Life in OUR America, Volume 6, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

NEW YORK TIMES ENDORSES SPITZER COVER-UP OF ASSAULT AND FALSE IMPRISONMENT OF DISABLED VETERAN IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK

For Immediate Release: October 22, 2006
Contact: Press Office, 212-725-8825

NY TIMES: The Promise of Eliot Spitzer

EDITORIAL

As attorney general, he has been fearless and dogged in his pursuit of justice.

http://www.nydems.org/news/archive/2006_10_001765.html

LUKE: So, Clem .....

What'chu think about that city boy Spitzer becoming governor, then?

CLEM: Well, Luke ....

How I'll put it is like this .....

IT'LL BE JUST MORE GEORGE ...

And that is that .....

JUST MORE GEORGE ....

LUKE: Well, Clem ....

How you figure that, then .....

CLEM: Well, Luke ....

Look at the constitution for a moment .....

[sounds of paper rustling as Luke takes out his copy of the New York State Constitution ...]

And tell me where in there you see anything about the New York State Attorney General being anything other than George Pataki's fancy lawyer ....

LUKE: No, Clem, I sure don't find anything in here, anyway ......

But I still don't see the point ....

CLEM: Well now, Luke .....

Get out your book of New York Executive Law ....

And tell me what you see in there, then ....

About who Eliot Spitzer really does work for .....

Here in the State of New York ....

Look at section 63(2) of Article 5 there ....

And tell me what you see ....

LUKE: Whenever required by the governor, attend in person, or by one of his deputies, any term of the supreme court or appear before the grand jury thereof for the purpose of managing and conducting in such court or before such jury criminal actions or proceedings as shall be specified in such requirement ....

CLEM: And how about section 63(3) of Article 5 of the New York State Executive Law .....

What about that, then?

LUKE: Upon request of the governor, comptroller, secretary of state, commissioner of transportation, superintendent of insurance, superintendent of banks, commissioner of taxation and finance or commissioner of motor vehicles, or the head of any other department, authority, division or agency of the state, investigate the alleged commission of any indictable offense or offenses in violation of the law which the officer making the request is especially required to execute or in relation to any matters connected with such department, and to prosecute the person or persons believed to have committed the same and any crime or offense arising out of such investigation or prosecution or both, including but not limited to appearing before and presenting all such matters to a grand jury.

CLEM: And section 63(7) of Article 5, there, Luke ....

What'chu got there, then?

LUKE: He may with the approval of the governor retain counsel to recover moneys or property belonging to the state, or to the possession of which the state is entitled, upon an agreement that such counsel shall receive reasonable compensation, to be fixed by the attorney-general, out of the property recovered, and not otherwise.

CLEM: And then there is section 63(8), Luke ....

How about you read me back that, then .....

LUKE: Whenever in his judgment the public interest requires it, the attorney-general may, with the approval of the governor, and when directed by the governor, shall, inquire into matters concerning the public peace, public safety and public justice.

CLEM: So ....

Tell me then, Luke .....

BY THE LAW IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK .....

FOR WHOM DOES ELIOT SPITZER REALLY WORK?

BY THE LAW AS IT IS WRITTEN IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK, LUKE ..

WHOSE BIDDING DOES ELIOT SPIZER REALLY ANSWER TO?

LUKE: Why ...

It sure does look like George Pataki has been pulling his strings all this time ....

IF THE LAW IS CORRECT, ANYWAY .....

But, Clem, the NEW YORK TIMES .....

CLEM: THE NEW YORK TIMES!

YOU MEAN JUDY MILLER'S RAG, LUKE?

THAT NEW YORK TIMES?

WHY, LUKE, THAT RAG AIN'T GOT NO CREDIBILTY!

PSHAW, LUKE .....

THEY AIN'T NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF PRESS POODLES, DOWN THERE ....

YOU KNOW ....

LIKE THEM YAPPY LITTLE LAP DOGS YOU SEE THEM FANCY RICH PEOPLE WITH?

THAT IS WHAT THE NEW YORK TIMES IS ....

Just a bunch of shills .....

That's the crowd that helped get us stuck over there in Iraq, Luke .....

ALMOST SINGLE-HANDED ....

Told our America a bunch of lies .....

Helped to bury the truth ....

Gettin' a bunch of our American soldiers killed, that crowd is .....

Thanks to all its lies .....

Do you still believe a word they say, today?

LUKE: Well no ....

This post has been edited by Livyjr: Nov 9 2006, 02:22 PM

[Livyjr]

"Deja vu: Another Florida recount likely"

By PHIL DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

31 minutes ago

SARASOTA, Fla. - The touch-screen voting machines Katherine Harris championed as secretary of state after the 2000 presidential recount may have botched this year's election to replace her in the U.S. House, and it's likely going to mean another Florida recount.

