Donle’s Daily Dispatches

Volume 1 Issue 188        Today’s News and Views     Tuesday, July 4, 2006

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Today's News and Views

In a country where your vote is supposed to count, you should be worried about someone stealing your vote

As the U.S. marks its 230th birthday, the "consent of the governed" is threatened by lax enforcement, irregularities and outright fraud

Sunday, July 02, 2006

David Sarasohn

The Oregonian

Early on in Tuesday's readings of the Declaration of Independence -- a little bit after "When in the course of human events," and just before the grill is ready for the hot dogs -- comes what Thomas Jefferson might have called the punch line:

Governments, he explained, "derive their just power from the consent of the governed."

Two hundred thirty years later, everything government does -- from fighting wars, to protecting mollusks, to delivering mail -- is based on that consent.

But in the last two presidential elections, we're not sure the governed actually consented.

The voice of the people was distorted by a blast of static.

Last week, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University issued a report after 18 months concluding that one person, with knowledge and access to voting machine software, could change the result of an election. "It's not a question of 'if,' " said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., "it's a question of 'when.' "

If it hasn't already happened.

Last month in Rolling Stone, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., charged at considerable length that Republicans stole the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, where a John Kerry victory would have produced a much taller Inauguration Day.

Kennedy's conclusion is at least debatable. But his evidence argues that if the world's most powerful government is based on the consent of the governed, it would be worth some more effort to make sure they're consenting.

Gathering material largely already published, the article reported that Ohio election officials obstructed registration efforts; failed to process registration forms; improperly purged voters from the registration roll; distributed voting machines in ways that produced hours-long waits in inner-city precincts; changed the precinct boundaries and then rejected voters appearing at the wrong precincts; failed to follow federal law concerning provisional ballots; and allowed intimidation of ex-convicts whose right to vote had been restored.

Aside from that, the 2004 election in Ohio was a model expression of the public will.

Professor Spencer Overton of George Washington University law school, whose book "Stealing Democracy" was published this summer, says Kennedy points out major problems with the ways we elect people.

Still, cautions Overton, the size of Kerry's defeat -- 118,000 votes -- makes it hard to know whether the impact of all these abuses changed the outcome. Now, Florida in 2000 -- which Bush won by 537 votes after the state improperly purged thousands of African American voters -- is another issue, and a more painful one.

120 recommendations

But stealing an election might not take all that trouble.

The Brennan Center found that the three most widely used new electronic voting systems have major problems with security and reliability, and they're not being checked closely enough. "With electronic voting systems," warned Lawrence D. Norden, the center's associate counsel, "there are certain attacks that can reach enough voting machines . . . that you could affect the outcome of a statewide election."

Aside from the companies -- who argue it hasn't happened yet -- few seem to deny the possibility. Even Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who originally thought Democrats just wanted to "re-fight the 2000 election," concluded that the security problems were "inexcusable." A bill from Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., to enact many of the report's 120 recommendations -- largely closer auditing and comparing the outcomes with mandatory paper trails -- now has 192 co-sponsors.

Still, problems persist.

Idea of picture IDs crops up

Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas redistricting plan -- unnervingly authorizing any level of political gerrymandering, as incumbent re-election rates hover, like a D.C. July day, in the high 90s -- while finding a Voting Rights Act violation in part of the map. But the entire Voting Rights Act, passed 40 years ago to protect access to the polls, now teeters in Congress, where a group of Southern Republicans are blocking what had been a bipartisan agreement.

Besides cutting way back on federal oversight, the objectors' goal is to end bilingual voting materials -- although, Overton notes, 70 percent of voters who use them were born in the United States. They also would require picture IDs for voting, and Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced a bill in May to do just that.

Georgia passed such a bill last year, including a state photo ID for voters without driver's licenses -- at a cost of $20. A federal court threw it out as violating the constitutional amendment banning a poll tax.

Still, a federal photo ID voting requirement would not only limit voting by minorities and other Americans less likely to have a driver's license, it might endanger Oregon's own solution to many voting problems -- the mail ballot.

"If I was in Oregon," says Overton, "I would be really nervous about this photo ID idea."

There are things we need to do now, before the voice of the people turns into just another unreliable exit poll.

As both Overton and the experts from the Brennan Center stress, we need to keep a much closer oversight on the system, with frequent surprise audits of both the private companies who manufacture voting machines and the politicians who run the voting systems. We need to closely monitor local governments to follow federal law -- with a renewed Voting Rights Act and a reinvigorated Justice Department. We need to make sure local voting systems have enough resources and machines to avoid a four-hour-wait test for voting -- even if it costs some more money.

Currently -- even after Florida and Ohio -- the United States does not invest heavily in its election system, and spending varies considerably. In 2004, Wyoming spent $2.15 per voter, while California spent $3.99 -- and Canada laid out $9.51.

That bought more than just more ballots in French.

From a popular voice

Freedom, politicians intone solemnly, trying to look as if they'd just thought of it, isn't free. Neither is democracy, although there are questions about just how much of it our current leaders want to buy.

Kennedy quotes Tom Paine, the pamphleteer of the Revolution, declaring that voting "is the right upon which all other rights depend." Currently, it's a right threatened by manipulation, technology, eroding legal protections and a penny-pinching attitude toward the elections that decide the spending of trillions.

At the core of the Fourth of July -- from Jefferson roughing out a few notes for an intercolonial memo to the politician-packed parades of this Tuesday -- is the idea that all of government comes out of a popular voice, that life and death decisions can be legitimate only after counting noses as precisely as possible.

At this point in American history, on this July Fourth, people who believe that need to be setting off their own fireworks.

David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523 or davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com.

©2006 The Oregonian

Snow leads the 1st Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, which is winding up a year-long tour in Iraq. He said it had made progress in training Iraqi troops to replace it.

He acknowledged insurgent attacks have gone up in his western Baghdad area of operations since the start of a city-wide security crackdown ordered by the new Iraqi government earlier this month.

Increased checkpoints and foot patrols in Baghdad had drawn an increase in insurgent attacks, he said.

"The way I would answer that is that attacks here recently are up in our area. However, the overall effectiveness are down," he said.

