. This international engineering by a "Lame Duck" US President will assuredly contribute to the myriad of dilemmas facing the next Administration on the Foreign Policy front.

One man’s desire for such legacy is eerily reminiscent of the worst follies of the 20th century’s worst world leaders…Bush May be the first of the 21st…

UN finally says something about Gitmo, too little too late!

noreply@blogger.com (Digital Warrior Media) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:40:00 +0000

The United Nation's independent investigator on human rights in the fight against terrorism today urged the United States to release all people detained as "enemy combatants," close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay and abolish military commissions.

Martin Scheinin visited the naval base in Cuba from December 3-7 at the invitation of the U.S. government, while a tribunal in the case of Salid Ahmed Hamdan, an accused guard for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was under way.

He said they "confirmed the difficulties or even impossibility of the defence to provide evidence, as neither witnesses from abroad or high-value detainees from the Guantanamo facility next door could be heard, at least in this particular occasion."

A Finnish law professor, whose U.N. job title is special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, said he wanted better access to those detained at the Guantanamo prison.

The facility was opened in January 2002 after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"I still hope that a further follow-up visit will be possible for the purpose of conducting unmonitored interviews with detainees at places of detention, including Guantanamo Bay, despite the government's current position that it objects to such a request," he told the Council.

The United States responded by saying it was "disappointed" Scheinin had declined an offer to view the base on the same terms offered to other international observers, but did not specify what those terms were.

"We hope that in future the work of the special rapporteur proceeds differently. In particular, we hope he will focus on less well-worn arguments under discussion elsewhere and more on practical solutions to common problems faced by the international community," the US said.

In a statement that will be formally delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council tomorrow, Jamil Dakwar, Advocacy Director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, said Scheinin's assessment came as no surprise.

"Over the past six years, we have witnessed the U.S. government abandon the bedrock principle of respect for the rule of law," Dakwar said.

CNASD IN BOLIVIA

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:34:00 +0000

<==Important Blog Note==>

The Center For A New American Socialist Democracy has temporarily suspended all postings until 12-21-07.

Further Posts are now delayed due to a monitoring of the constitutional reformation taking place in Bolivia & staff being in Country to cover the activites taking place.

CNASD staff and reporters are on the ground as MAS & Evo Morales exercise the mandate given to them in December 2006 to improve the living conditions of the Native peoples of Bolivia.

Bolivian-born Euro-Socialists are seemingly alienated as Morales has taken a more Pro-Indigenous form of Socialism to the masses then was expected.

CNASD is clear in its continued full support for the Morales-Alvaro Government. However the situation is fluid and CNASD has once again dispatched all of its limited resources to the Andean country.

Actions taken by CNASD are to help inform those in the United States as to the condition of the most successful Native/Socialist government in the modern history of the Americas.......

For more information about these effort please visit
"The Bolivia Transition Project"

http://boliviatransitionproject.blogspot.com/

The Murderous Rampage of the NYPD

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:30:00 +0000

Another City resident is killed by police. This time a Brooklyn teen, Khiel Coppin- wielding only a hairbrush - was killed last night in a hail of up to 20 bullets fired by cops who hit him 13 times.

The October surprise was off-duty police Officer Sean Sawyer who admitted he fired the shot that killed a young father in an East Harlem road rage confrontation. A month later Officer Sawyer’s suspension is complete and he will be returning to duty with a gun. He has not been charged as of yet.

The quick list of Items that will now get you shot (justifiably) by the New York City Police Department:

Index Finger
Hairbrush
Wallet
Cell Phone
CD Player
Hammer
Driver’s License
NYPD Badge
Exercising First Amendment Rights
Toys
Dark Skin

Examined by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights & Human Rights Watch, the NYPD has been excoriated for patterns and practices that reveal clear, convincing cases of racial profiling, systemic police brutality, and unjustifiable homicide.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems unwilling to challenge the automatic presumption of police innocence, as is the case with civil liberty violations involving our President, The Military, Federal & Local Law enforcement agencies.

Since 9.11.01, NY/NJ law enforcement officers have killed hundreds of People Of Color - both civilians & their own police officers - under the guise of public safety.

When is it safe to call this typical of a police state? Official governmental impunity is what happens when citizens are without the right to privacy or protection from the state, in modern times with great media support.

Rules of engagement for the military used to be “only fire when fired upon”. Law enforcement tactics are such that you fire first and then hide under the umbrella of State Authority and the cloak of a justice system that seeks to legitimize wiretapping, torture & extraordinary rendition.

