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http://www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=682497cc-adb1-4905-9c61-bc0e0865ec82
Jim Crow strikes back in election laws
Proposed voter legislation will disenfranchise minorities
Eric Naing
Posted: 10/6/06
Current White House Press Secretary and former Fox News talking head TonySnow said in 2003 that "racism isn't that big a deal anymore" and that it is"quickly becoming an ugly memory." For millions of Americans, this iscertainly not the case. Don't believe what your history books say, Jim Crowis alive and well in our electoral system.
Earlier this year, the 1965 Voting Rights Act was successfully renewed afterHouse Republicans shamefully tried to delay the vote. This landmarklegislation enfranchised black voters by eliminating barriers to voting suchas poll taxes and literacy tests. Unfortunately, our own representative TimJohnson and the rest of the Republican-led House seek to undo all this withthe Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006.
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http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/10/allen_took_brib.html
Allen took bribes, then failed to report stock options
October 8, 2006 7:16 PM | News | 11 Comments
Sen. George Allen sold his support and votes to companies that rewarded himwith stock options and then failed to report those stock holdings asrequired by law.
Allen's illegal actions place him in direct violation of Securities andExchange Commission regulations and the rules of the U.S. Senate as well asfederal laws that prohibit elected officials from accepting bribes.
An investigation into Allen by The Associated Press shows Allen cashed in oncontacts he made as governor of Virginia, receiving appointments to boardsand receiving stock options as rewards. He then rewarded those companieswith support and votes after becoming a U.S. Senator.
Allen, whose campaign has stumbled this year because of his history ofracist comments, now may face criminal charges for more serious misdeeds.
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The Washington Post Company
Poll Shows Strong Shift Of Support to Democrats
By David S. Broder and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; A01
Democrats have regained a commanding position going into the final weeks of the midterm-election campaigns, with support eroding for Republicans on Iraq, ethics and presidential leadership, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Apparent Republican gains in September have been reversed in the face of mounting U.S. casualties and gloomy forecasts from Iraq and the scandal involving Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who was forced to resign his congressional post over sexually graphic online conversations with former House pages.
Approval of Congress has plunged to its lowest level in more than a decade (32 percent), and Americans, by a margin of 54 percent to 35 percent, say they trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with the biggest problems the nation is confronting. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said congressional Democrats deserve to be reelected next month, but just 39 percent said Republicans deserve to return to office.
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The Washington Post Company
GOP Officials Brace for Loss Of Seven to 30 House Seats
By Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; A01
Republican campaign officials said yesterday that they expect to lose at least seven House seats and as many as 30 in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, as a result of sustained violence in Iraq and the page scandal involving former GOP representative Mark Foley.
Democrats need to pick up 15 seats in the election to take back control of the House after more than a decade of GOP leadership. Two weeks of virtually nonstop controversy over President Bush's war policy and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's handling of the page scandal have forced party leaders to recalculate their vulnerability and placed a growing number of Republican incumbents and open seats at much greater risk.
GOP officials are urging lawmakers to focus exclusively on local issues and leave it to party leaders to mitigate the Foley controversy by accusing Democrats of trying to politicize it. At the same time, the White House plans to amplify national security issues, especially the threat of terrorism, after North Korea's reported nuclear test, in hopes of shifting the debate away from casualties and controversy during the final month of the campaign. These efforts are aimed largely at prodding disaffected conservatives to vote for GOP candidates despite their unease.
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http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/10/navy_lawyer_who.html
Navy lawyer who challenged Bush forced to leave service
October 9, 2006 6:27 AM | FUBAR | 22 Comments
The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has beenpassed over for promotion and will have to leave the military.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under themilitary's "up or out" promotion system. Swift said last week he wasnotified he would not be promoted to commander.
He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sidedwith him and against the White House in the case involving Salim AhmedHamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama bin Laden's driver.
"It was a pleasure to serve," Swift told the Miami Herald. He added he wouldhave defended Hamdan even if he had known it would cut short his Navycareer.