"So you may perceive that as double-speak. I don't have the precise numbers in front of me," he added.

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc.

The Times                                                                    June 30, 2006

Iran kicks G8 nuclear ultimatum into touch

From Jeremy Page in Moscow

THE Group of Eight industrialised nations set a deadline of July 5 yesterday for Iran to give a “clear and substantive response” to an offer of incentives for it to scale back its nuclear programme.

But Iran said that it needed until August, threatening to drive a wedge between the G8 members in the run-up to the group’s annual summit in St Petersburg from July 15 to July 17.

At the same time G8 foreign ministers failed to agree on how to respond if Iran did not reply, or turned down the June 6 offer from the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.

The foreign ministers also bowed to Russian pressure not to mention Moscow’s recent moves to curb democracy, setting the tone for the G8 leaders’ summit in St Petersburg.

Critics of the Kremlin had called for Western leaders to boycott the summit because of President Putin’s moves to re-assert central control over parliament, the national media and the energy industry.

At the very least, they want Western officials to publicly criticise Russia for falling short of the G8 membership criteria of being a democracy and a stable, liberal market economy.

But Russian democracy was not even mentioned during the meeting, which was dominated by Iran. A statement issued afterwards said: “We are disappointed by the absence of an official Iranian response to this positive proposal.

Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Retirement future bleak for many older women

Several factors lead to financial disadvantages

By Dallas Morning News  |  July 2, 2006

DALLAS -- Adeline Brown had other plans for retirement.

She never dreamed she'd lose her house and car, be forced to take odd jobs to supplement her Social Security, and stretch her dollars by going to a barbershop instead of a beauty salon.

But once Brown left her accounting clerk's job, her income plummeted to less than $1,000 a month. She quickly exhausted her retirement savings when she paid the bills from a back injury.

``This isn't how my life was supposed to go," she said.

Brown, who is 63 and lives in Oak Cliff, Texas, is one of millions of older women who lives alone and scrambles to make ends meet.

Their median yearly income is $12,080, half of what older men receive.

Long overlooked, they have begun to gain the attention of policy analysts and lawmakers who expect the number of poor older women to swell as 40 million baby boomer women retire.

``Unless there are dramatic policy shifts, boomer women, particularly minority women, will find retirement a never-ending struggle," said Paul Hodge, chairman of Harvard University's Global Generations Policy Institute.

Financially strapped older women are a day-to-day concern for Suzanne Cobb, who runs the money management program at The Senior Source in Dallas, a nonprofit social-service agency.

Most of the older adults who sign up for financial counseling through the Senior Source are women, and most of them depend entirely on their Social Security checks, Cobb said.

Women are more likely than men to spend old age in poverty, in part because many have spent their lives at an economic disadvantage, said Laurie Young, director of the Older Women's League in Washington.

``Women still earn an average of only 76 percent of what men earn," she said. ``That means women have an average of $250,000 less over their working lives to invest in their retirement."

Women also drop out of the workforce for an average of 12 years to care for children or parents. When they do, they forfeit $550,000 in wages over their lifetime, Young said.

As family caregivers, women often take more flexible jobs that come with lower wages and few, if any, benefits. Frequent job changes also make it harder to qualify for pensions.

Women live longer, which makes them especially vulnerable during retirement. They outlive their husbands by an average of six years and, once alone, often have less money to pay the same bills, typically losing a third to a half of their household's Social Security income.

``Most older people live on `fixed' incomes that, except for Social Security, aren't adjusted for inflation," Young said. ``Over 20 years, women's purchasing power can shrink quite a bit."

Cindy Hounsell, executive director of the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement, warns that most boomer women will run into many of the financial problems their mothers may now have.

``The 20 percent with good-paying jobs won't have any worries, but everyone else will," she said.

Besides building a bigger nest egg, some women have come up with their own ways of improving their finances in retirement.

Cobb at The Senior Source, who's 58, plans to work full time until 68. By delaying her Social Security checks for two years beyond her full retirement age, she estimates she'll receive 16 percent more each month.

``I'm no Rockefeller, but I'm not afraid of the future," she said.

Still, retirement experts agree that women won't be able to improve their fate in old age entirely on their own. They'll need changes in Social Security, employer-sponsored retirement plans, and labor laws.

The most important changes will come in Social Security; 29 percent of unmarried older women depend on it as their only source of income, said Young of the Older Women's League.

``Women shouldn't be penalized for their caregiving when it comes time to figure their Social Security benefits," she said. ``They should be given credit for the unpaid care they've provided."

Social Security also needs to rethink its benefits for divorced women, said Kimberley Strassel, coauthor of the just-published ``Leaving Women Behind: Modern Families, Outdated Laws."

``The number of divorced older women will double as boomers retire," she said. 

© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Who's Lieberman Represent? Not You

By David Sirota

July 2 2006

Something rare is happening in Connecticut: The state is actually playing host to a contested U.S. Senate primary election.

This is a shocking development. Today, well-funded incumbents rarely face serious challenges. These incumbents tend to see themselves as royalty and their Senate seats as their personal property, rather than the property of the people.

But in Connecticut this year, incumbent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman has a very serious Democratic primary challenger in small-businessman Ned Lamont. Lieberman is clearly panicking. First, he dishonestly attacked his opponent as siding with Republicans, then an ally of his told reporters that voters "terrorized" him.

Apparently, the Lieberman campaign's cynical strategy is to smear the opponent and then convince the public that holding a contested election is somehow wrong, when in reality that's exactly what's supposed to happen in our democracy.

Lieberman wants to make this election about whether he is a likable guy.

But this is not a two-bit popularity contest. This is a critical election about whether Connecticut Democrats believe Lieberman is representing their party and mainstream America in the Senate, or whether he has lost his way and become part of the corrupt establishment in Washington.

A look at Lieberman's record shows he is most decidedly the latter - a senator who has "gone Washington" and forgotten about the people who elected him. Lieberman may call himself a centrist, but the record shows he has used his platform to push policies that are far out of step with what ordinary Americans want from their government.