The Torture & Wiretap Click

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:17:00 +0000

The Democratic senate has confirmed the retired judge, Michael Mukasey, as the new United States Attorney General, despite his refusal to declare "waterboarding" as torture & illegal.

Led by New York Senator Charles Schumer with the statement

" Today, I voted today to confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General of the United States. I did so for one overarching reason: the Department of Justice, once the crown jewel among our government institutions, is adrift and rudderless; it desperately needs a strong and independent leader at the helm to set it back on course, and I believe Judge Mukasey is that person".

The approval for The Judge was then furthered by the same senatorial click of pro-administration Democrats that supported the Justice department “Protect America” spying program that prevents any citizen from claiming constitutional rights to privacy through the legal process.

The Democratic Torture & Wiretap Click

Bayh (D-IN)

Carper (D-DE)

Feinstein (D-CA)

Landrieu (D-LA)

Nelson (D-NE)

Those Ambiguous Democrats

Biden (D-DE)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Obama (D-IL)

Pakistan Now In Play

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:57:00 +0000

Even with the recent assault on democracy the Bush administration has not made any move to halt aid to Pakistan or change our policies regarding the country. Administration officials have argued that Pakistan is different because it is a strategic ally in the war on terror.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has pumped more than $10 billion into Pakistan, 75 percent of which was earmarked for fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida. Even administration officials point out that Musharraf's plans for dealing with terrorists in his country have shown poor results.

Democratic presidential front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton has said in a statement that she is opposed to General Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule.

Two other Democratic presidential candidates with foreign policy experience warned Thursday that the current unrest in Pakistan is reminiscent of events that led up to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81.

Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Bill Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador during the Clinton Administration, said the U.S. is in danger of repeating the mistakes that led to one of the nation's worst international debacles of the last half century.

You know there's trouble ahead when Iraq, in its present state, is the good news story for Bush Administration policy. While various civilian and military officials from the president on down have been talking up "success" in Iraq and beating the rhetorical war drums vis-a-vis Iran, much of the remainder of foreign policy in what the neocons used to call "the arc of instability" began to thoroughly unravel.

Remember Bush's nightmare scenario, the one that guaranteed a surefire "preventive" attack from his administration: an autocratic and oppressive ruler with weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear ones, presiding over a country that functionally offers a safe haven for terrorists?

Well, that's now Pakistan, whose security forces are busily jailing Bhutto, political prisoners & hundreds of lawyers, while the Taliban, al Qaeda, and extremist Islamists, well armed and backed by their own radio stations broadcasting calls for jihad, are moving out of safe havens in the tribal areas along the Afghan border and into Pakistan proper to fight. And there's essentially nothing the administration can do, yet still mouth platitudes and look the other way while democracies lay dying..

When it comes to nuclear Iran and nuclear Pakistan, we have been living in "a Through-the-Looking-Glass world where nuclear weapons that do exist are less dangerous than those that can be imagined." Now, not much imagination is needed at all.

Strangely, from Ethiopia to Pakistan, despite all the signs, all the predictions, the Bush administration, as far as we can tell, expected none of the above. How often can it be caught off guard by the consequences of its own decisions and actions? Eternally, it seems. This maybe possible collapse of the president's foreign policy across the entire arc of instability that he has created.

Keeping The Wallets Closed November 2nd!

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 01:43:00 +0000

Many African Americans are being urged to boycott all shopping on Friday, November 2nd. Civil rights advocate and talk radio host Warren Ballentine, is calling for a “National Blackout” that will remove the black community’s dollars from the U.S. economy for 24 hours.

The boycott is set to protest the federal government's handling of hate crimes as well as its handling of other issues like health care, immigration, the mortgage crisis and the war in Iraq.

Based in Raleigh, NC, Ballentine, calls the boycott a necessary step that is long overdue. His idea - which grew out of frustration with the Justice Department's handling of the so-called "Jena 6" case - was proposed to his listeners of the “Warren Ballentine Show”.

With racially charged incidents including Mykel Bell, Megan Williams, Genarlow Wilson, Jena 6 and recently hung nooses, Ballentine calls for federal legislation in regard to these hate crimes.

African Americans spend an estimated $715 billion a year, and a one-day boycott could take as much as $2 billion out of the system and draw attention to the disparate treatment African Americans receive in the U.S.