More than 18,000 Sarasota County voters who marked other races didn't have a vote register in the House race, a rate much higher than the rest of the district, elections results show.

Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb sent a team to Sarasota County on Thursday to observe the expected recount and audit the county's touch-screen voting machines.

The county's elections supervisor, Kathy Dent, had requested the team after one of the candidates reported complaints about voting machines malfunctioning.

Earlier, Dent defended her staff and the machines, arguing that the thousands of voters must have either overlooked the race — which was pushed to a second screen by a glut of minor U.S. Senate candidates on the ballot — or simply decided not to vote for either candidate in a race marked by mudslinging.

"My machines have recorded accurately for 40 elections," Dent said.

But she couldn't explain why the undervote rate in her county was so much higher than in the four other counties in the district.

Republican Vern Buchanan declared victory in the race with a 373-vote lead over Democrat Christine Jennings — less than 0.2 percent.

"Sarasota voters have been victimized by not having their votes count," Jennings said Wednesday.

Buchanan's campaign said a recount would confirm their candidate won.

Florida law requires a machine recount if the difference between the top candidates is less than half a percent.

If the machine tallies find a margin of less than a quarter percent, a manual recount is conducted.

To do a manual recount for touch-screens, officials go back over the images of the electronic ballots where the machine didn't register a choice.

But state rules essentially say that if the machine doesn't show that a voter chose a candidate, the voter is assumed to have meant to skip the race — it would be tough to prove otherwise.

Final results must be certified by Nov. 20.

Harris, a congresswoman since 2002, ran for U.S. Senate this year but lost to incumbent Bill Nelson.

As secretary of state in 2001, Harris had pushed for an election overhaul that outlawed the punch-card ballots involved in the 2000 presidential race recount that made Harris a GOP star.

The law now required counties to use touch-screen devices or optical scan machines that read paper ballots voters filled in.

Harris spokeswoman Jennifer Marks said Harris had no comment on the House race.

[Livyjr]

"AP: Startling findings in Tillman probe"

By SCOTT LINDLAW and MARTHA MENDOZA, Associated Press
Last updated: 9:45 a.m., Thursday, November 9, 2006

In a remote and dangerous corner of Afghanistan, under the protective roar of Apache attack helicopters and B-52 bombers, special agents and investigators did their work.

They walked the landscape with surviving witnesses.

They found a rock stained with the blood of the victim.

They re-enacted the killings -- here the U.S. Army Rangers swept through the canyon in their Humvee, blasting away; here the doomed man waved his arms, pleading for recognition as a friend, not an enemy.

"Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" the NFL star shouted, again and again.

The latest inquiry into Tillman's death by friendly fire should end next month; authorities have said they intend to release to the public only a synopsis of their report.

But The Associated Press has combed through the results of 2 1/4 years of investigations -- reviewed thousands of pages of internal Army documents, interviewed dozens of people familiar with the case -- and uncovered some startling findings.

One of the four shooters, Staff Sgt. Trevor Alders, had recently had PRK laser eye surgery.

He said although he could see two sets of hands "straight up," his vision was "hazy."

In the absence of "friendly identifying signals," he assumed Tillman and an allied Afghan who also was killed were enemy.

Another, Spc. Steve Elliott, said he was "excited" by the sight of rifles, muzzle flashes and "shapes."

A third, Spc. Stephen Ashpole, said he saw two figures, and just aimed where everyone else was shooting.

Squad leader Sgt. Greg Baker had 20-20 eyesight, but claimed he had "tunnel vision."

Amid the chaos and pumping adrenaline, Baker said he hammered what he thought was the enemy but was actually the allied Afghan fighter next to Tillman who was trying to give the Americans cover:

"I zoned in on him because I could see the AK-47."

"I focused only on him."

All four failed to identify their targets before firing, a direct violation of the fire discipline techniques drilled into every soldier.

There's more:

--Tillman's platoon had nearly run out of vital supplies, according to one of the shooters.

They were down to the water in their CamelBak drinking pouches, and were forced to buy a goat from a local vendor.

Delayed supply flights contributed to the hunger, fatigue and possibly misjudgments by platoon members.

--A key commander in the events that led to Tillman's death both was reprimanded for his role and meted out punishments to those who fired, raising questions of conflict of interest.

--A field hospital report says someone tried to jump-start Tillman's heart with CPR hours after his head had been partly blown off and his corpse wrapped in a poncho; key evidence including Tillman's body armor and uniform was burned.

--Investigators have been stymied because some of those involved now have lawyers and refused to cooperate, and other soldiers who were at the scene couldn't be located.

--Three of the four shooters are now out of the Army, and essentially beyond the reach of military justice.

Taken together, these findings raise more questions than they answer, in a case that already had veered from suggestions that it all was a result of the "fog of war" to insinuations that criminal acts were to blame.