Take the Iraq war. Lieberman unflinchingly supports the stay-the-course policy of the Bush administration, to the point where he has attacked those who even raise questions about the administration's Iraq policy as "undermin[ing] the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

His out-of-the-mainstream position comes at a time when major national polls show more than half of Americans oppose the war and want a change in policy. Put another way, Lieberman is on the fringe, using his Senate seat not to represent the will of his constituents, but instead to parrot the destructive rhetoric of a tiny group of neoconservatives in Washington.

How about partially privatizing Social Security? Lieberman was one of the earliest and most outspoken senators giving credence to the concept. In 2000, The New York Times reported that Lieberman suggested he could support allowing workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in private markets.

Privatizing Social Security like this is an extreme move that would jeopardize the program. This explains why Lieberman - facing a tough primary challenge - now desperately claims he's reconsidered his position and is against privatization. But voters should not forget that he used Connecticut's Senate seat to help fuel President Bush's push to hand over Social Security to the sharks on Wall Street.

On other critical economic issues, it is the same thing.

At a time when Americans are forced to pay the highest prices for medicine in the world, polls show the public wants our government to crack down on pharmaceutical industry price gouging. Yet Lieberman has voted against bipartisan legislation to make sure drugs developed at taxpayer expense are offered to Americans at a fair and reasonable price. He ignored what the public wanted and instead went to bat for the drug industry, which has given him more than $400,000 in campaign contributions.

Similarly, at a time when wages are stagnating and our country is hemorrhaging good-paying jobs, polls show the public wants our government to reform our international trade policy to better protect Americans' jobs and wages. Yet Lieberman has consistently voted for corporate-written "free"-trade deals with Mexico and China that have exacerbated the problem and crushed Connecticut's manufacturing base - all while publicly attacking those who want a change. Again, he used his Senate seat to represent Big Money interests in Washington against the will of the people.

Lieberman did not always behave this way. But after 18 years in Washington, Lieberman has clearly lost touch with Connecticut voters, to the point where his own spokesman was forced to admit as much. It was his campaign manager who recently acknowledged to reporters that Lieberman "hasn't really had a dialogue with Connecticut voters about Connecticut issues in a while."

That is precisely what elections in America are all about: voters deciding whether they want an out-of-touch incumbent who ignores them or a fresh voice who is serious about representing them.

Joe Lieberman may be a nice guy, but he is not royalty. And come Aug. 8, Connecticut voters will show that in a democracy, nobody - not even Joe Lieberman - gets to use the people's office to ignore the will of the people.

David Sirota, a Democratic strategist, is author of "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government - And How We Take it Back" (Crown).

Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

Niagara Falls Reporter

BUSH BUSY ATTACKING MESSENGERS AS TERRORISTS REMAIN UNMOLESTED

By Bill Gallagher

DETROIT -- The attacks on the media, especially The New York Times, over revelations that the Bush administration has been secretly rummaging through international banking transactions, deflects attention from a far more serious issue.

The real story is not that our government is looking at networks financing terrorist operations -- a legitimate and necessary activity -- but how poorly that job is done and how the greatest source of terrorist funding escapes serious scrutiny.

Lenny Wallace, a Florida-based financial consultant, has spent nearly five years trying to get to the bottom of a $5 billion series of loans involving Citigroup and a Saudi prince. The deal saw money bouncing from Singapore to Scotland to Miami. Wallace was retained to facilitate the loans and assist the bank in investing the proceeds. What he thought was a legitimate business venture turned into a mysterious shuffle of funds for nebulous purposes.

Jack Blum is a Washington lawyer and skilled investigator who has spent years following the trail of dirty money. William Greider reports in "The Nation" on Blum's assessment of phony furor over The New York Times blowing the lid off the government tracking international banking data.

"The scandal here is not government overreach, he tells me. The scandal is the pitiful reluctance of this administration (and others before it) to get serious about the problem," Greider reports. Blum told Greider the monitoring system the Times reported on seems "unexceptional" and "so narrowly focused" it ends up producing empty information.

"Meanwhile, the biggest purveyor of terrorist money, as everybody knows, are accounts in Saudi Arabia," Blum said. "Nobody will deal with it because the Saudis own half of America."

Lenny Wallace found himself in the middle of transactions that scream out for a full investigation, but so far all he's gotten is cheap lip service. On June 28, 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice informed Wallace that the FBI was investigating his formal complaint about the deal.

Barry Sabin, the chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, wrote Wallace, "We have reviewed your letter and forwarded your correspondence to Tim McCants, Unit Chief of the Terrorist Financing Operations Section of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for further review." More than one year later, Wallace still has not been interviewed.

"When I heard from the Department of Justice that the FBI was investigating, I thought that things would finally start to happen fast and there isn't going to be a coverup," Wallace told me last week. He sighed, "Boy, was I wrong."

The U.S. Treasury Department has been tracking suspected terrorist financing by gaining access to records involving wire money transfers from records obtained from a Belgian-based banking cooperative known by its acronym, SWIFT.

The secret program the Bush administration launched weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks focuses on large sums of money being shifted overseas and into and out of the United States. Stuart Levey, an undersecretary at the Treasury Department, told The New York Times the program "has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operation of terrorist networks."

President Bush called the Times report "disgraceful," and he and Vice President Dick Cheney claimed the report "impeded" the covert government program. Nonsense. Blaming the media is just a ruse to rouse the administration's political base.

It was no secret to most Americans and certainly sophisticated terrorist organizations that some efforts were underway to monitor international financial transactions. The story simply exposed a previously unknown aspect of the surveillance.

Rather than condemn the media, the administration could better spend its energies getting to work and seriously investigating the scheme Lenny Wallace uncovered.

"SWIFT transactions were at the heart of what I complained about to Citigroup and then to government authorities," he said. "That was in late 2001. Our government must know all about wired money from Citigroup to Saudis, but I've never heard anything."

Wallace's work, under contract, involved helping Citigroup's Miami office in facilitating $5 billion worth of business loans and assisting in investing the proceeds. He prepared the paper work for a series of complex transactions.

The deal involved account authorizations from Citigroup's Singapore office, and all details were verified and approved at the bank's Park Avenue headquarters and at the Miami branch.