Recent studies indicate that half of African American family mortgages are sub-prime and that black borrowers are 3.2 times more likely to receive a sub-prime loan than whites. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, anywhere from one in five, to one in three African American families is in danger of losing their home. The crisis will wipe out a generation of home wealth building and create the largest loss of African American wealth ever seen.

And although representing only 12 percent of the overall U.S. population, 44 percent of the prison population is African American. From drug offenses to violent crime, African Americans receive harsher sentences than whites, so that currently almost 4.7 percent of African American men are in prison. In the 25 to 29-years-old age group, 12 percent of black men are incarcerated, compared with 1.7 percent of whites.

In keeping with the purpose of the boycott, Ballentine has urged participants to refrain from making extra purchases in the days before or after the boycott, and thereby increase the economic impact.

In solidarity with all individuals around the world who are oppressed by actions of racial violence, government oppression and police brutality, CNASD suggests all global citizens join in keeping our resources out.

Bush Threatens World War 3

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:11:00 +0000

President Bush thought well of raising the threat of a “World War III” if Iran came into the possession of the "knowledge" of nuclear weapons.

Those comments, made during a far-ranging 45-minute news conference, came as reporters sought the president’s reaction to a warning on Tuesday by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia against any military strikes on Iran to halt the nuclear work that it has continued in defiance of much of the world. Iran contends that its nuclear program is purely peaceful.

“If Iran had a nuclear weapon, it’d be a dangerous threat to world peace,” Mr. Bush said. “So I told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

“I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously,” he said.

The United States has said it is pursuing a diplomatic approach to Iran, including the threat of a new round of United Nations sanctions, but it has refused to rule out military action to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

But in Tehran on Tuesday, Mr. Putin said, “Not only should we reject the use of force, but also the mention of force as a possibility.”

Mr. Bush, asked by a reporter today about photos that showed a seemingly cordial meeting in Tehran of Mr. Putin and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, said he was reluctant to read too much into photographs and wanted to hear Mr. Putin’s own “readout” of the meeting.

With full United States support, Israel is known to possess a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons and maintains intercontinental-range ballistic missiles to deliver them. Officially Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons. The U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment has recorded Israel as a country generally reported as having undeclared chemical warfare capabilities, and an offensive biological warfare program without redress as the only country in the Middle East.

Who Is Watching Out For, (@) Me?

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:16:00 +0000

The Bush Administration is confident they will win approval of the broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may not come up with enough votes to stop approval. Democrats in Congress are now ever-ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency a few month ago .

The August bill, known as the Protect America Act, was approved in the final hours before Congress went on its summer recess after heated warnings from the administration that legal loopholes in wiretapping coverage had left the country vulnerable to another terrorist attack. The measure significantly reduced the role of the foreign intelligence court and broadened the security agency’s ability to listen to foreign-based communications without court warrants.

The bill removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers.

The Administration pushed for passage of the changes to close what it called a "surveillance gap," referring to a long-standing feature of the nation's surveillance laws that required the government to get court approval to capture communications inside the United States.

While the nation's spy laws have been continually loosened since 9/11, the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck down a key pillar of the government's secret spying program.

The law:

Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.

Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.

Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.

Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months perpetually renewable after the six month "sunset" of the new powers last for a year after being authorized.

Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."

Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.

Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.

In the Senate, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, is working with his Republican counterpart, Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, a main proponent of the August plan, to come up with a compromise.

The immunity issue may prove to be the crucial sticking point between whatever proposals the House and Senate ultimately pass. Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who was among the harshest critics of the temporary bill, said in an interview he would vigorously oppose any effort to grant retroactive legal protection to telecommunications utilities.

“There is heavy pressure on the immunity, and we should not cave an inch on that,” Mr. Nadler said.

Mr. Nadler said that he was worried the Senate would give too much ground to the administration in its proposal, but that he was satisfied with the bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House.

“It is not perfect, but it is a good bill,” he said. “It makes huge improvements in the current law. In some respects it is better than the old FISA law,” a reference to the foreign intelligence court.

Civil liberties advocates and others who met House officials on Monday on the proposed bill agreed that it was an improvement over the August plan but were less charitable in their overall assessment.

The law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Blogger, Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly permanent spying outposts for the federal government.

Democratic Sexual Capitulation

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:59:00 +0000

New York: Congress yet again has extended funding for a core abstinence-education program, sparking outrage from sex-education advocates who want Democrats to pull the plug on such programs.