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http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/09/a_manifesto_for_those_who_reject_the_extremes?mode=PF
A manifesto for those who reject the extremes
By Cathy Young | October 9, 2006
TODAY'S POLITICAL scene is not a friendly place for people who don't see theworld in stark black-and-white categories -- people who, for instance,strongly condemn human rights abuses toward detained terror suspects inUnited States custody, but just as strongly reject the mentality that viewsthe United States as the chief perpetrator of human rights abuses in theworld today. Now, some of the politically homeless are building a home of their own, known as the Euston Manifesto.
The manifesto, which can be found at eustonmanifesto.org, was authored lastMarch by a group of British academics, journalists, and activists headed byNorman Geras, emeritus professor of politics at Manchester University. InSeptember, a group of American supporters of the manifesto issued their ownstatement, ``American Liberalism and the Euston Manifesto."
The signatories are truly a varied group. A few, such as American EnterpriseInstitute scholar Michael Ledeen, could be described as conservative. Some,notably Martin Peretz, editor-in- chief of The New Republic, are noted``liberal hawks" with the reputation of right-wing Democrats.
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http://www.alternet.org/rights/42458/
American Prison Camps Are on the Way
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Posted on October 9, 2006, Printed on October 9, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/42458/
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."
Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism. Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed the bill through Congress with little substantive debate.
Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.
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Link:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll508.xml
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 508
(Republicans in roman; Democrats in italic; Independents underlined)
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http://www.alternet.org/stories/42570/
Finally, Elite Democrats Are Feeling the Heat
By Ruth Conniff, The Progressive
Posted on October 7, 2006, Printed on October 9, 2006
David Broder recently wrote a column in the Washington Post warning of abattle between sensible centrists and "vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggerson the left" and their heroes.
He singled out Ned Lamont in Connecticut and, in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, whomBroder called "a loud advocate of protectionist policies that offer a falsehope of solving our trade and job problems."
Broder's ire shows how media establishment types and defenders of the statusquo are "freaking out" because a majority of Americans are not forming theiropinions according to the opinion-makers' predictions, according to oneleftwing blogger -- political activist David Sirota.
It is the Republicans' betrayal of middle-class voters that got them intothe hot water they're in this year, Brown says. "People look at whose sideare you on?" he says. "The Republican leaders in the state see government asa piggy bank.[Ohio's Republican Senator Mike] DeWine and that crowd aregiving away tax breaks to drug companies and the oil industry. People rejectthat."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/07/AR2006100701054_pf.html
Inside Hezbollah, Big Miscalculations
Militia Leaders Caught Off Guard By Scope of Israel's Response in War
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 8, 2006; A01
BEIRUT -- The meeting on July 12 was tense, tinged with desperation. A fewhours earlier, in a brazen raid, Hezbollah guerrillas had infiltrated acrossthe heavily fortified border and captured two Israeli soldiers. Lebanon'sprime minister summoned Hussein Khalil, an aide to Hezbollah's leader, tohis office at the Serail, the palatial four-story government headquarters ofred tile and colonnades in Beirut's downtown.
"What have you done?" Prime Minister Fouad Siniora asked him.
Khalil reassured him, according to an account by two officials briefed bySiniora, one of whom later confirmed it with the prime minister. "It willcalm down in 24 to 48 hours."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-map7oct07,0,3782980.story?track=tothtml
Deaths Across Iraq Show It Is a Nation of Many Wars, With U.S. in the Middle
By Solomon Moore and Louise Roug
Times Staff Writers
October 7, 2006
BAGHDAD - Consider a recent day - an average 24 hours in Iraq.
Here in the capital, the bodies of eight young men were found chainedtogether, stripped of identification papers, shot and dumped in a parkinglot, the first of 20 corpses found in the city that day.
In northern Iraq, a man detonated a bomb vest amid a group of women,children and men lining up for cooking oil, killing himself and 21 others.In the south, police found the bullet-torn body of a senior anti-terrorismofficial. And in Al Anbar province, in the west, a car smashed into a lineof police recruits and exploded, killing 13 by fire and shrapnel.