Then Wallace learned that the collateral for the loans was based on phony documents and the real intended beneficiary was to be Saudi Prince Alwalled bin Al Saud, one of the richest men in the world. At the time he happened to own $10 billion in Citigroup stock. The deal was aborted one day before the terrible events of 9/11. Coincidence?

Wallace suspected the deal involved what the Saudi government calls "Account 98" funds. Those are funds for charitable, "humanitarian" activities, and the Saudis refuse to allow any outside government access to those accounts. Wealthy Saudis are known to use Account 98 funds to funnel money to terrorist groups.

Wallace has provided detailed documentation of the fizzled transaction to Citigroup officers, the Saudi government, members of Congress, the White House and, of course, the Justice Department.

Citigroup's rap sheet in shady deals is lengthy. The bank was deeply involved in the collapse of Enron and WorldCom. Citigroup in under investigation for its role in the failure of Parmalat, the Italian dairy giant. The governments in China, Japan, Great Britain and Argentina all have probes underway into Citigroup's dealings.

The Saudi royal family and Citigroup have been cozy for decades. For 20 years, Citigroup ran the operation of Saudi American Bank, known as Samba, a suspected conduit for terrorist funds.

After 9/11, the U.S. Treasury Department did ramp up efforts to track the money laundering used to finance al-Qaeda. Then-Secretary of State Paul O'Neill worked hard and diligently, but he ran into a major obstacle -- Saudi resistance.

O'Neill's frustrations are detailed in Ron Suskind's book "The Price of Loyalty." O'Neill kept detailed notes of his work, which he shared with Suskind. O'Neill sent his deputy Ken Dam to seek help from the Saudis tracking down the money flow to Osama bin Laden.

Dam met with Dr. Jobarah Al-Suraisy, the Saudi vice minister of finance, to discuss his government's willingness to cooperate with Washington. Suskind recounts the meeting and the Saudi style of cooperation. "The vice minister, according to internal Treasury documents, told Dam that 'he did not think that they had any accounts that might help terrorism.'"

While an interagency group grappled with the "Saudi problem," O'Neill was sent a note stating that "due to domestic Saudi political sensitivities, a more private and consultative approach was needed on achieving specific action." That meant, Suskind concludes, that "the Saudis could offer no publicly detectable assistance."

Even as Bush praised O'Neill for a "great job" in going after the money funneled to the terrorists, the treasury secretary told the president, "We know there's a lot more money out there that we just can't seem to get to. It's clean money, in charities, and we don't know where it is until long after it's been allocated and spent. By then it's too late."

But no one wanted to lean on the Saudis. Suskind describes O'Neill's frustration: "Without active investigations inside the kingdom -- with the Saudis as true co-investigators -- much of what remained was just sniffing the transactional trail of the dead 9/11 hijackers, a trail that was going cold."

The trail involving Citigroup's strange dealings with a Saudi billionaire may be getting cold, too, unless someone shows some initiative.

"I was told an FBI investigation was ongoing," Lenny Wallace says. "Exactly what has been happening? How is it possible to have a real investigation if I haven't even been interviewed?"

Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.

We Need Fewer Secrets

By Jimmy Carter
Monday, July 3, 2006; A21

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) turns 40 tomorrow, the day we celebrate our independence. But this anniversary will not be a day of celebration for the right to information in our country. Our government leaders have become increasingly obsessed with secrecy. Obstructionist policies and deficient practices have ensured that many important public documents and official actions remain hidden from our view.

The events in our nation today -- war, civil rights violations, spiraling energy costs, campaign finance and lobbyist scandals -- dictate the growing need and citizens' desire for access to public documents. A poll conducted last year found that 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat or very concerned about government secrecy. This is understandable when the U.S. government uses at least 50 designations to restrict unclassified information and created 81 percent more "secrets" in 2005 than in 2000, according to the watchdog coalition OpenTheGovernment.org.

Moreover, the response to FOIA requests often does not satisfy the transparency objectives or provisions of the law, which, for example, mandates an answer to information requests within 20 working days. According to the National Security Archives 2003 report, median response times may be as long as 905 working days at the Department of Agriculture and 1,113 working days at the Environmental Protection Agency. The only recourse for unsatisfied requesters is to appeal to the U.S. District Court, which is costly, timely and unavailable to most people. Policies that favor secrecy, implementation that does not satisfy the law, lack of a mandated oversight body and inaccessible enforcement mechanisms have put the United States behind much of the world in the right to information.

Increasingly, developed and developing nations are recognizing that a free flow of information is fundamental for democracy. Whether it's government or private companies that provide public services, access to their records increases accountability and allows citizens to participate more fully in public life. It is a critical tool in fighting corruption, and people can use it to improve their own lives in the areas of health care, education, housing and other public services. Perhaps most important, access to information advances citizens' trust in their government, allowing people to understand policy decisions and monitor their implementation.

Nearly 70 countries have passed legislation to ensure the right to request and receive public documents, the vast majority in the past decade and many in middle- and low-income nations. While the United States retreats, the international trend toward transparency grows, with laws often more comprehensive and effective than our own. Unlike FOIA, which covers only the executive branch, modern legislation includes all branches of power and some private companies. Moreover, new access laws establish ways to monitor implementation and enforce the right, holding agencies accountable for providing information quickly and fully.

What difference do these laws make?

In South Africa, a country emerging from authoritarian rule under the apartheid system, the act covering access to information gives individuals an opportunity to demand public documents and hold government accountable for its actions, an inconceivable notion just a decade ago. Requests have exposed inappropriate land-use practices, outdated HIV-AIDS policies and a scandalous billion-dollar arms deal. In the United Kingdom, the new law forced the government to reveal the factual basis for its decision to go to war in Iraq.

In Jamaica, one of the countries where the Carter Center has worked for the past four years to help establish an access-to-information regime, citizens have used their right to request documents concerning the protection of more than 2,500 children in public orphanages. Two years ago there were credible allegations of sexual and physical abuse. In the past year, a coalition of interested groups has made more than 40 information requests to determine whether new government recommendations were implemented to ensure the future safety and well-being of these vulnerable children.

Even in such unlikely places as Mali, India and Shanghai, efforts that allow access to information are ensuring greater transparency in decision making and a freer flow of information.