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

In providing nearly $170 million a year to fund groups that teach abstinence only, the Bush administration, with backing from the Republican and now democratic led Congress, is investing heavily in a just-say-no strategy for teenagers and sex. But youngsters taking the courses frequently receive medically inaccurate or misleading information, often in direct contradiction to the findings of government scientists, said the report, by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a critic of the administration who has long argued for comprehensive sex education.

About 57 percent of Americans had sex before age 18, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) said in a June report based on data collected between 1999 and 2002 from more than 6,000 adults ages 20 to 59.

A generation gap was evident: Sixty-seven percent of adults in their 20s said they had sex by age 18, compared with 44 percent of adults in their 50s.

Their actions defy logic and common sense," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth.

First, Congress funds what Mr. Wagoner called unproven abstinence programs. Then it commissions a study that shows they don't work, but lawmakers ignore those results and continue to fund the programs.

"Teens deserve better policies. We all deserve better leaders," said Mr. Wagoner, whose organization stresses rights, respect and responsibility in sex education

American Citizen Tortured, Convicted of Thought Crime

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:36:00 +0000

NEW YORK--"Just about everyone agrees that the recent conviction of Abdullah al-Muhajir, a.k.a. Jose Padilla, is a good thing," wrote right-wing pundit Neil Kressel in The New York Post. Indeed, just about everyone did. "It is hard to disagree with the jury's guilty verdict against Jose Padilla, the accused, but never formally charged, dirty bomber," opined the liberal editorial board of The New York Times. (They went on to criticize the way the Bush Administration denied Padilla due process.)

Meet Mr. Not Everyone.

Padilla, a 36-year-old American citizen born in Brooklyn who converted to Islam, was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport in May 2002. Using the bombastic "1984"-style rhetoric of the post-9/11 era, then-attorney general John Ashcroft announced that Padilla had participated in an "unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb." Padilla's arrest, Ashcroft ranted, would have caused "mass death and injury" in an American city.

But there wasn't any evidence. Or there wasn't enough to convict him in court. Which was, under the system of justice citizens of Western countries have lived under for eight centuries, the same thing.

Before 9/11 and "preventative detention" and legal torture and scary new laws like the USA-Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act eliminated habeas corpus, Padilla would have sat in jail a day or two. He might have gotten roughed up. Then he'd have walked.

That was under democracy. In Bush's neofascist security state, Padilla rotted in solitary confinement--in a military brig--for three and a half years. (Read Henry Charriere's classic prison memoir "Papillon" if you doubt that solitary confinement is a form of torture.) No family visits. No lawyer. They subjected him to sensory deprivation, covering his eyes and ears to make him lose his mind.

And still no trial. Because the government knew Padilla was innocent.

By 2006 Bush was unpopular. Federal judges had begun to regrow their 'nads, ruling that the Administration had to charge Padilla or release him. So the Bushies came up with a clever dodge whose narrow legalism was worthy of depends-on-the-meaning-of-is: they transferred Padilla to the civilian justice system and charged him with something else.

Or, to be specific, something less. They added Padilla to a case against two Middle Eastern men on trial for "conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people in a foreign country" and "material support" for Islamic terrorism. Padilla had met the two in Florida and, prosecutors say, traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 to join Al Qaeda. The key evidence presented was Padilla's supposed Al Qaeda application form, which fingerprints proved he had handled.

Padilla's public defenders claimed that their client was forced to pick up the "Al Qaeda form" in the brig. Who knows what happened while he was "disappeared" during those three and a half years?

"There is no need to show any particular violent crime [in a conspiracy trial]," said law professor Robert Chesney, of Wake Forest University. "You don't have to specify the particular means used to carry out the crime." Nevertheless, Padilla faces the possibility of life in prison.

Of course, the United States wasn't at war with Afghanistan in 2000. Before 9/11 the Clinton and Bush Administrations both sent millions of dollars to the Taliban. The vast majority of Muslims who trained at Al Qaeda camps never plotted against the U.S. They planned to fight in places like Chechnya, Kosovo and Xinjiang. Padilla's membership in Al Qaeda, even if proven, doesn't prove anti-Americanism.

Post-9/11 conspiracy prosecutions are de facto attempts to make anti-Americanism--the mere thought, not any action--illegal.

"It is a pretty big leap between a mere indication of desire to attend a camp and a crystallized desire to kill, maim and kidnap," said Peter Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University. The conspiracy count against Padilla, Margulies continued, "is highly amorphous, and it basically allows someone to be found guilty for something that is one step away from a thought crime."