The Pentagon's failure to reveal for more than a month that Tillman was killed by friendly fire has raised suspicions of a coverup.

To Tillman's family, there is little doubt that his death was more than an innocent mistake.

One investigator told the Tillmans that it hadn't been ruled out that Tillman was shot by an American sniper or deliberately murdered by his own men -- though he also gave no indication the evidence pointed that way.

"I will not assume his death was accidental or 'fog of war,'" said his father, Pat Tillman Sr.

"I want to know what happened, and they've clouded that so badly we may never know."

And so, almost two years after three bullets through the forehead killed the star defensive back -- a man President Bush would call "an inspiration on and off the football field" -- the fourth investigation began.

This time, the investigators are supposed to think like prosecutors:

Who fired the shots that killed Pat Tillman, and why?

Who insisted Tillman's platoon split and travel through dangerous territory in daylight, against its own policy?

Who let the command slip away and chaos engulf the unit?

And perhaps most of all: Was a crime committed?

------

The long and complicated story of Pat Tillman's death and the investigations it spawned began five years ago, in the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center.

"It is a proud and patriotic thing you are doing," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote to Tillman in 2002, after Tillman -- shocked and outraged by the Sept. 11 attacks -- turned down a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the elite Army Rangers.

The San Jose, Calif., native enlisted with his brother Kevin, who gave up his own chance to play professional baseball.

The Tillmans were deployed to Iraq in 2003, then sent to Afghanistan.

The mission of their "Black Sheep" platoon in April 2004 sounded straightforward:

Divide a region along the Pakistan border into zones, then check each grid for insurgents and weapons.

They were to clear two zones and then move deeper into Afghanistan.

But a broken-down Humvee known as a Ground Mobility Vehicle, or GMV, stalled the unit on an isolated road.

A mechanic couldn't fix it, and a fuel pump flown in on a helicopter didn't help.

Hours passed.

Enemy fighters watched invisibly, plotting their ambush.

Tillman's platoon must have presented an inviting target.

There were 39 men -- including six allied Afghan fighters trained by the CIA -- and about a dozen vehicles.

Impatience was rising at the tactical operations center at Forward Operating Base Salerno, near Khowst, Afghanistan, where officers coordinated the movements of several platoons.

Led by then-Maj. David Hodne, the so-called Cross-Functional Team worked at a U-shaped table inside a 20-by-30-foot tent with a projection screen and a satellite radio.

(Hodne, now a lieutenant colonel and executive officer for the 75th Ranger Regiment, declined to be interviewed on the record by the AP -- as did nearly every person involved in the incident.)

When the Humvee broke down, the Black Sheep were nearing the end of their assignment; all that was left was to "turn one last stone and then get out," Hodne would testify.

The unit was then to head for Manah, a small village where it would spend the night.

The commanders had already given the Black Sheep an extra day to get into its grid zones.

High-ranking commanders were "pushing us pretty hard to keep moving," said Hodne.

"We had better not have any more delays due to this vehicle," he told his subordinates.

At the operations center, the Black Sheep's company commander, then-Capt. William C. "Satch" Saunders, was feeling the heat to get the platoon moving.

"We wanted to make sure we had a force staged to confirm or deny any enemy presence in Manah the next day, so we would not get ourselves too far behind setting ourselves up for our next series of operations," he recalled later to an investigator.

The order came down to split the platoon in two to speed its progress.

Saunders initially told investigators that Hodne had issued the order, but later, after he was given immunity from prosecution, he acknowledged it was his decision alone.

Hodne later said he was in the dark -- "I felt like the village idiot because I had no idea what they were doing," he recalled.

The decision was foolhardy, he said.

Divided in two, "they didn't have enough combat power to do that mission" of clearing Manah, he testified.

(Other commanders have insisted that splitting the platoon was perfectly safe and a common practice.)

One thing is clear:

The order sparked a flurry of activity by the Black Sheep.

One of the gunners who shot Tillman said his unit didn't even have time to look at a map before getting back on the road.

"We were rushed to conduct an operation that had such flaws," said Alders.

"Which in the end would prove to be fatal."

"If anything, this sense of urgency was as deadly to Tillman as the bullet that cut his life short," Alders wrote in a lengthy statement protesting his expulsion from the Rangers.

"We could have conducted the search at night like we did on the follow-up operations or the next morning like we ended up doing anyway."

"Why, I ask, why?"

An investigator, Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, would later agree that an "artificial sense of urgency" to keep Tillman's platoon moving was a crucial factor in his death:

"There was no specific intelligence that made the movement to Manah before nightfall imperative."

An officer involved in the incident told AP there was, however, general intelligence of insurgent activity in this region, historically a Taliban hotbed.