In the United States, we must seek amendments to FOIA to be more in line with emerging international standards, such as covering all branches of government; providing an oversight body to monitor compliance; including sanctions for failure to adhere to the law; and establishing an appeal mechanism that is easy to access, speedy and affordable. We cannot take freedom of information for granted. Our democracy depends on it.

The writer was the 39th president and is founder of the Carter Center.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Do congressional Republicans have a soul?

To be clear, when I speak of a soul here I’m not talking about going to hell and all that.  That’s between each Republican in Congress and his or her own conception of God, even if in some cases that conception is fairly spooky.  No, this is about the public soul — the set of virtues that we should by all rights be able to expect in our elected representatives (even if experience has often left us disappointed) — things like honor, honesty and dedication to the Constitution of the United States.

And yes, though it may seem a sacrilege to much of the current crop of GOP congressional representatives (and far too many Democrats as well), ultimately a public soul is also about the duty of elected officials to put at least a few things ahead of own their personal political interests.  

This from the Washington Post:

GOP Seeks Advantage In Ruling On Trials 

Republicans yesterday looked to wrest a political victory from a legal defeat in the Supreme Court, serving notice to Democrats that they must back President Bush on how to try suspects at Guantanamo Bay or risk being branded as weak on terrorism.

In striking down the military commissions Bush sought for trials of suspected members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, the high court Thursday invited Congress to establish new rules and put the issue prominently before the public four months before the midterm elections. As the White House and lawmakers weighed next steps, House GOP leaders signaled they are ready to use this week’s turn of events as a political weapon.

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) criticized House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s comment Thursday that the court decision “affirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system.” That statement, Boehner said, amounted to Pelosi’s advocating “special privileges for terrorists.”

Could they be any more pathetic?  Let’s not even talk about the trivialization of sacred constitutional liberties.  What about the prerogatives of Congress?  I mean, come on guys, we’re talking about the very foundation of the concept of separation of powers here — that each coequal branch of the federal government will jealously defend its institutional powers.  Yet, for years now the Republicans on the Hill have allowed George W. Bush to treat Congress like an annoying stepchild, to be seen and not heard.

Then along comes the Supreme Court and gives Congress back its constitutional standing, not to mention its dignity; and how does the Republican leadership respond?  Do they scream, Hallelujah, and give thanks to Jesus (or to the somewhat spooky conception of Jesus some of them hold)?  Do they celebrate the Supreme Court’s restoration of Congress to its rightful place within the government?

No, they pretty much say what follows:     

“Hey, maybe if we give Bush every pathetic little thing he wants, regardless of how offensive it is to American values and international law, or how badly it demeans the institutional prerogatives of Congress, we can then use this to our political advantage by painting the Democrats as being weak on terrorism when they dare to resist.”

Now, in fairness, according to press reports at least a few Republicans are having qualms about politicizing the process.  This again according to the Post:

Democrats seemed to gain some support from a few Senate Republicans, who said politics should not dictate how Congress responds to the Supreme Court. “This should not be a party fight,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). “I’m a proud Republican senator, but my nation needs both parties working in collaboration with the executive branch to solve the military commission problem, and both parties will be rewarded by the public if we’re seen as working for the common good.”

Forgive my skepticism, but it seems as though in every major “issue of conscience” to come before Congress there are at least a few so-called moderate Republicans happy to extol the virtues of bipartisanship on television, only to later vote the party line when it counts.  Still, time will tell. 

So, I guess the jury’s still out in a few cases on our question of whether congressional Republicans have a soul — though precious few.

This entry was posted by Steve on Sunday, July 2nd, 2006 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Rolling Stone

Kennedy, meanwhile, is preparing to up the ante on those he believes abetted the GOP's electoral theft. In July, the outspoken attorney plans to file "whistle-blower" lawsuits against two leading manufacturers of electronic voting machines. According to Kennedy, company insiders are prepared to testify that the firms knowingly made false claims when they sold their voting systems to the government -- misrepresenting the accuracy, reliability and security of machines that will be used by 72 million voters this November.

"This is a unique way to try and stop these vendors," Kennedy tells Rolling Stone. "In both cases, our whistle-blowers are familiar with security problems that were well known by the vendors but concealed from election officials during the bidding process. Because we're relying on 'inside' knowledge, it is a far more frightening prospect to the company than a traditional lawsuit might be. And if we prove our case, we will hit the corporations the only place they feel it: in their pocketbooks."

TIM DICKINSON

Posted Jun 30, 2006 3:27 PM

©RealNetworks, Inc.

©Copyright 2006 Rolling Stone

'Wash Post': Murdered Iraqi Woman in Latest Alleged Atrocity Was 15

By E&P Staff

Published: July 02, 2006 11:15 PM ET

NEW YORK The Washington Post's veteran Baghdad correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer reveals Monday that the woman allegedly raped, killed and then burned by U.S. troops in Iraq in March was only 15 years old, and her name was Abeer Qasim Hamza.

Soldiers had apparently made advances toward the attractive teen in the days before she was killed in Mahmudiyah. Her mother felt the soldiers might come to seize her during the night, and she planned to let her sleep at a neighbor's house.

But attackers came to the girl's house the next day. After the rape, the attackers allegedly shot four family members -- Knickmeyer identifies one of them as Abeer's sister, age 7 -- and tried to set Abeer's body on fire, according to, among others, the mayor of Mahmudiyah and a hospital administrator.

The U.S. military is investigating at least five soldiers in the incident.

"The U.S. military has not identified the victims," Knickmeyer writes. "U.S. military officials contacted this weekend said they did not know the names of the people involved or most other details of the case, although one military official confirmed that according to preliminary information gathered by investigators, the family lived near a U.S. checkpoint and the killings happened about March 12.

"The military official pointed to one discrepancy in the accounts, however. Preliminary information in the military investigation put the age of the alleged rape victim at 20, rather than 15, as reported by her neighbors, officials and hospital records and officials in Mahmudiyah.

"U.S. soldiers at the scene initially ascribed the killings to Sunni Arab insurgents active in the area, the U.S. military and local residents said. That puzzled villagers, who knew that the family was Sunni, Janabi said. Other residents assumed the killings were sectarian, with Shiite Muslim militiamen as the likely culprit.