The charge was laughable and the standard of proof rock-bottom. But the masters of Padilla's show trial didn't miss a chance to cheese up the proceedings.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier never presented evidence that Padilla actually joined or was accepted by Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, reported the Associated Press, he "mentioned Al Qaeda 91 times in his opening statement and more than 100 times in his closing, according to court transcripts." Padilla had nothing to do with 9/11. To link him to the attacks in jurors' minds, Frazier had them watch a seven-minute video clip of Osama bin Laden. (There's no evidence that Padilla ever watched the 1997 CNN interview.)

Padilla's lawyers asked the judge in the case to dismiss the case because he had been denied a speedy trial. Marcia Cooke said no--and ordered them not to talk to the jury about the three and a half years the defendant had spent being tortured and deprived of his rights. Reporters' eyes rolled as Frazier said that government wiretappers heard Padilla and his two co-defendents use code words like "football" to mean jihad and "eggplant" and "zucchini" for weapons. "They wanted to recruit, fund and train fighters," he told the jury. "Playing this kind of football was more important than anything else to these men. What they were doing was no game." But, reported the AP, Padilla's "voice was only picked up on seven of the FBI intercepts, [and] he never talked in code." He shouldn't have been convicted--even on those lame-ass conspiracy charges.

Osama bin Laden is an ends-justifies-the-means kind of guy. So, apparently, is Uncle Sam. Jeffrey Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University, said after the verdict: "It's kind of a dirty victory because of the way the case came about, but still it's a victory nonetheless." Yeah. But for whom?

TED RALL

Media lessens Coverage Of Iraq War

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:18:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (DigitalWarriorMedia) - U.S. media reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007 a study released Monday said.

Taken together, the war's three major story lines -- the U.S. policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the U.S. homefront -- slipped roughly a third, to 15 percent of an index of total news coverage, down from 22 percent in the first three months of the year.

The study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 18,010 stories that appeared between April 1 and June 29. Its "News Coverage Index" encompasses 48 outlets, including newspapers, radio, online, cable and network television.

Attention to the war dropped in all five media sectors surveyed. Network evening news, the sector that gave the war the greatest share of attention in the first quarter, scaled back more than 40 percent, from 33 percent in the first quarter to 19 percent in the second, the study showed.

On cable television, another leader in first-quarter coverage, the slide was nearly as great, from 23 percent of news reported to 14 percent -- a drop of 39 percent, the project said.

The bulk of the fall took place after May 24, when Congress approved war funding without including troop withdrawal timetables. This was widely viewed by the media as a victory for President George W. Bush in a political battle with Congress sparked by his January 10 troop "surge" announcement.

"In the aftermath, the debate itself quieted, as did coverage," the report said.

News from inside Iraq in the media surveyed became even more focused on Americans rather than Iraqis or rebuilding Iraq in the second quarter, the study also found.

Fully 55 percent of coverage about events on the ground dealt with U.S. combat and casualties, U.S. troop activities and soldiers charged with crimes, it said.

Something Stinks! Federal Prison For Dogfighting?

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 19:09:00 +0000

"After consulting with his family over the weekend, Michael Vick asked that I announce today that he has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors regarding the charges pending against him,"

Defense Attorney Billy Martin

_______

Once -- not long ago -- he was the most spectacular football athlete in the world. Now he's the perpetrator of the most spectacular fall from athletic grace in recent times. But why was this ever a Federal Case for Michael Vick?

On May 3 2007, President Bush signed into law "The Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act", which passed Congress with large bi-partisan support.

The new law had been introduced by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) in the House, and by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in the Senate. It had also been endorsed by more than 500 groups, including all major humane organizations.

April 25 2007 : Police serve the warrant in Surry, Va. and find numerous dogs and what looks like a dog-training complex of dark-painted buildings in the woods just behind the house, which is owned by Vick. They call animal-control officers, who count 66 dogs (55 pit bulls) and see what they say is evidence that dogfights had taken place there. Police obtain another warrant and seize the dogs and various items.

But note clearly, the crimes included on the initial indictment were committed before the law was signed by the President. Though Vick was seemingly committing crimes in various states, the idea of the government imposing the case upon the Federal District Court for crimes committed before the law was signed is highly questionable.

On July 17, 2007, Vick and three other men were indicted by a federal grand jury for felony and misdemeanor charges involving a 6-year-long interstate dog fighting venture called "Bad Newz Kennels" and tens of thousands of dollars in gambling activities. Authorities contend that Vick's 15-acre estate in Surry County near Smithfield, Virginia was purchased and developed specifically for the crime of "continuing criminal enterprise."

