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Truthout.org
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_021807C.shtml
Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's Top Medical Facility
By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
The Washington Post
Sunday 18 February 2007
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall istorn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the woundedcombat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub onthe floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructedbetween the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglectare everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets,cheap mattresses.
This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncanexpected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Centerfrom Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearlydead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of thehospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housedhundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the warsin Iraq and Afghanistan.
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital thatshines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustainedcombat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into somethingelse entirely - a holding ground for physically and psychologically damagedoutpatients. Almost 700 of them - the majority soldiers, with some Marines -have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or areawaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned toactive duty.
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and backdamage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions havegrown so exponentially - they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17to 1 - that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozensof nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.
Not all of the quarters are as bleak as Duncan's, but the despair ofBuilding 18 symbolizes a larger problem in Walter Reed's treatment of thewounded, according to dozens of soldiers, family members, veterans aidgroups, and current and former Walter Reed staff members interviewed by twoWashington Post reporters, who spent more than four months visiting theoutpatient world without the knowledge or permission of Walter Reedofficials. Many agreed to be quoted by name; others said they feared Armyretribution if they complained publicly.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
MYSA.com
http://www.mysanantonio.com/global-includes/printstory.jsp?path=/news/education/stories/MYSA021507.2B.religion.group.84a41032.html
Religion group draws crowds at college
Web Posted: 02/15/2007 01:05 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
A traveling group preaching that God hates sinners, including gays andlesbians, has drawn hundreds of spectators at the University of Texas at SanAntonio campus over the past three days, most of them angered by themessage.
Called Soulwinners Ministries International, the East Lansing, Mich.-basedpreachers rail against premarital sex and drinking. On Wednesday, leaderMichael Venyah wore a shirt with writing that expressed anti-gay sentiments.
On Monday and Tuesday, student activities staff escorted the group offcampus because they did not have the backing of a university group. OnWednesday, the Secular Students Alliance invited them back. "We didn'tinvite him because we endorse this," said alliance member Jason Mery. "Buthe has freedom of speech."
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Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/19/conason/print.html
It could happen here
In an excerpt from his new book, Salon's columnist explains why, for thefirst time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, Americans have reasonto doubt the future of their democracy.
By Joe Conason
Feb. 19, 2007
Can it happen here? Is it happening here already? That depends, as a recentpresident might have said, on what the meaning of "it" is.
To Sinclair Lewis, who sardonically titled his 1935 dystopian novel "ItCan't Happen Here," "it" plainly meant an American version of thetotalitarian dictatorships that had seized power in Germany and Italy.
Married at the time to the pioneering reporter Dorothy Thompson, who hadbeen expelled from Berlin by the Nazis a year earlier and quickly became oneof America's most outspoken critics of fascism, Lewis was acutely aware ofthe domestic and foreign threats to American freedom. So often did he andThompson discuss the crisis in Europe and the implications of Europe's fatefor the Depression-wracked United States that, according to his biographer,Mark Schorer, Lewis referred to the entire topic somewhat contemptuously as"it."
If "it" denotes the police state American-style as imagined and satirized byLewis, complete with concentration camps, martial law, and mass executionsof strikers and other dissidents, then "it" hasn't happened here and isn'tlikely to happen anytime soon.
For contemporary Americans, however, "it" could signify our own more gradualand insidious turn toward authoritarian rule. That is why Lewis's darklyfunny but grim fable of an authoritarian coup achieved through a democraticelection still resonates today -- along with all the eerie parallels betweenwhat he imagined then and what we live with now.
For the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon more than threedecades ago, Americans have had reason to doubt the future of democracy andthe rule of law in our own country. Today we live in a state of tensionbetween the enjoyment of traditional freedoms, including the protectionsafforded to speech and person by the Bill of Rights, and the disturbingrealization that those freedoms have been undermined and may be abrogated atany moment.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/48101/
Republican Calls for Hanging of those Who Oppose President…
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on February 15, 2007, Printed on February 20, 2007
As the House debates whether to nominally oppose the escalation of the war on Iraq and to support the troops -- a "nonbinding" resolution -- Alaska's sole congressman Don Young rose to oppose it, quoting (video right):
congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.
The Republican believed (giving him the benefit of the doubt) that he was quoting Abraham Lincoln.
He was not. He was actually quoting a mistake from Insight magazine -- a publication full of half-baked claims and rumors -- funded by Rev. Moon.
That mistake, from December of 2003, has, over the course of the years, made its way into emails and the speech of a failed Republican candidacy.
Currently, it's the header to a neocon web-commentary on the other Moonie venture, the Washington Times, where, as Glenn Greenwald has noted, they refuse to take it down -- offering only to include a correction note at the bottom of his next commentary.
Miraculously, just two days later, this fraudulent, dangerous, anti-American quote finds its way into the mouth of a Republican congressman.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
The Birmingham News
http://www.al.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/1171880916119050.xml&coll=2
Gallup Red-State, Blue-State Paint Alabama Purple
Monday, February 19, 2007
CHARLES J. DEAN
News staff writer
MONTGOMERY - Might Alabama, long a red state in national elections and more recently in statewide races, be tracking a little more blue?