"But on June 23, three months after the incident, two soldiers of the 502nd came forward to say that soldiers of the unit were responsible, a U.S. military official said last week. The U.S. military began an investigation the next day, the official said."

"The case is at least the fourth American military investigation announced since March of alleged atrocities by U.S. forces in Iraq.

"The rape allegation makes the Mahmudiyah case potentially incendiary in Iraq. Rape is seen as a crime smearing the honor of the family as well as the victim in conservative communities here."

Knickmeyer closes her account with this:

"Reached by telephone Saturday at his home in Iskandariyah, south of Mahmudiyah, a member of the extended family would not discuss the incident. 'What is the benefit of publishing this story?' said Abeer's uncle, Bassem. 'People will read about this crime. And they will forget about it the next day.'"

© 2006 VNU eMedia Inc.

Focus: A soldier's story

A picture made him a hero. Then his life fell apart

A photographer's lens caught James Blake Miller smeared with blood and dirt during the battle for Falluja. In his eyes, America saw the steely determination that would bring victory in Iraq; now stress and divorce have made him a casualty of the war

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday July 2, 2006
The Observer

Combat can change a life in a second. The snap of a sniper's bullet or the blast of a bomb will instantly end it or turn a healthy body into a maimed wreck. But for US marine James Blake Miller what changed his life was the sudden shutter click of a war photographer's camera.

On a rooftop in Falluja, Miller was captured in a picture that has become one of the enduring images of the Iraq war. It showed his wan face, streaked with mud and blood, in a moment of reflection. His eyes stared out, tired yet determined. From his lips drooped a cigarette, curling a wisp of thin pale smoke.

That moment saw Miller, an ordinary soldier from the hills of Kentucky, turn into Marlboro Man, an everyday American hero.

The image hit the world on 10 November, 2004, as US marines stormed into Falluja to try to end a war that was supposed to have finished more than a year earlier. It appeared on newspaper front pages and made the cover of Time.

Miller's image became a symbol of steely resolve, of weary-yet-determined struggle, of the toughness of the American fighting man having a cigarette break before finishing the job. It captured a moment when most Americans still thought the invasion of Iraq a worthy undertaking.

Now Miller is a different symbol in a different time. As the war has dragged on, Miller's life has collapsed in the face of post-traumatic stress disorder. He draws a disability pension for his condition and his personal life is a wreck. He suffers from nightmares, panic attacks and survivor's guilt. Despite the immense goodwill of a grateful nation, Miller has slumped into struggle and despair. Last week came the news that he and his childhood sweetheart, Jessica, were getting divorced.

Marlboro Man is no longer an icon for the American warrior ethic. He is a symbol of pain and suffering and the enormous problems endured by veterans returning home. He has become the public face of shell-shock. No longer the victor, Miller has become one of the war's victims.

In the Appalachian hills which Miller calls home, the word for grandfather is 'papaw'. Miller's step-papaw, Joe Lee, was a Vietnam veteran. In interviews Miller has described how Papaw Joe Lee would get drunk and tell war stories. Then Papaw would get upset and tearful at the memories of death and killing in Vietnam and eventually his wife, fearful of scaring the grandchildren, would tell him to be quiet.

It was classic post-traumatic behaviour, going undiagnosed. It was also a scene played out across America in the wake of Vietnam as hundreds of thousands of disturbed and troubled veterans returned home. Now those scenes are happening again as the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan return to wives, husbands, partners and families, carrying psychological scars hidden by their apparently healthy bodies.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is not an easy condition to treat. It is tough to deal with and requires a wide range of possible approaches, on an individual's circumstances. Some will be 'cured' relatively easily. Others may take decades to deal with what they have seen or done in war. The symptoms are relatively common across the cases. They involve flashbacks, panic attacks and paranoia. A person's behaviour changes and sufferers can become violent to their loved ones. It destroys lives, often bringing on divorce, bankruptcy and suicide.

America's Department of Veterans Affairs has been caught flat-footed by the flood of sufferers. It estimates that it will have to treat 20,000 new cases this fiscal year alone. That is almost six times its initial estimate and comes after the amount of therapy sessions available for veterans has been cut by 25 per cent over the past 10 years. There are also signs the condition is left widely undiagnosed and sufferers are going untreated. One study showed that the Pentagon did not seek further treatment for eight out of 10 veterans showing signs of combat stress. Many veterans complain that their needs are ignored when they return. They say that, in the military, post-traumatic stress disorder is still seen as unmacho and seeking treatment for mental health issues as unmanly. 'There is still a stigma around psychological care. It is considered unmacho and malingering,' said Garett Reppenhagen, a former sniper and Iraq war veteran who works on veterans' issues.

Some believe the military's whole approach to the disorder is wrong, and that instead of dealing with sufferers who emerge from combat it should concentrate on mentally preparing its soldiers beforehand. That would be a policy of prevention, not cure. 'We teach these kids to fight, but we don't equip them well for the psychological aftermath. The time to do all this is in basic training,' said Dr Glenn Schiraldi of the University of Maryland who has written a book on the treatment of the disorder.

The story of how Miller became one of many sufferers is probably typical. It is only widely known because of the profile that becoming Marlboro Man gave him. Miller arrived in Iraq with his marine unit and was sent to the restive Anbar province. On 5 November, 2004, in the middle of a sandstorm, word filtered through that his unit was to join the attack on Falluja. The assault began three days later.

Two days after that, Miller's face was famous around the world. Not wanting to lose their new poster-boy, the US Marines command tried to have him pulled out of the fight. But Miller refused. He stayed and fought with his comrades. He has never fully described the events of the next few weeks, but has let slip details which are horrifying enough. There were ambushes and firefights. He has described his horror at seeing a cat make a home in the open chest cavity of a dead Iraqi. He lost his close friend, Demarkus Brown. Miller knows what it is like to look down a gun barrel at another human being and pull the trigger. 'You can make out a guy's eyes,' he told one interviewer.