Please note that the number of the group of individuals required for federal prosecution is set at a minimum of six. With only three other persons attached to the indictment of Vick, the call for the Justice Department to take action is legally questionable.

The catch to this case is that the various states in which these crimes were committed will now forgo the chance at further litigation against Vick, & dogs can't sue.

white men & their words

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:17:00 +0000

"An On-Line Friend Of The Court Brief"

As a journalistic entity that's mission is based in the principals of "Free Speech" and enshrined in the Constitution, we do contest that everyone deserves a second chance. However there is ample evidence that Don Imus is a habitual racial opportunist & misogynistic bigot. In no way a first time offender or was this last incident an aberration within his career. Only he and his staff began this highly charged & traumatic period for a group of college kids, (or especially in this case, a group of respectable young ladies).

Don Imus and his staff chose the level & content of dialogue that was in clear violation of FCC rules and regulations. Within that action, Mr Imus and his staff decided to defame/degrade a specific and small group of people through identification chosen. As such, those actions exposed several young women to a highly charged, sexist & racist environment through the defense of Imus by his most avid fans. This is highly actionable, and the conversation that started was done so at the behest of the producers of "Imus in the Morning".

Should Mr. Imus wish to continue to expose groups of people to his brand of banter, his free speech rights are protected & they should be. However, libel and defamation are civil violations that carries penalties & the award of damages.

It may be in the best interest of Imus and his producers to settle with Ms Vaughn in the action she is bringing against him. We can not think of one Mother or Father on the Bench, or one juror who would think such words he used were good for their daughters or sisters in college.

In the light of the American Broadcast Company's negotiations with Imus, we suggest an injunction against Mr. Imus collecting any compensation while these proceedings are pending. In the least with his history, Mr. Imus could be placed on a probationary status, being closely monitored for any further violations of FCC rules. Should he wish to continue his "style" of jingoistic frat-boy presentation of the news, the penalty should be swift, irrevocable & severe.

CNASD

==================

"Personally, as a woman and an African-American woman, ............ I believe that he said, quote, "ho." And unless, in my case, a "ho" stands for achievement or something that you're getting done and you know that you're a wonderful person, then I'm not a "ho."

And at that, I'm a woman. And I'm some one's child. And, you know, it hurts a lot. It does hurt. And there's a lot that should be said. There's a lot that I want to say, but, you know, you can't say it. And I would like to speak to him personally, you know, and express how I feel face to face, and ask him, after you've met me as a person, do you feel, in this category, that I'm still a "ho," as a woman and as a black African-American woman at that?

I achieve a lot. And unless they have given this name, a "ho," a new definition, then that is not what I am."

KIA VAUGHN

Rutgers University 2007

Wiretapping -- The Trial Of Your Rights

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

It's often impossible to prove that secret government wiretapping in the name of national security is violating one's privacy rights. The evidence itself usually is top secret.

But one rather obscure case could pull back the veil on a surveillance program that's at the heart of the US fight against terror. In the federal appeals court in San Francisco Wednesday, lawyers for a Saudi charity accused of helping Al Qaeda will argue that their clients, including two American attorneys, were illegally spied on without the required court warrant.

How do they know? Treasury Department officials inadvertently provided them with National Security Agency (NSA) call logs stamped "top secret."

By the time federal agents had retrieved the logs of recorded calls six weeks later, the information had been shared with five other lawyers, two officials of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation's US branch in southern Oregon, and a reporter with The Washington Post.

Because the government took back copies of the call logs, federal judges at the district-court level agreed to let those who saw them rely on their memory of what they saw as evidence. The judges also said that they have "standing" in federal courts – that they have enough of a case to sue the federal government.

If the appeals court agrees with the lower court, the US Supreme Court is likely to become involved. The case could have broader significance as well since it deals with presidential power during wartime.

"The difficulty in challenging any secret program is in proving that you were a victim of it," says Jon Eisenberg, a lawyer in Oakland, Calif., who represents the now-defunct US arm of the Islamic charitable foundation. "We have that proof, and that makes us unique."

In recent days, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have issued new challenges to the federal government's domestic spying program.

In another case at federal district court in San Francisco last week, the CCR, which represents hundreds of "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, argued that the NSA's program of warrantless surveillance is unconstitutional.

"It is virtually certain that the NSA spied on our confidential communications with our clients as well as conversations with other American attorneys outside of the US," says Vincent Warren, CCR executive director.

