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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/29/politics/printable2053761.shtml
Congress OKs 700-Mile Border Fence
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2006
(AP) Republicans will go into the elections with a message that they've madegreat strides fighting illegal immigration, including authorizing a fencealong one-third of the U.S.-Mexico border and making a $1.2 billion downpayment on it.
Among its final tasks before leaving to campaign, the Senate on Friday nightpassed and sent to President Bush a bill authorizing 700 new miles offencing on the southern border. No one knows how much it will cost, but aseparate bill also on the way to the White House makes a $1.2 billion downpayment on it. A 14-mile segment of fence under construction in San Diego iscosting $126.5 million.
The fence bill was passed by the House two weeks ago. The Senate vote on itFriday night was 80-19.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106.html
Falling on His Sword
Colin Powell's most significant moment turned out to be his lowest
Sunday, October 1, 2006; W12
ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2004, eight days after the president he served was elected to a second term, Secretary of State Colin Powell received a telephone call from the White House at his State Department office. The caller was not President Bush but Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and he got right to the point.
"The president would like to make a change," Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words "resign" or "fire." He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell's resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate.
After four long years, Powell had anticipated the end of his service and sometimes even longed for it. He had never directly told the president but thought he had made clear to him during the summer of 2004 that he did not intend to stay into a second term.
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The Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/15646191.htm
Posted on Sat, Sep. 30, 2006
JACK ABRAMOFF SCANDAL
Federal prosecutors' bid to postpone Jack Abramoff's stay in prison were rejected by the judge, who said the time had come for the disgraced ex-lobbyist to begin his punishment.
BY MATT APUZZO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Judge rebuffs feds, rejects delay of prison sentence
The bribery investigation involving influence-peddler Jack Abramoff may have been stymied by a federal judge in Florida just as prosecutors began asking questions about the lobbyist's ties to the White House.
U.S. District Judge Paul Huck refused to delay Abramoff's prison sentence for fraud charges Thursday, rejecting a plea by the Justice Department's top corruption prosecutor, who said Abramoff was providing information about officials whose names hadn't yet surfaced in the case.
In the past month, the FBI has been pursuing leads about Abramoff's access to the White House and whether he was able to help lawmakers get Bush administration backing for their bills, according to someone familiar with the direction of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because of its secrecy.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/education/30teacher.html?pagewanted=pri
The New York Times
September 30, 2006
Museum Field Trip Deemed Too Revealing
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
FRISCO, Tex., Sept. 28 - "Keep the 'Art' in 'Smart' and 'Heart,' " Sydney McGee had posted on her Web site at Wilma Fisher Elementary School in this moneyed boomtown that is gobbling up the farm fields north of Dallas.
But Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child's parent complained, the teacher was suspended.
Although the tour had been approved by the principal, and the 89 students were accompanied by 4 other teachers, at least 12 parents and a museum docent, Ms. McGee said, she was called to the principal the next day and "bashed."
She later received a memorandum in which the principal, Nancy Lawson, wrote: "During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations." It cited additional complaints, which Ms. McGee has challenged.
The school board suspended her with pay on Sept. 22.
In a newsletter e-mailed to parents this week, the principal and Rick Reedy, superintendent of the Frisco Independent School District, said that Ms. McGee had been denied transfer to another school in the district, that her annual contract would not be renewed and that a replacement had been interviewed.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2006/09/28/hillarys_itinerary_for_2006_looks_like_a_2008_battleground_map?mode=PF
Hillary's itinerary for 2006 looks like 2008 battleground map
By Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer | September 28, 2006
WASHINGTON --Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible White House candidate, will lend a hand to congressional candidates, several of whomjust happen to be in presidential battleground states.
Cruising to a second term, the New York lawmaker told a gathering ofDemocratic Party faithful she will be traveling to states with close racesnext month to boost the party's hopes of taking control of Congress thisNovember.
"I'm always the most paranoid campaigner you can find, but I'm also going tobe campaigning around the country in these last weeks for other candidates,"Clinton told a women's leadership gathering for the Democratic NationalCommittee.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500731.html
Three Retired Officers Demand Rumsfeld's Resignation
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 25, 2006; 5:14 PM
Three retired military officers who served in Iraq called today for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, telling a Democratic "oversight hearing" on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon chief bungled planning for the U.S. invasion, dismissed the prospect of an insurgency and sent American troops into the fray with inadequate equipment.
The testimony by the three --two retired Army major generals and a former Marine colonel -- came a day after disclosure of a classified intelligence assessment that concluded the war in Iraq has fueled recruitment of violent Islamic extremists, helping to create a new generation of potential terrorists around the world and worsening the U.S. position.
In testimony before the Democratic Policy Committee today, retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 and served as a senior military assistant to former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, charged that Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq."
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http://www.sacbee.com/110/v-print/story/31602.html
The Sacramento Bee
Making way for Jihad
By William F. Buckley Jr. -
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, September 29, 2006
The categorical opponents of the detainee bill should spend an unhappy hour reading the new book by Mary Habeck. She is a scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins, and her book, "Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror," is published by Yale University Press. The book undertakes to tell the reader things about the jihadist offensive that we should know about, properly concern ourselves with, and take into account when weighing legislative initiatives.