After the war Miller took it as a personal mission to use his fame to highlight the stresses that veterans face when suffering with post-traumatic stress. He spoke out in the press and teamed up with the National Mental Health Association. He spoke to politicians on Capitol Hill in Washington. He became a force for not forgetting what America's returning veterans had gone through. All the while, he hinted at what was happening in his own life.

The forces that Miller spoke so passionately about were starting to destroy his own return home. During one meeting with Congressman Mike Michaud of Maine he hinted at his fears that he might end up hurting those he loved, including Jessica. 'Can you imagine waking up in the middle of the night to realise that you had harmed them in some way?' he asked Michaud.

Miller represents the new face of the American soldier - a face that bears the scars of war. It was not like that when he signed up. Before 2001 in places like Pike County, Kentucky, where Miller grew up, the US army meant a way out of poverty. It meant access to college. It meant the chance of travel and excitement.

That was why Miller joined the military. Deep in the heart of impoverished coal country there was no other way of affording the money to get the qualifications he needed to be a mechanic. But since 2001, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan raging, signing up has meant combat. And even if a soldier emerges unwounded from a tour of active duty, he rarely emerges unscathed.

After his tour was up, Miller returned to Pike County and the tiny hamlet of Jonancy where his family had lived practically since the area was first settled by Europeans. The signs of trouble quickly emerged. Friends and relatives found him quick to anger. He had bad dreams where his fingers pulled imaginary triggers in his sleep. He jumped at car exhaust backfires. Jessica complained he would tighten his arm around her neck at night.

Once, on a trip to the county seat of Pikeville, he hallucinated that he saw the body of a dead Iraqi sprawled out on the ground. He took long and solitary motorbike rides, tearing up the tarmac on the back of a Harley, trying not to think about the war. He spoke of his guilt at having survived while many of his comrades did not.

'It is like a big guilt trip, day in and day out. I just lie there and rot,' he told one interviewer. It was classic survivor's guilt - a common emotion in many people who have survived traumatic experiences, whether it is combat or a train wreck. Those around him did not know how to deal with him.

'People often don't know what to do with these traumatised individuals,' Schiraldi said. 'They come home with these mental wounds and want to get things back to normal. But what they really need is a healing process. You bring these haunted memories with you.'

Miller was not given the chance to heal when his tour of duty in Iraq was over. Instead he was sent to New Orleans. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had left the city burning, flooded and being looted. Waiting offshore in a troop transport, it appeared to Miller as if he were returning to urban combat. It would be Falluja by the bayou.

When another marine in his boat made a whistling sound, like a rocket-propelled grenade, Miller suddenly blacked out. When he came to, he found he had assaulted the man, pinning him to the ground. He was honourably discharged on 10 November, 2005 - exactly one year after the photograph that made him famous was published around the globe. He was diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress.

But America still saw him as Marlboro Man. The country could not let one of its heroes have an unhappy ending. When word of his troubles leaked out people started coming to visit, or writing to him and Jessica in Jonancy. They even began to send the couple money. One man drove all the way from Kansas on a motorbike and waited for him for two days in the hope of meeting him. Miller did not show up and the biker and his wife left behind a note. It read simply: 'It will be all right.' Eunice Davis from Pleasanton, near San Francisco, read about Miller in her local newspaper. Miller had made a comment that he and Jessica had never been able to afford a proper wedding ceremony. Davis took it upon herself to organise one. She rallied hundreds of donors and helped organise a lavish ceremony.

Miller and his blushing 'bride' took their vows anew. He wore his marine uniform. A huge American flag fluttered near by. Television news crews recorded the day for posterity and prime time. That was 3 June. For a moment it seemed America - and Miller - would get a happy ending. But it was not to be. Last Sunday, barely three weeks since the ceremony, came the news of a divorce. Post-traumatic stress was to blame.

It was not just the disorder that unhinged Miller's life. Undoubtedly the stress of unexpected and unwanted fame added to the problems. Miller joined a growing list of cultural icons emerging from Iraq and it is not an easy role to play, especially for those who do not choose it.

There was Jessica Lynch, the young woman soldier whose story of kidnap and rescue was used and abused by the Pentagon to create a heroic figure for the invasion of Iraq. There was steel-jawed Pat Tillman, the former American football star turned Army Ranger whose death in Afghanistan seemed to embody the noble causes of freedom and democracy until it was revealed the army had tried to cover up the fact he had been accidentally shot by his own side.

Being an icon is not easy. 'The impact on one's life is life-altering,' said Professor Robert Thompson, a popular culture expert at Syracuse University. Miller's life became public property. He became a focus for the psychological needs and desires of strangers. Complex events such as the war in Iraq are much easier for society to deal with if the focus is on an individual's story, yet Miller always seemed to express bafflement at his fame. How had a single image made his Kentucky face one of the most famous on the planet? There is little doubt that whatever chance he had of settling back into his old life in Pike County was reduced by having to do it all in the public glare. 'When you become a symbol your ability to live your old life disappears. It is not easy to be a metaphor,' Thompson said.

Miller remains a symbol. But it is no longer that of the tough-as-nails Marlboro Man. It is of the human cost of war. As the conflict in Iraq drags on into its fourth year, it is often remarked upon how little ordinary life in America has changed. There is no draft, there is no rationing, there is no reshaping of the economy to meet military needs. There are not even any extra taxes to pay for all the men and money being sunk into the conflict.

It is, in short, easy to ignore the fact that America is fighting at all. But now Miller's story is a reminder of the price that ordinary men and women are paying for the Iraq operation. He has disappeared into a private world to try to cope with his demons. He has asked not to be disturbed by the media and other outsiders. He just wants to deal with his problems and rebuild his life and, perhaps, his marriage too. 'I'm looking for time to figure out what exactly I need to do, not just for me and Jessica but for myself as well,' he told the San Francisco Chronicle, which has developed a close relationship with him.

Hopefully he can. For Miller is now a metaphor, not of steely resolve, but of pain and loss. He is a reminder of how war can destroy even those it does not kill. How it leaves behind a trail of victims, whether they are Iraqi civilians or a kid from the Kentucky hills.

Miller is proof that not all wounds received in combat can be seen by the naked eye.