Meanwhile, the ACLU last week filed legal papers with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) – the special court set up to decide whether such wiretaps are lawful and can be implemented – seeking the legal opinions upon which that court bases its decisions.

ACLU attorneys argue that the only thing known about those opinions has come from administration officials, and that those officials are not disinterested parties in a debate about the appropriate reach of executive branch surveillance.

"The public has a right to firsthand information about what the court permitted and what it disallowed," says Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project. (Over the years, the secretive FISC has rarely denied wiretap requests.)

Just before they scattered for their August break, members of Congress made it easier for government agencies to eavesdrop on Americans in the name of fighting terrorism, raising once again the issue of domestic surveillance without a court warrant.

The administration characterized the just-passed change to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as a way of keeping up with modern technology that didn't exist when the act was passed nearly 30 years ago: e-mail, the Internet, cellphones, and fiber-optic cables. Without the new law, President Bush said in signing it last week, US intelligence agencies would be "missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country."

The law is meant to allow the interception of suspicious foreign communications routed through the US. But it also allows intelligence agencies to intercept and record – without a court order – electronic communications involving Americans so long as the intelligence gathering is "directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States." And it gives the US attorney general and the director of national intelligence, rather than the special intelligence court, power to approve the international surveillance.
That's raised concerns among civil libertarians, who view it as a weakening of judicial oversight of wiretapping. They see it as echoing the Central Intelligence Agency abuses of the 1970s, which prompted Congress to pass FISA.

Since the new law has a six-month sunset provision, civil liberties advocates will be pushing Congress to enact greater safeguards – including judicial oversight – when lawmakers return to Washington next month.

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D) of Michigan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) wrote: "Many provisions of this legislation are unacceptable, and, although the bill has a six-month sunset clause, I do not believe the American people will want to wait that long before corrective action is taken."

Meanwhile, the Oregon wiretapping case to be heard before the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals this week may well reveal details directly related to the legality of domestic surveillance.

The government alleges that the Oregon-based chapter of the Saudi charity laundered $150,000 in donations to help Islamic fighters in Chechnya with ties to Al Qaeda. Attorneys for the group vigorously deny that charge. And they claim they were illegally spied upon, saying they've seen the government's own proof of that in the form of NSA phone logs.

Treasury and Justice Department officials refuse to comment on the case. But in court documents urging dismissal, administration officials wrote: "Whether plaintiffs were subjected to surveillance is a state secret, and information tending to confirm or deny that fact is privileged."

The Senate Democrats To Their Base,"LET THEM EAT WIRETAPS!"

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:42:00 +0000

On Friday, by a vote of 60-28, the Senate passed the measure that President Bush had requested to enhance his powers of warrantless wiretapping. It is said that these new powers will not cover phone calls made within the United States; but the effect of the vote is certainly to remove a constitutional check. We now have the president's word that he will act with restraint. Two small concessions were granted by the administration to the cooperative lawmaking body.

First, in the revised legislation, the attorney general is no longer the sole official charged with oversight; Alberto Gonzales will share authority with the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. Second, the change in the law is not permanent but comes up for renewal in six months. Such allowances hardly compare to what was extracted in return. The FISA court will be permitted to review the president's wiretaps only after the fact; and the court is restricted to a generic review of the warrants, with no power to inquire into individual cases. This latest understanding with the President (which will not be any easier to reverse six months from now than it was to oppose yesterday) was approved by sixteen Democrats to make the required majority of 60--among them Senators Bayh, Webb, and Feinstein.