A recent Gallup Poll gives credence to that notion, reflecting an almost even split between Democrats and Republicans. In fact, the poll last year shows that more Alabamians identified themselves as Democrats, 49 percent of them, than Republicans, 46 percent.
That might surprise some in a state that has not voted for a Democratic Party candidate for president since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
The red-state blue-state shorthand also has seemed to work in recent
statewide races, especially for the governor's office, which Republicans have won in five of the past six elections.
While the divide between Democrats and Republicans is not wide enough to classify Alabama as a Democratic, or blue, state, Gallup for the second year in a row classifies Alabama as a "competitive" state for the two major parties and colored it purple.
In fact, Gallup ranks Alabama as the fourth-most competitive state in the nation, behind Colorado, Tennessee and Louisiana.
Predictably, Democrats in the state are happy about the Gallup observations.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
The Express News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA021907.01A.Manhart_Folo.1349f62.html
Playboy pics ignite a clash of values
Web Posted: 02/18/2007 11:35 PM CST
Sig Christenson
Express-News Military Writer
Playboy's six-page spread of her disrobed in a Dominion home seemed innocuous enough to former Lackland AFB drill instructor Michelle Manhart, who didn't think she would be punished — let alone driven out of uniform.
A feminist warrior nurtured by the modern society the Air Force protects, she overlooked one critical thing in her drive to both train young recruits for combat and craft a modeling career, experts say: The mores of the armed services are much closer to 1941 than 2007.
"I must say there's certainly no reason for this woman to be surprised by this outcome," former Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters said. "It might seem antediluvian and Victorian, but there has been a long course of consistent disciplinary treatment for people who appear nude in public and affiliate themselves with the military."
Banishment from the military is a typical fate for those posing nude in magazines, but questions remain over whether the Air Force properly sanctioned Manhart. There also are concerns about the wisdom of harshly punishing the Iowa Guard airman, who received the service's highest rating in a fall evaluation only to get a second, subpar review after Playboy hit Lackland's base exchange.
Behind those questions lies a public relations firestorm ignited in the wake of Manhart's photo layout.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
Truthout Issues
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021907B.shtml
Playboy pics ignite a clash of values
Web Posted: 02/18/2007 11:35 PM CST
Sig Christenson
Express-News Military Writer
Playboy's six-page spread of her disrobed in a Dominion home seemed innocuous enough to former Lackland AFB drill instructor Michelle Manhart, who didn't think she would be punished — let alone driven out of uniform.
A feminist warrior nurtured by the modern society the Air Force protects, she overlooked one critical thing in her drive to both train young recruits for combat and craft a modeling career, experts say: The mores of the armed services are much closer to 1941 than 2007.
"I must say there's certainly no reason for this woman to be surprised by this outcome," former Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters said. "It might seem antediluvian and Victorian, but there has been a long course of consistent disciplinary treatment for people who appear nude in public and affiliate themselves with the military."
Banishment from the military is a typical fate for those posing nude in magazines, but questions remain over whether the Air Force properly sanctioned Manhart. There also are concerns about the wisdom of harshly punishing the Iowa Guard airman, who received the service's highest rating in a fall evaluation only to get a second, subpar review after Playboy hit Lackland's base exchange.
Behind those questions lies a public relations firestorm ignited in the wake of Manhart's photo layout.
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Statesman.com
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/02/20/20mental.html
Texas selected for study of mental health illnesses in state prisons
Nearly a third of state, county jail inmates have mental health diseases
By By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, February 19, 2007
Facing a growing number of prisoners who have mental health diseases, Texas is one of seven states selected to participate in a national study designed to find new ways to treat those offenders without just locking them up.
Some 45,000 Texas convicts have mental health diseases when they arrive in prison, officials have estimated. That's nearly a third of Texas' 153,000 prison inmates.
Officials later today are expected to announce Texas' participation in the year-long initiative sponsored by the Justice Center project of the Council of State Governments, a national trade group for lawmakers.
Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller will head the Texas Task Force part of the study, which organizers said is designed to assist State Supreme Court justices in finding how to better deal with people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system.
In Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals is the highest court of appeal for criminal cases.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/19/conason/print.html
It could happen here
In an excerpt from his new book, Salon's columnist explains why, for the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, Americans have reason to doubt the future of their democracy.
By Joe Conason
Feb. 19, 2007 | Can it happen here? Is it happening here already? That depends, as a recent president might have said, on what the meaning of "it" is.
To Sinclair Lewis, who sardonically titled his 1935 dystopian novel "It Can't Happen Here," "it" plainly meant an American version of the totalitarian dictatorships that had seized power in Germany and Italy. Married at the time to the pioneering reporter Dorothy Thompson, who had been expelled from Berlin by the Nazis a year earlier and quickly became one of America's most outspoken critics of fascism, Lewis was acutely aware of the domestic and foreign threats to American freedom. So often did he and Thompson discuss the crisis in Europe and the implications of Europe's fate for the Depression-wracked United States that, according to his biographer, Mark Schorer, Lewis referred to the entire topic somewhat contemptuously as "it."