The scene in Washington, in a word, was as follows. The president, who is commander in chief of our armed forces and, as such, principal agent of the national security, took to Congress an impasse. It had been created by the Supreme Court. Exercising, quite properly, its authority to opine on deviations from past constitutional practice having to do with human rights, the court ruled that we could not legitimately proceed, as we have been doing in Guantanamo, to detain foreigners for interrogation and other purposes without reference to such constitutional narrative as is implicit under habeas corpus. That doctrine specifies that the American citizen is the master of his own movements -- putting the burden of respecting that sovereignty on the government.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901055.html
Legislating Violations of the Constitution
By Erwin Chemerinsky
Special to washingtonpost.com
Saturday, September 30, 2006; 12:00 AM
With little public attention or even notice, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679 - provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees. The bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion.
A federal statute, 42 United States Code section 1988, provides that attorneys are entitled to recover compensation for their fees if they successfully represent a plaintiff asserting a violation of his or her constitutional or civil rights. For example, a lawyer who successfully sues on behalf of a victim of racial discrimination or police abuse is entitled to recover attorney's fees from the defendant who acted wrongfully. Any plaintiff who successfully sues to remedy a violation of the Constitution or a federal civil rights statute is entitled to have his or her attorney's fees paid.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901628_pf.html
The Washington Post
THE EDUCATION ISSUE
By Paul A. Hanle
Sunday, October 1, 2006; B04
I recently addressed a group of French engineering graduate students who were visiting Washington from the prestigious School of Mines in Paris. After encouraging them to teach biotechnology in French high schools, I expected the standard queries on teaching methods or training. Instead, a bright young student asked bluntly: "How can you teach biotechnology in this country when you don't even accept evolution?"
I wanted to disagree, but the kid had a point. Proponents of "intelligent design" in the United States are waging a war against teaching science as scientists understand it. Over the past year alone, efforts to incorporate creationist language or undermine evolution in science classrooms at public schools have emerged in at least 15 states, according to the National Center for Science Education. And an independent education foundation has concluded that science-teaching standards in 10 states fail to address evolution in a scientifically sound way. Through changes in standards and curriculum, these efforts urge students to doubt evolution -- the cornerstone principle of biology, one on which there is no serious scientific debate.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/us/30foley.html?ei=5094&en=46724e8fe6d64c22&hp=&ex=1159588800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
The New York Times
September 30, 2006
Lawmaker Quits Over E-Mail Sent to Teenage Pages
By KATE ZERNIKE and ABBY GOODNOUGH
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - In six terms representing a wealthy swath of southern Florida, Representative Mark Foley, a Republican, became well known for his ardent efforts to safeguard the young and vulnerable, leading the House caucus on missing and exploited children and championing laws against sexual predators.
On Friday, Mr. Foley resigned abruptly after being confronted with a series of sexually explicit Internet messages he is reported to have sent to under-age Congressional pages. He is thus accused of being the very kind of predator he had denounced.
"I am deeply sorry," Mr. Foley, 52, said in a three-sentence statement released by his office, "and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent." The statement did not refer specifically to the Internet messages.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/world/asia/29water.html?pagewanted=print
September 29, 2006
In India, Water Crisis Means Foul Sludge
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
NEW DELHI, Sept. 28 - The quest for water can drive a woman mad.Ask Ritu Prasher. Every day, Mrs. Prasher, a homemaker in a middle-class neighborhood of this capital, rises at 6:30 a.m. and begins fretting about water.
It is a rare morning when water trickles through the pipes. More often, not a drop will come. So Mrs. Prasher will have to call a private water tanker, wait for it to show up, call again, wait some more and worry about whether enough buckets are filled in the bathroom in case no water arrives.
"Your whole day goes just planning how you'll get water," a weary Mrs. Prasher, 45, recounted one morning this summer, cellphone in hand and ready to press redial for the water tanker. "You become so edgy all the time."
In the richest city in India, with the nation's economy marching ahead at an enviable clip, middle-class people like Mrs. Prasher are reduced to foraging for water. Their predicament testifies to the government's astonishing inability to deliver the most basic services to its citizens at a time when India asserts itself as a global power.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092900368.html
Card Urged Bush to Replace Rumsfeld, Woodward Says
By William Hamilton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; 1:50 PM
Former White House chief of staff Andrew Card on two occasions tried and failed to persuade President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to a new book by Bob Woodward that depicts senior officials of the Bush administration as unable to face the consequences of their policy in Iraq.
Card made his first attempt after Bush was reelected in November, 2004, arguing that the administration needed a fresh start and recommending that Bush replace Rumsfeld with former secretary of state James A. Baker III. Woodward writes that Bush considered the move, but was persuaded by Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, that it would be seen as an expression of doubt about the course of the war and would expose Bush himself to criticism.
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