In all, at least 57 people died and 17 were injured in the violence thatday, Sept. 18.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/opinion/10kristof.html?pagewanted=print
October 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Talking With the Monsters
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
If there's one overriding lesson from North Korea's apparent nuclear test, it's this: We need to negotiate directly even with hostile and brutal regimes.
It's probably too late to clean up the mess that President Bush has made on the Korean peninsula, but there is time to apply the lesson to Syria and especially Iran - where we may soon be facing a third military conflict in a Muslim country.
As former Secretary of State James Baker noted in an ABC News interview on Sunday: "I believe in talking to your enemies. ... It's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."
The administrations of both the first President Bush and of President Clinton talked to North Korea. That engagement sometimes seemed distasteful, but it averted war and created incentives for North Korea to moderate its behavior - just a bit.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901037_pf.html
'Values' Choice for The GOP
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; A21
It's possible that the Mark Foley scandal could finally end the phony,trumped-up "culture war" that the Republican Party has so expertly exploitedall these years -- possible, but not likely. I'm afraid the Foley episodewill be remembered as just another bloody battle, one with lots ofcollateral damage.
The Republicans wouldn't be where they are today -- in control of the WhiteHouse and all of Capitol Hill -- if they hadn't portrayed themselves as thestalwart defenders of moral standards and painted Democrats as a bunch ofanything-goes libertines. Republicans promised social and religiousconservatives that the values they treasure would not only be respected butwritten into law. Even if they didn't deliver on these promises, or even tryvery hard, Republicans paid enough lip service to moral issues to keep"values voters" inside the tent.
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The New York Times
October 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Polled and Confused
By JOHN TIERNEY
You may have heard that American voters are disappointed. They are disappointed with Dennis Hastert and the rest of Congress. They are very disappointed with the war in Iraq. They are very, very disappointed with President Bush.
I share their unhappiness, but I must confess to one further regret. I am disappointed with the voters - or at least the ones who show up in public-opinion polls. They keep complaining that Washington doesn't understand what they want, but who on earth could?
Early in the Iraq war, Americans told pollsters they favored it and considered it a major part of the war on terrorism. Then they decided the war was a mistake and didn't reduce the risk of terrorism. Yet as they got angrier and angrier at Republicans for making a mess of Iraq, they kept telling pollsters that they didn't trust the Democrats to do a better job of dealing with terrorism.
Their feelings on the economy are even harder to fathom. In the New York Times/CBS News poll released yesterday, a solid majority of voters said the economy was doing well. When asked if they were making enough to pay their bills and sock away savings, they also sounded upbeat - more upbeat than the respondents 10 years ago who were asked that question when the White House was in Democratic hands.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/us/politics/10poll.html?ei=5094&en=786ae5a101ecd2d0&hp=&ex=1160539200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
October 10, 2006
Poll Shows Foley Case Is Hurting Congress's Image
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER
Americans say that Republican Congressional leaders put their political interests ahead of protecting the safety of teenage pages, and that House leaders knew of Mark Foley's sexually charged messages to pages well before he was forced to quit Congress, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The poll, completed before North Korea announced that it had detonated its first nuclear test, also found that the war in Iraq was continuing to take a toll on President Bush and the Republican Party, and that the White House was having difficulty retaining its edge in handling terrorism.
The number of Americans who approve of Mr. Bush's handling of the campaign against terrorism dropped to 46 percent from 54 percent in the past two weeks, suggesting that he failed to gain any political lift from an orchestrated set of ceremonies marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. In addition, the poll shows that Americans are now evenly divided over which party they think can better handle terrorism, the first time in the Bush presidency that Democrats have matched Republicans on national security, despite a concerted White House effort to seize the advantage on the issue this month.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901130_pf.html
Bush's 'Axis of Evil' Comes Back to Haunt United States
By Glenn Kessler and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; A12
Nearly five years after President Bush introduced the concept of an "axis of evil" comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the administration has reached a crisis point with each nation: North Korea has claimed it conducted its first nuclear test, Iran refuses to halt its uranium-enrichment program, and Iraq appears to be tipping into a civil war 3 1/2 years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Each problem appears to feed on the others, making the stakes higher and requiring Bush and his advisers to make difficult calculations, analysts and U.S. officials said. The deteriorating situation in Iraq has undermined U.S. diplomatic credibility and limited the administration's military options, making rogue countries increasingly confident that they can act without serious consequences. Iran, meanwhile, will be watching closely the diplomatic fallout from North Korea's apparent test as a clue to how far it might go with its own nuclear program.