If "it" denotes the police state American-style as imagined and satirized by
Lewis, complete with concentration camps, martial law, and mass executions of strikers and other dissidents, then "it" hasn't happened here and isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
For contemporary Americans, however, "it" could signify our own more gradual and insidious turn toward authoritarian rule. That is why Lewis's darkly funny but grim fable of an authoritarian coup achieved through a democratic election still resonates today -- along with all the eerie parallels between what he imagined then and what we live with now.
For the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon more than three decades ago, Americans have had reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in our own country. Today we live in a state of tension between the enjoyment of traditional freedoms, including the protections afforded to speech and person by the Bill of Rights, and the disturbing realization that those freedoms have been undermined and may be abrogated at any moment.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/washington/20cheney.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Trial Spotlights Cheney’s Power as an Infighter
By JIM RUTENBERG
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 — A picture taking shape from hours of testimony and reams of documents in the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. shatters any notion that the White House was operating as a model of cohesion throughout President Bush’s first term.
The trial against Mr. Libby has centered on a narrow case of perjury, with days of sparring between the defense and prosecution lawyers over the numbing details of three-year-old conversations between White House officials and journalists. But a close reading of the testimony and evidence in the case is more revelatory, bringing into bolder relief a portrait of a vice president with free rein to operate inside the White House as he saw fit in order to debunk the charges of a critic of the war in Iraq.
The evidence in the trial shows Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Libby, his former chief of staff, countermanding and even occasionally misleading colleagues at the highest levels of Mr. Bush’s inner circle as the two pursued their own goal of clearing the vice president’s name in connection with flawed intelligence used in the case for war.
The testimony in the trial, which is heading for final arguments as early as Tuesday, calls into question whether Mr. Cheney, known as a consummate inside player, operated as effectively as his reputation would hold. For all of his machinations, Mr. Cheney’s efforts sometimes faltered as he tried, with the help of Mr. Libby, to push back against critics during a crucial period in the early summer of 2003, when Mr. Bush’s initial case for war was beginning to fall apart. In some of their efforts, Mr. Cheney and his agent, Mr. Libby, appeared even maladroit in the art of news management.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/business/worldbusiness/20privacy.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Europe’s Plan to Track Phone and Net Use
By VICTORIA SHANNON
PARIS, Feb. 19 — European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people’s Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.
In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal.
A draft law in the Netherlands would likewise go further than the European Union requires, in this case by requiring phone companies to save records of a caller’s precise location during an entire mobile phone conversation.
Even now, Internet service providers in Europe divulge customer information — which they normally keep on hand for about three months, for billing purposes — to police officials with legally valid orders on a routine basis, said Peter Fleischer, the Paris-based European privacy counsel for Google. The data concerns how the communication was sent and by whom but not its content.
But law enforcement officials argued after the terrorist bombings in Spain and Britain that they needed better and longer data storage from companies handling Europe’s communications networks.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/us/politics/20hillary.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
After a Delicately Worded Pitch, Clinton Draws Cheers
By PATRICK HEALY
COLUMBIA, S.C., Feb. 19 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience of black voters on Monday that they would be “breaking barriers” if they supported her for president in 2008 — deliberately signaling that they could still take pride in making history if they chose a woman over one of their own, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
It was a delicately worded pitch — Mrs. Clinton did not mention Mr. Obama by name — and it drew applause. Another remark, that “anyone can be president,” set off an ecstatic standing ovation.
Afterward, several black voters said they would support Mrs. Clinton, a New York Democrat, on the merits, and postpone a vote for Mr. Obama until a future presidential election, once he had more experience.
The two Democrats, rivals for their party’s presidential nomination, were both in South Carolina this holiday weekend competing for the support of blacks, who cast almost half of the votes in the Democratic primary here in 2004. South Carolina is scheduled to be fourth in the string of nominating primaries and caucuses for the 2008 race.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/washington/20scotus.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Justices to Revisit Thorny Issue of Sentencing Guidelines in First Cases After Recess
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 — The Supreme Court returns on Tuesday from a monthlong recess to face a daunting and urgent task: explaining what it meant two years ago when i ruled that the federal sentencing guidelines were to be treated as “advisory,” no longer binding on federal judges.
The decision that dropped that bombshell on the criminal justice system, United States v. Booker, has not penetrated public consciousness in the way that, say, the Miranda decision on the right against self-incrimination did a generation ago. But in its own way, it has been no less revolutionary, creating turmoil in criminal sentencing.
The justices will hear arguments on Tuesday morning in two cases that will provide the latest chapter, although almost certainly not the final one, in the court’s continuing and, to many, profoundly unsettling reappraisal of the roles of juries and judges in criminal sentencing.
The Booker decision came in two parts, each decided by a different 5-to-4 majority, with only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joining the majority in both halves. The court ruled on the one hand that the sentencing guidelines violated defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury by giving judges, rather than juries, the power to make the factual findings that determined where to set the actual sentence within the range provided by the guidelines.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/health/20epil.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Battling Epilepsy, and Its Stigma
By ALIYAH BARUCHIN
The first thing you notice about 12-year-old Nora Leitner is the dark circles under her eyes. They stand in stark contrast to the rest of her appearance; at a glance she might be any petite, pretty tween girl, with her blond ponytail, elfin frame and thousand-watt smile. But the circles tell a different story: Nora looks as if she hasn’t slept in a month.