The unintimidated opposition was led by Russell Feingold. By what force was the Democratic majority effectively split? The answer lies in part in the nature of President Bush's appeal to fear. He has frightened many people into believing that if America is ever hit by another attack, the blame should fall on every lawmaker who ever opposed his will on national security. The Cheney-Bush campaign of fear is relentless, but not entirely disingenuous. President Bush is frightened, and the public has seen it; Vice President Cheney is frightened, and his bunker shows it. Intimidation apart, a cynical prudence clearly drove some of the crossover votes. Many Democrats believe the party's best strategy is to run out the clock. Let the president have everything he wants between now and November 2008; watch politely, and show a seemly disappointment; and count the profits at election time. The same goes for the president's men, from Petraeus down to Gonzales: give them all they want for the next fifteen months and see where it lands us. That is one reason why impeachment has been taken "off the table." Of course, impeachment was put into the Constitution partly as a remedy against the rashness and ambition of just such an administration as this; the shadow of impeachment, it was supposed, might curb the desperate attempts of bad men to shore up their power by fresh adventures. But here once more the Democratic calculation appears to be: the worse it gets, the better for us in the end. In a recent talk with liberal journalists, Nancy Pelosi offered a second kind of prudential reservation: impeachment or censure, of either Cheney or Bush, would "divide the country." That is the same species of wisdom that prevailed with Al Gore when he withheld his support from the late petitions charging voter fraud in Florida in the election of 2000. He was choosing not to divide the country. The trouble is that Cheney and Bush are happy to divide the country. They mean to play their terrible hand to the end; and they do not take no for an answer. Compromise with them, and you are the one who is compromised. The statement by Dick Cheney in January 2007, about the impact of the election on his plans for the Middle East, showed the curious streak of frankness that marks his political character. "It won't stop us," he said. Now, in a constitutional democracy, there are two ways of stopping the claims of a leader out of control. One is by an appeal to the voters; the other is by an appeal to the laws. The vice president (and, therefore, the president) having declared his independence of the people, it would seem that the best remaining protection is the laws. If, on the other hand, the opposition are unwilling to resort to the laws--if, from a combination of timidity and tactical reasoning, they refuse to defend their own function as lawmakers--for what purpose do they exist?

Democratic Yeas Challenging The Constitution

Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Webb (D-VA)

alberto, él no es uno para que nuestra gente sea orgullosa de

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:42:00 +0000

La ley no está aparentemente para los dictadores falsos con un amigo del abogado de la república del plátano.

En el mismo día ése director Roberto Mueller de FBI contradicho el testimonio de martes de Alberto Gonzales, demócratas del senado entró en direcciones aparentemente diversas sobre qué hacer. Mueller os dio bastante munición.

En 1996, Gonzales guardó DUI de Bush fuera de los medios consiguiéndolo despedido de deber del jurado. (El deber del jurado requiere el acceso de convicciones anteriores). Reparto del sitio trasero con el juez.

Esto está viniendo de un americano de la ascendencia nativa y latina. El jefe del Ministerio de Justicia de los E.E.U.U. ha destruido a nuestros hermanos/hermanas jóvenes de considerar la ley como manera de autorizar a nuestra comunidad.

Dr Bush Pediatrician & HMO Decider

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:41:00 +0000

President Bush yesterday rejected that he compromise on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal government at the expense of private insurance. A veto would end funding for the program immediately, leaving millions of American children without healthcare.

The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has proposed $5 billion in increased funding and he threatened to veto the Senate compromise and a more costly expansion being contemplated in the House because children need to pay their fair share too.

"I support the initial intent of the program," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. "My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government." Noting that children should have choices in healthcare like adults do.

The 10-year-old program, which is set to expire on Sept. 30, costs the federal government $5 billion a year and helps provide health coverage to 6.6 million low-income children whose families do not qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance on their own. It may be that Bush wants those kids to get jobs like they do in other countries.

About 3.3 million additional children would be covered under the proposal. It would provide the program $60 billion over five years, compared with $30 billion under Bush's proposal. And it would rely on a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes, to $1 a pack, which Bush opposes, but this Smoker doesn't.

Bush is being urged to drop efforts to link the program's renewal to his six-month-old proposal to replace the long-standing tax break for employer-based health insurance with a new tax deduction that would help people pay for insurance, regardless of whether they get it through their jobs or purchase it on their own. It would seem that any program for health care is fair game for the President to dismantle or destroy.

Conservitism, Except When Hookers Are Involved

noreply@blogger.com (CNASD) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:41:00 +0000

Sen. David Vitter, a staunch conservative Republican from Louisiana, apologized Monday after his telephone number turned up in Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s phone records. Palfrey is, of course, the notorious D.C. Madam who has kept much of Washington on pins and needles this summer with threats of exposing her client list. She faces federal racketeering charges for allegedly running an escort business.
-
"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter said in a statement. "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there — with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."

Vitter is married with four children. He was a leading proponent of a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, because, you know, marriage is a sacred institutional and all.

"We were hoping to get over 50 percent, but that didn't happen today," Vitter said after the amendment effort died in the Senate. "Eventually, Congress is going to have to catch up to the wisdom of the American people or the American people will change Congress for the better."

The American people could change Congress for the better by getting rid of hypocrites like Vitter, who win votes and campaign contributions on the backs of gay people, who it turns out, are often far more chaste and upstanding than their fiercest critics.