"Iran will follow very carefully what happens in the U.N. Security Council after the North Korean test," said Robert J. Einhorn, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). "If the United Nations is not able to act forcefully, then Iran will think the path is clear to act with impunity."
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Pages.html?pagewanted=print
October 10, 2006
Former Pages Surveyed in Foley Probe
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:04 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers, following a request from the House ethics committee, are surveying aides and former House pages to find out if any of them had knowledge of ex-Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate conduct toward male pages.
In a separate investigation, the FBI was to meet Tuesday in Oklahoma City with a former page who may have received suggestive electronic messages from Foley, the former page's attorney said.
The two probes center on the nature of Foley's relationship with teenagers, called pages, who serve as errand-runners for members of Congress.
The House ethics committee inquiry was moving quickly.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/business/10religious.html?ei=5094&en=498771bc7b8314bc&hp=&ex=1160539200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
October 10, 2006
In God's Name
As Religious Programs Expand, Disputes Rise Over Tax Breaks
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
The similarities between Holy Cross Village at Notre Dame, on the north side of South Bend, Ind., and Hermitage Estates, south of town, are almost disorienting. The two retirement communities have the same simple gabled ranch houses, with the same touches of brick and stone, clustered around a pond with the same fountain funneling spray into the air and ducks waddling down the grassy bank.
But the retired residents of Hermitage Estates pay an average of about $2,300 per unit in property taxes. The management of Holy Cross Village, the Brothers of Holy Cross, says that development should be exempt from property taxes, and it has taken that argument to court.
As the Brothers of Holy Cross, a Roman Catholic religious order, sees it, providing the elderly with the amenities of the village - a sense of security, social opportunities and various services to make independent living easier - is a charitable activity rooted in its pastoral mission to serve others.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901040_pf.html
Punctuated by Life and Death
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; A21
On the day that The Post carried a story about how President Bush had characterized the present difficult period in Iraq as "just a comma," Matt Mendelsohn called me. He is a photographer who took the pictures for a new book by his brother Daniel, "The Lost." It is an attempt to find out what happened to six members of the Mendelsohn family who perished in the Holocaust -- the family of great-uncle Shmiel Jager, "killed by the Nazis," of which almost nothing else was known. There: You went right by it. Shmiel lived between the commas.
In between those commas, of course, is the life of a man. He was scared and he was brave, he was proud and he was shamed, he headed a family and ran a business and then hid from the Nazis until he, along with four daughters and his wife, was betrayed and shot right on the spot. Don't think of the bullet as a period. It was, worse, a comma.
So Daniel Mendelsohn set out to expand the commas, to push them open and let in a life. From what the reviewers say, he succeeded brilliantly, so when someone says that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust or if someone mentions Auschwitz, you can understand that it is not a number that died but a person who was murdered. I say that also about Rwanda in 1994, or what happened to the Armenians in Turkey in 1915, or what is happening in Darfur today.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901034_pf.html
The Washington Post Company
A Vote We Can Believe In
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; A21
Sometimes, paranoids are right. And sometimes even when paranoids are wrong, it's worth considering what they're worried about.I speak here of all who are worried sick that those new, fancy high-tech voting systems can be hacked, fiddled with and otherwise made to record votes that aren't cast or fail to record votes that are.
I do not pretend to know how large a threat this is. I do know that it's a threat to democracy when so many Americans doubt that their votes will be recorded accurately. And I also know that smart, computer-savvy people are concerned about these machines.
The perfectly obvious thing is for the entire country to do what a number ofstates have already done: require paper trails so that if we have a close election or suspect something went wrong, we have the option to go back and check the results.
So it is heartening that a diverse group -- Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives -- in Congress has proposed legislation to give everyone, even the supposedly paranoid, confidence that our elections are on the level.
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