In a sense, she hasn’t. Nora has epilepsy, and as with 30 percent of those with the disorder, her seizures are not controlled by existing treatments.
She often has more than one seizure a day, mostly at night. Her seizures, called tonic-clonic (what used to be known as grand mal), cause her to lose consciousness for a full minute while her body convulses.
While some people feel an “aura” of symptoms before a seizure, Nora’s happen entirely without warning. When she seized at the top of a staircase in her home in Yardley, Pa., it was plain luck that her parents were at the bottom and caught her as she fell. Though she is on the brink of adolescence, she is rarely, if ever, left alone.
Fifty million people have epilepsy worldwide, and more than 2.7 million in the United States, half of them children. Especially in its intractable form, also called refractory epilepsy, the disorder — and the side effects of epilepsy medications — can cause problems in learning, memory and behavior, and indelibly alter development. It can also consume families, monopolizing their time, money and energy. Yet despite the number of people with epilepsy — the disorder affects more Americans than do Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig’s disease combined — it still carries a stigma that dates to ancient civilizations. Many patients, doctors and families say that stigma hampers care, public recognition and the ability to raise money for research.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900858_pf.html
'Milestone of Achievement' on the Hill
Miller Is the First African American To Be House Clerk
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; A11
At 6 feet 2 inches tall, Lorraine C. Miller cuts a striking figure in the polished hallways of the U.S. Capitol. Last week, the woman with regal bearing gained another, more lasting distinction. She was sworn in as clerk of the House of Representatives, the first African American to hold the seat since it was created in 1789.
"This is another milestone of achievement, not just of black people but of all people," said Thomas Tyler, who directs the senior choir at the Shiloh Baptist Church in the District, where Miller sings first alto.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped Miller for the job, citing her work ethic, knowledge of the Hill and ability to make connections across party lines, in addition to her trailblazer status.
"I was the first woman, and I had a responsibility to do other firsts," Pelosi said at a recent reception honoring Miller. "I've done a lot of things since I became speaker, but none have given me more pride and been more thrilling to me than to swear in Lorraine Miller."
Miller had been among Pelosi's senior advisers. After the Democrats won control of Congress in November and it was clear that Pelosi would ascend to the House speaker's job, members of her staff began lobbying for various appointments. All except Miller.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900893_pf.html
Advocates Urge O'Malley to Back Restored Rights
By Ovetta Wiggins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; B02
Advocates seeking to expand the voting rights of convicted felons in Maryland are stepping up their efforts this year, hoping that the election of Gov. Martin O'Malley will help move bills that stalled in past years.
Leaders from the 2nd Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church met with O'Malley (D) yesterday morning to encourage him to support legislation that, in varying degrees, would restore the voting rights of former offenders.
In Maryland, a first-time offender is able to vote after completing a sentence, including any probation or parole. People convicted of two or more felonies must wait three years before they can vote.
A House bill would allow first-time offenders to vote after they are released from prison. A Senate bill would remove the waiting period for second-time offenders.
"This is an issue that has been addressed in the past, and we want to accomplish something meaningful this time around," said Sen. Gwendolyn T. Britt (D-Prince George's), a lead sponsor.
Del. Justin D. Ross (D-Prince George's) said that current laws are "punitive and discriminatory" and that it is time for a change.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900400_pf.html
Romanian Priest Sentenced for Exorcism
The Associated Press
Monday, February 19, 2007; 10:47 AM
BUCHAREST, Romania -- A Romanian priest who led a dayslong exorcism ritual for a young nun that ended with the woman's death was sentenced Monday to 14 years in prison. Four nuns were also sentenced in the case. The dead nun, Maricica Irina Cornici, believed she heard the devil talking to her. She was treated for schizophrenia, but when she relapsed, Daniel Petru Corogeanu _ a monk who served as the priest for the secluded Holy Trinity convent in northeast Romania _ and the four other nuns tried exorcism.
Cornici, 23, was tied up for several days at the without food or water and chained to a cross. Shedied of dehydration, exhaustion and suffocation.
The court in the northeast city of Vaslui convicted Corogeanu and the nuns of holding Cornici captive, resulting in her death. One of the nuns, Nicoleta Arcalianu, was sentenced to eight years in prison, and the other three _ Adina Cepraga, Elena Otel and Simona Bardanas _ received five-year sentences.
Dozens of Corogeanu's supporters packed the courtroom and prayed for the priest; several burst into tears when the verdict was announced.
The defendants' lawyers plan to appeal.
Cornici's death prompted Romania's dominant Orthodox Church to promise reforms, including psychological tests for those seeking to enter monasteries.
The Orthodox church, which has benefited from a religious revival in recent years, condemned the ritual at the convent as "abominable" and banned Corogeanu from the priesthood and excommunicated the four nuns from the church.