Icons and villains

Jessica Lynch

US army supply clerk Lynch, now 23, was rescued by US special forces after being captured by Iraqis during the invasion in 2003. The first American successfully rescued since 1945 - and the first ever woman - she became a symbol of American martial heroism, but has since become a metaphor for government manipulation of the media after conflicting accounts emerged as to how and why she was rescued so dramatically from a civilian hospital. Debate mainly centred on whether Lynch was actually being held prisoner at all. She had been well treated by Iraqi doctors, and it is believed that no Iraqi soldiers were present in the hospital when it was raided by US forces. The military was later accused of treating the doctors like enemy forces and causing unnecessary damage to the clinic.

Pat Tillman

A professional American football star who abandoned fame and riches to join the elite Army Rangers, only to be killed in action, Tillman became a symbol of the self-sacrificing hero. However, when it emerged that his death had been caused by friendly fire, he became a symbol of the army's cynicism in exploiting the loss of one of its own soldiers. A series of investigations into his death has left many questions unanswered and lingering suspicions that the full truth has yet to emerge.

Lynndie England

The young woman soldier featured in photographs exposing the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, notably a photograph showing her with an Iraqi prisoner on the end of a leash. At first seen as a symbol of American military brutality, she became viewed as a scapegoat after she was convicted of criminal behaviour while senior officers largely escaped blame. England came from an impoverished background in West Virginia and that background has fuelled attacks on army recruitment policies. Those who defended the military saw the attack on the young soldier as an example of unpatriotic and elitist behaviour. England has thus also come to symbolise a growing political and social divide in America.

The Abu Ghraib man

The figure of a hooded man standing on a box and apparently attached to electrodes became an iconic image throughout the world, especially in the Middle East. Several papers, including the New York Times, identified him as a man called Ali Shalal Qaissi, but his true identity remains in doubt and the NYT has since retracted its story. Many Americans now regard the picture as a symbol of anti-American, anti-Bush media bias. It has also been used to recall the way in which Vietnam was lost on the home front and to draw parallels suggesting that the Iraq war may be lost in the same way.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Last Updated: 5:48 am | Saturday, July 1, 2006

Guantanamo ruling protects us

Editorials

The Supreme Court's 5-3 decision Thursday that the Bush administration had no authority to create special military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo is a victory for all Americans.

The court majority did not say the Guantanamo prisoners are not security threats. The decision did not mock the seriousness of the terrorist threat against the United States. What it did say was that the United States is governed by the rule of law, and that even in times of extraordinary national stress and danger, those rules apply.

About 450 "enemy combatants" captured since 9/11 have been held in the special prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba. These prisoners are in a legal limbo, not members of a sovereign state's army, not charged with any criminal offense. At first the administration said the prisoners, because they were being held outside the United States, were not under the jurisdiction of the court system. Two years ago the Supreme Court shot that notion down, ruling the president did not have "a blank check" to imprison alleged combatants and then claim they had no legal rights.

That allowed the case decided Thursday into the court system. Thursday's ruling involved Ahmed Hamdan, once a driver for Osama bin Ladin. Hamdan, charged with conspiring to commit terrorism, has been locked up for four years.

The administration claimed the Guantanamo prisoners, captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other countries, were not entitled to trials under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that they were not entitled to the protections granted to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

Instead, the Bush administration wanted to try them under specially constituted military tribunals where they would not be guaranteed the right to attend their own trials or to confront the evidence against them. Prosecutors in the tribunals would be permitted to introduce hearsay evidence, unsworn evidence and evidence gathered through coercion.

Just spelling out those deficiencies makes one wonder if we are talking about the United States or some strange land where notions of fairness and innocent until proven guilty are alien concepts.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said a military commission has been a rare "tribunal of necessity" in our nation's history under the pressures of war, but never justifies "wholesale jettisoning of procedural protections" for defendants. Even in times of war, the Constitution and the treaties we ascribe to must apply.

In a concurrent opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted: "The Constitution is best preserved by reliance on standards tested over time and insulated from the pressures of the moment."

There are those who will argue this decision leaves us open to our enemies. They will say with justification that some, if not all, of the Guantanamo prisoners want to destroy America. So why, they will ask, should we care about their rights?

Because we are not like them.

Copyright 2006, Enquirer.com

Edwards calls for U.S. war on poverty

By Julia Silverman

The Associated Press

Published: Saturday, July 1, 2006

PORTLAND - Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards, who is mulling over a run for the presidency in 2008, called for withdrawal from Iraq within the next 18 months, and for the U.S. government to launch another war - on poverty - in a speech Friday at the National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women's conference.

Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina who currently directs a poverty research center at the University of North Carolina, couldn't resist a few partisan jabs at the current administration, calling the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina ''a failure of presidential leadership.''

His comments drew applause from the largely Democratic conference attendees, who cheered Edwards' calls for a rise in the minimum wage, expansion of earned income tax credits and expanded regulations for the check-cashing industry.

Edwards also said it should be easier for workers to join unions.

''If Republicans or Democrats can join a political party by signing their name to a card, any worker should be able to do the same thing with a union,'' said Edwards, who was on the 2004 ticket with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

In a recent poll of Iowa Democrats, Edwards ranked at the top of a list of potential presidential candidates, outpacing New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Iowa is host to the nation's first political caucus, and often plays a key role in determining the nominees for the major political parties.

Edwards' speech offered a preview of some of the talking points Democrats will use on the campaign trail this fall: He called for universal health care coverage and for development of wind and solar energy sources, and he said he regretted his vote authorizing the president to declare war in Iraq.

In response to questions from reporters after his speech, Edwards said he considered Oregon a progressive state, but said he still considered it contested. Edwards and Kerry won Oregon in 2004 with 51 percent of the vote to President Bush's 47 percent.

Copyright © 2006 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA

July 3, 2006

Bombs Bursting in Air

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Families for Peace

The rockets red glare,
Bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that
Star spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave.

The star spangled banner has been in the news quite a lot lately. Some "courageous" Senators, including one of my own, Dianne Feinstein and everyone's favorite left-wing liberal, Hillary Clinton, bravely stuck their necks out to support an amendment that would make it illegal to burn the flag of the USA under certain circumstances.