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The Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/16737083.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Posted on Tue, Feb. 20, 2007
Libby trial exposes much double-dealing
OUR OPINION: SMEAR CAMPAIGN SHOWS HOW WASHINGTON, MEDIA WORK
The trial of I. Lewis Libby will likely go to a jury in Washington, D.C., soon. Mr. Libby is the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney on trial for his role in the case of ValeriePlame, the one-time CIA spy whose exposure in a newspaper column in 2003 ignited a firestorm of controversy. He is charged with perjury, but the trial has revealed a pattern of behavior about something far more important -- why we went to war in Iraq and the deception that followed.
The Niger connection
Ms. Plame is married to Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. diplomat who challenged administration claims that Saddam Hussein was secretly trying to buy material in the African nation of Niger to make nuclear weapons. Mr. Wilson's view was based on a trip to Niger undertaken at the behest of the CIA. President Bush made the Niger connection a main point of his 2003 State of the Union speech, citing British intelligence as the source. As it turned out, the claim was based on forged documents.
According to testimony in Mr. Libby's trial, however, Vice President Cheney hit the roof when Mr. Wilson went public with his challenge. At the time, the administration's WMD case against Saddam Hussein was crumbling. Mr. Cheney dictated ''talking points'' memos to discredit Mr. Wilson's claims.
Several reporters testified that it was around this time that Mr. Libby disclosed Ms. Plame's name to them. The implication was that Mr. Wilson's trip was a junket organized by his wife and thus unworthy of validity. When her name was exposed, she and Mr. Wilson deemed it political payback for questioning the Niger connection.
All of this played out behind closed doors and in ''confidential'' background-only sessions with Washington reporters. The public was kept in the dark about the way Ms. Plame's name was bandied about, even though testimony has now shown that at least four administration officials -- including political advisor Karl Rove and former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer -- did so.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/opinion/20tues1.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Moral Waivers and the Military
The Iraq war has plunged the Army into a vicious cycle of declining standards. Multiple, extended tours of duty have sapped morale and blighted recruiting. New plans for a larger overall force could reduce pressures but would also mean that recruiters would have to meet higher quotas.
To keep filling the ranks, the Army has had to keep lowering its expectations. Diluting educational, aptitude and medical standards has not been enough. Nor have larger enlistment bonuses plugged the gap. So the Army has found itself recklessly expanding the granting of “moral waivers,” which let people convicted of serious misdemeanors and even some felonies enlist in its ranks.
Last year, such waivers were granted to 8,129 men and women — or more than one out of every 10 new Army recruits. That number is up 65 percent since 2003, the year President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. In the last three years, more than 125,000 moral waivers have been granted by America’s four military services.
Most of last year’s Army waivers were for serious misdemeanors, like aggravated assault, robbery, burglary and vehicular homicide. But around 900 — double the number in 2003 — were for felonies. Worse, the Army does no systematic tracking of recruits with waivers once it signs them up, and it does not always pay enough attention to any adjustment problems. Without adequate monitoring and counseling, handing out guns to people who have already committed crimes poses a danger to the other soldiers they serve with and to the innocent civilians they are supposed to protect.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/opinion/20kristof.html
February 20, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Let’s Start a War, One We Can Win
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
AFETA, Ethiopia
They were two old men, one arriving by motorcade with bodyguards and the other groping blindly as he shuffled on a footpath with a stick, but for a moment the orbits of Jimmy Carter and Mekonnen Leka intersected on this remote battlefield in southern Ethiopia.
Mr. Mekonnen, who thinks he may be 78, is a patient in Mr. Carter’s war on river blindness. He is so blind that he rarely leaves the house any more, but on this occasion he staggered to the village clinic to get a treatment for the worms inside him.
His skin is mottled because the worms cause ferocious itching, especially when they become more active at night. He and other victims scratch until they are bloodied and their skin is partly worn away. Ultimately the worms travel to the eye, where they often destroy the victim’s sight.
Ethiopia has the largest proportion of blind people in the world, 1.2 percent, because of the combined effects of river blindness and trachoma. As in many African countries, the wrenching emblem of poverty is a tiny child leading a blind beggar by a stick.
As Mr. Mekonnen waited on a bench by the clinic, there was a flurry of activity, and an Ethiopian announced in the Amharic language that “a great elder” had arrived. Then Mr. Mekonnen heard voices speaking a foreign language and a clicking of cameras, and finally the whirlwind around Mr. Carter moved on.
“Do you know who that was?” I asked Mr. Mekonnen.
“I couldn’t see,” he replied.
“
Have you ever heard of Jimmy Carter?”
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/world/africa/20tunisia.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
North Africa Feared as Staging Ground for Terror
By CRAIG S. SMITH
TUNIS — The plan, hatched for months in the arid mountains of North Africa, was to attack the American and British Embassies here. It ended in a series of gun battles in January that killed a dozen militants and left two Tunisian security officers dead.
But the most disturbing aspect of the violence in this normally placid, tourist-friendly nation is that it came from across the border in Algeria, where an Islamic terrorist organization has vowed to unite radical Islamic groups across North Africa.
Counterterrorism officials on three continents say the trouble in Tunisia is the latest evidence that a brutal Algerian group with a long history of violence is acting on its promise: to organize extremists across North Africa and join the remnants of Al Qaeda into a new international force for jihad.
[Last week, the group claimed responsibility for seven nearly simultaneous bombings that destroyed police stations in towns east of Algiers, the Algerian capital, killing six people.]
This article was prepared from interviews with American government and military officials, French counterterrorism officials, Italian counterterrorism prosecutors, Algerian terrorism experts, Tunisian government officials and a Tunisian attorney working with Islamists charged with terrorist activities.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/washington/20jobcorps.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Job Corps Plans Makeover for a Changed Economy
By ERIK ECKHOLM
LAUREL, Md. — Over the last four decades, even as failed experiments and partisan disputes took the luster off the war on poverty, the Job Corps, the government’s main effort to give poorly educated youths a second chance at a diploma and a trade, was widely seen as one of the few success stories.
But now, as the economy has turned against those with low skills and researchers have questioned the long-term impact of the Job Corps on the lives of its graduates, this remnant of the Great Society is facing an urgent need to reinvent itself.
“Once you could go into the Job Corps and get a G.E.D. and go out and make a living,” said Esther R. Johnson, a career executive in the Labor Department with a doctorate in education who took over the corps last March. “You can’t do that anymore.”
Dr. Johnson wants the Job Corps to aim higher, helping graduates into careers with a bigger paycheck.
To do that she plans to lengthen the average stay for many graduates beyond the current 11.4 months, improving their reading, math and vocational skills. She also wants trade courses to connect more closely with college programs and emerging industries, and she thinks the corps must double the number of graduates, now just 10 percent, who go on to higher education. All this can be done, Dr. Johnson said in an interview, within a budget flat-lined at $1.5 billion in recent years, mainly by increasing the rigor of courses while cutting other costs.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/world/asia/20india.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Old Foes Join in Anger as Train Bombing’s Toll Rises to 66
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
DIWANA, India, Feb. 19 — A day after two homemade bombs killed at least 66 people on a train traveling to Pakistan from India, the governments of both countries on Monday condemned the attack and pledged that it would not deter their aim of reducing longstanding hostilities on the subcontinent.
The office of Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, on Monday morning called the bombing “an act of terror” and promised to apprehend those responsible. Pakistan also denounced the attack, which occurred on the eve of a visit by Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, the Pakistani foreign minister, to the Indian capital, New Delhi, and two weeks before officials from both countries were to meet for the first time to share information on terrorism-related activities.
The train had ferried more than 600 passengers from Delhi to the India-Pakistan border. The bombs exploded just after midnight Sunday, trapping slumbering passengers aboard the Attari Express in flames. By early Monday, when the bodies were pulled from train, they were so severely burned it was difficult to tell who they were, let alone whether they were Indian or Pakistani.
All told, 66 bodies were taken out of two burned-out compartments; 13 survivors somehow escaped, including an infant and Kamruddin, 60, a small thin man from Multan, Pakistan, who thanked God as an ambulance carried him to an Indian government hospital in New Delhi on Monday. Kamruddin recalled making his way to the door of his coach and having someone pull him out.
Twelve hours later, the two coaches were still smoldering.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/nyregion/20teacher.html?pagewanted=print
February 20, 2007
Student, 16, Finds Allies in His Fight Over Religion
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
NEWARK, Feb. 19 — A Kearny High School junior on Monday drew some legal heavyweights into his battle with school officials over a teacher’s proselytizing in class.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the People for the American Way Foundation and a partner from a large Manhattan law firm stood beside the student, Matthew LaClair, as he and his family threatened to sue the Kearny Board of Education if their complaints are not resolved. Last fall, Matthew, 16, taped the teacher, David Paszkiewicz, telling students in a history class that if they do not believe that Jesus died for their sins, they “belong in hell.”
On the recordings, which Matthew made surreptitiously starting in September, Mr. Paszkiewicz is heard telling the class that there were dinosaurs aboard Noah’s ark and that there is no scientific basis for evolution or the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.
Since Matthew turned over the tapes to school officials, his family and supporters said, he has been the target of harassment and a death threat from fellow students and “retaliation” by school officials who have treated him, not the teacher, as the problem. The retaliation, they say, includes the district’s policy banning students from recording what is said in class without a teacher’s permission and officials’ refusal to punish students who have harassed Matthew.
Matthew and his parents, Paul and Debra LaClair, are demanding an apology to Matthew and public correction of some of Mr. Paszkiewicz’s statements in class.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021901168_pf.html
Terrorist Networks Lure Young Moroccans to War in Far-Off Iraq
Conflict Is Recruiting Tool for Al-Qaeda Affiliates
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; A01
TETOUAN, Morocco -- In the Arab world, this hilly North African city is about as far as you can get from Iraq. But for many young men here, the call to join what they view as a holy war resonates loudly across the 3,000-mile divide.
About two dozen men from Tetouan and nearby towns in the Rif Mountains have traveled to Iraq in the past 18 months to volunteer as fighters or suicide bombers, according to local residents and officials. Moroccan authorities said the men were recruited by international terrorist networks affiliated with al-Qaeda that have deepened their roots in North Africa since the invasion of Iraq four years ago.
To stanch the flow, U.S. intelligence and military officials have tried to trace the fighters' steps. On the basis of DNA evidence recovered from the scenes of suicide attacks, as well as other clues, officials have confirmed that at least two bombers came from Tetouan, a city of more than 320,000 across the Strait of Gibraltar from southern Spain.
One of them, Abdelmonaim el-Amrani, a 22-year-old laborer, abandoned his wife and infant child in Tetouan to go to Iraq. On March 6, 2006, just before sunset, he drove a red Volkswagen Passat stuffed with explosives into a funeral tent in a village near Baqubah, Iraq, according to witnesses. Six people were reported killed and 27 injured. It was months before Amrani's family in Tetouan learned of his fate from Moroccan police.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900934_pf.html
Neutrality On the Net Gets High '08 Profile
Tech Issue Gains Traction in Election
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; D01
Bloggers and other Internet activists made their marks in the past two presidential elections chiefly by building networks of political enthusiasts and raising money for candidates. Now, they are pushing aggressively into policymaking -- and not just over high-profile issues such as Iraq.
They are pressing candidates to back a handful of issues that are obscure to many Americans but vital to those who base their livelihoods on the Internet and track its development.
Armed with massive e-mail lists and high-speed networks, these activists are bypassing the familiar campaign tactics of door-knocking and phone-banking. They are also using their new-age technologies for an old-fashioned purpose: making politicians take note of their legislative priorities.
One of those is "net neutrality." Hardly a household term, it has no overtly partisan or ideological dimensions. Yet it is shaping up as a Democratic issue this year, largely because its most fervid advocates are liberal bloggers and other Internet activists who play a big role in the early stages of choosing a Democratic presidential nominee.
Unlike their Republican counterparts, every major Democratic presidential candidate has endorsed net neutrality. The move keeps them in good standing with powerful grass-roots groups, such as MoveOn.org, and costs them little in return -- perhaps a bit of space on campaign Web sites to promote a matter that comparatively few voters might explore.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900920_pf.html
The Antiwar Rallying Point
By E. J. Dionne
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; A13
Two things are now abundantly clear about the future of U.S. policy toward Iraq. First, majorities in both houses of Congress have lost faith in President Bush's approach to the war. Second, the president will do all he can to resist changing his strategy by trying to split his critics into ineffectual factions.
Bush's choice is certainly bad for opponents of the war, but it's also bad for American foreign policy.
The president is inviting a full-scale confrontation over his warmaking powers in the expectation that the Democrats' narrow majorities will deprive
them of the votes they need to win such a fight. He is ready to split the country rather than give any ground to those who ask whether it's wise to risk ensnaring American troops in a Sunni-Shiite civil war.
The challenge to critics of the war is to make the debate about Bush, not about themselves, and to make clear that the president has rebuffed all efforts to pursue a bipartisan path out of Iraq, beginning with his rejection of the core recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, headed by James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton.
Changing our policy will require a substantial Republican rebellion. The 17 House Republicans who voted for the resolution opposing the president's surge and the seven Senate Republicans who tried to get a vote for the House-passed measure are a start.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900919_pf.html
Authentic Obama
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; A13
ORANGEBURG, S.C. -- Is Barack Obama "authentically" black? Come on, be real. Is the pope Catholic?
Obama made his first campaign trip to this early-primary state over the weekend, drawing about 3,000 people to a rally in Columbia, the state capital, and 2,000 to a "town hall meeting" here in the city where I was born and raised. If those who rose early Saturday morning to attend the Orangeburg event constitute a representative focus group, black voters will want to weigh Obama's policy positions against those of the other candidates before deciding whom to support. But they won't spend a lot of time pondering his identity.
Among the dignitaries with front-row seats in the auditorium at Claflin University (where my mother used to be head librarian) was state legislator Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an African American, who had no patience for the "blackness" question that reporters kept asking.
"People talk as if this is, like, some kind of option for him," Cobb-Hunter said. "When Obama looks in the mirror in the morning, what do you think he sees? There is no way that he has any confusion about being a man of color. I think this issue is being manufactured by people who want to get us off focus. I don't hear the national media questioning Hillary Clinton about being a woman."
But what about the argument, posed by a couple of contrarian black columnists, that since Obama is not the descendant of slaves (white mother from America, black father from Kenya), he's a different kind of African American? "As time passes, very few people are going be able to say they marched in the civil rights movement," Cobb-Hunter said. "Are the people asking this question saying that if you didn't live through the Civil War, you can't understand slavery?"
Most of those in Obama's audience here had some past or present association with Claflin or nearby South Carolina State University, both of which are historically black colleges. Making my way through the crowd of old friends and neighbors, I wasn't able to find anyone willing to qualify Obama's blackness with an asterisk.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/20/AR2007022000221_pf.html
Iran Sets Condition to Halt Nuke Program
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; 8:16 AM
TEHRAN, Iran -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran would only halt its uranium enrichment program and return to negotiations if other Western nations do the same.
Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in northern Iran one day ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline that it was no problem for his country to stop, but that "fair talks" demanded a similar gesture from the West.
"That ... we shut down our nuclear fuel cycle program to let talks begin. It's no problem. But justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too. Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere," Ahmadinejad said.
The Security Council has set Wednesday as a deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment or face further economic sanctions.
Ahmadinejad spoke in a far more conciliatory tone than the one he usually adopts, avoiding fiery denunciations of the West with a call for talks.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070218/NEWS/702180318/1001
Vote targets exotic dancing
By Marty Roney
Montgomery Advertiser
PRATTVILLE -- Commissioner Michael Morgan knows he can't outlaw nearly nudedancing in Autauga County, but he wants to hamstring business owners to sucha degree they "won't fool with offering that stuff here."
Morgan will present legislation at Tuesday night's commission meeting torestrict the activity. The board meets at 5:30 p.m. in the Autauga CountyCourthouse.
"If we can get this passed through the Legislature, Autauga County will havethe most stringent law in the state on nearly nude dancing," he said. "Irealize that under the First Amendment you can't outlaw nearly nude dancing.But we can control a business' hours, we can outlaw dancing in privaterooms. We can put so many restrictions on them, they will just want to gosomewhere else."
The proposed legislation also would target adult book and novelty stores,though there are no such stores operating in the county now.
Morgan's crusade followed a Feb 6. raid on the 31-65 Club. The club's ownerwas cited by the Alabama Beverage Control Board for allowing patrons totouch male dancers.
Nearly nude dancing isn't against the law as long as genitals and a woman'sareolas are covered. However, it's illegal for customers to touch dancers.
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The Saint Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/20/Worldandnation/Women_advised_to_cons.shtml
Women advised to consider aspirin
Citing high heart risks, new guidelines also focus on low-fat diets and daily exercise.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 20, 2007
Nearly all American women are in danger of heart disease or stroke and should be more aggressive about lowering their risk - including asking their doctors about daily aspirin use, the American Heart Association said Monday in new guidelines.
It is the first time guidelines have urged all women to consider aspirin for preventing strokes, although specialists warn that it can cause ulcers and dangerous bleeding. They said it is probably not a good idea for young women with no big health problems.
"We do not want women to go to the drugstore and just start taking this themselves. It is critical that every woman talk to her doctor," said Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and chair of the expert panel that wrote the guidelines.
The guidelines also advise daily exercise and less fat, and declare that vitamins C and E, beta carotene and folic acid supplements are worthless for preventing heart disease.
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USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-19-voter-id-study_x.htm
Study: Stricter voting ID rules hurt '04 turnout
Posted 2/19/2007 11:02 PM ET
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Voter identification requirements designed to combat fraud can reduce turnout, particularly among minorities, a new study shows.
A study by the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University shows turnout in 2004 was about 4% lower in states that required voters to sign their name or produce documentation. Hispanic turnout was 10% lower; the difference was about 6% for blacks and Asian-Americans.
The study, presented to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission this month, comes as voter identification requirements are being subjected to increased scrutiny. Two researchers last year told the Election Assistance Commission that they found little evidence of voter fraud at polling places.
Thomas O'Neill, who led the Eagleton research team, said the new study shows that "the harm may be as great as the benefit."
The commission's chairwoman, Donetta Davidson, called the study "premature." More work needs to be done, she said. "You can't make determinations based on one year," she said. "We have new states that have ID requirements now that weren't in that review."
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PalmBeachPost.com
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2007/02/20/a12a_MCCAIN_0220.html
McCain outdoes Bush on surge
By Brian E. Crowley
Palm Beach Post Political Editor
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
VERO BEACH — Sending more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq may not be enough, presidential candidate John McCain said Monday.
The U.S. senator from Arizona said the war has been badly managed and he would "like to send more troops" than President Bush is planning to send in an effort to end the violence in Iraq.
McCain spoke to a crowd of nearly 1,000 attending the Riverside Theatre Distinguished Lecture Series held at the Community Church of Vero Beach.
Earlier in the day during a stop in South Carolina, McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, blamed mismanagement of war on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, calling him "one of the worst secretaries of defense in history."
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The Herald Tribune
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070220/BREAKING/70220002&start=1
February 20. 2007 5:56AM
McCain meets religious broadcasters in Fla., holds town meetings
BY BRENDAN FARRINGTON
AP POLITICAL WRITER
VERO BEACH -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain met privately Monday with religious broadcasters in Orlando, then later said he isn't catering to conservative Christians as he tries to win his party's nomination.
McCain, who angered the right wing of his party during the 2000 election by calling evangelist leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance," told a crowd in Vero Beach that he is only trying to do what's right and not what's best politically.
"This lady made the comment that I flip-flopped on the issue of Roe v. Wade, and others have said I'm courting the conservative religious right and they talk about me going to (Falwell's) Liberty University and speaking at their graduation. My speech was about tolerance," the Arizona senator said.
He noted that he also spoke at New School's graduation in New York City, which is considered liberal, and was booed.
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