That suspicion would be confirmed when the Black Sheep drove through a narrow canyon, its walls towering about 500 feet, and came under fire from enemy Afghans.

Chaos broke out and communications broke down.

After the platoon split, the second section of the convoy roared out of the canyon, into an open valley and straight at their comrades a few minutes ahead.

A Humvee packed with pumped-up Rangers opened fire, killing the friendly Afghan and Tillman, though he desperately sought to be recognized.

Later, at least one of the same Rangers turned his guns on a village where witnesses say civilian women and children had gathered.

The shooters raked it with fire, the American witnesses said; they wounded two additional fellow Rangers, including their own platoon leader.

------

Had it happened in the United States, police would have quickly cordoned off the area with "crime scene" tape and determined whether a law had been broken.

Instead, the investigations into Tillman's death have cascaded, one after another, for the past 30 months.

For Mary Tillman, getting to the bottom of her son's death is more than a personal quest.

"This isn't just about our son," she said.

"It's about holding the military accountable."

"Finding out what happened to Pat is ultimately going to be important in finding out what happened to other soldiers."

In the days after the shootings, the first officer appointed to investigate, then-Capt. Richard Scott, interviewed all four shooters, their driver, and many others who were there.

He concluded within a week that the gunmen demonstrated "gross negligence" and recommended further investigation.

"It could involve some Rangers that could be charged" with a crime, Scott told a superior later.

Then-Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey -- the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon -- later assured Tillman's family that those responsible would be punished as harshly as possible.

But no one was ever court-martialed; staff lawyers advised senior Army commanders reviewing the incident that there was no legal basis for it.

Instead, the Army punished seven people; four soldiers received relatively minor punishments known as Article 15s under military law, with no court proceedings.

These four ranged from written reprimands to expulsion from the Rangers.

One, Baker, had his pay reduced and was effectively forced out of the Army.

The three other soldiers received administrative reprimands.

Scott's report circulated briefly among a small corps of high-ranking officers.

Then, it disappeared.

Some of Tillman's relatives think the Army buried the report because its findings were too explosive.

Army officials refused to provide a copy to the AP, saying no materials related to the investigation could be released.

The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment, then-Col. James C. Nixon, wasn't satisfied with Scott's investigation, which he said focused too heavily on precombat inspections and procedures rather than on what had happened.

Scott "made some conclusions in the document that weren't validated by facts" as described by the participants, Nixon would tell later investigators.

Nixon assigned his top aide, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, to lead what became the second investigation.

Kauzlarich harshly criticized Baker and the men on his truck.

Among other things, Baker should have known that at least two of his subordinates had never been in a firefight, and should have closely supervised where they shot.

"His failure to do so resulted in deaths of Cpl. Tillman and the AMF soldier, and the serious wounding of two other (Rangers)," Kauzlarich concluded.

"While a great deal of discretion should be granted to a leader who is making difficult judgments in the heat of combat, the command also has a responsibility to hold its leaders accountable when that judgment is so wanton or poor that it places the lives of other men at risk."

Still, the Tillman family complained that questions remained:

Who killed Tillman?

Why did they fire?

Were the punishments stiff enough?

"I don't think that punishment fit their actions out there in the field," said Kevin Tillman, who was with his brother the day Pat was killed but was several minutes behind him in the trailing element of a convoy and saw nothing.

"They were not inquiring, identifying, engaging (targets)."

"They weren't doing their job as a soldier," he told an investigator.

"You have an obligation as a soldier to, you know, do certain things, and just shooting isn't one of your responsibilities."

"You know, it has to be a known, likely suspect."

And so, in November 2004, acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee ordered up yet another investigation, by Jones.

The result was 2,100 pages of transcripts and detailed descriptions of the incident, but no new charges or punishments.

The report, completed Jan. 10, 2005, was provided -- with many portions blacked out or removed entirely -- to the Tillman family.

It has not been released to the public; the family found it wanting.

Pressed anew by the Tillmans, the Pentagon inspector general announced a review of the investigations in August 2005.

And in March 2006, they launched a new criminal probe into the actions of the men who shot at Tillman.

------

The veteran Pentagon official who is overseeing these latest inquiries, acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble, has called the Tillman probe the toughest case he has ever seen, according to people he recently briefed.

Investigators are looking at who pulled the triggers and fired at Tillman; they are also looking at the officers who pressured the platoon to move through a region with a history of ambushes; the soldiers who burned Tillman's uniform and body armor afterward; and at everyone in the chain of command who deliberately kept the circumstances of Tillman's death from the family for more than a month.

Military investigators under Gimble's direction this year visited the rugged valley in eastern Afghanistan where Tillman was killed.

It was a risky trip; the region is even more dangerous today than it was in 2004.

According to one person briefed by investigators, the contingent included at least two soldiers who were there the day of the incident -- Staff Sgt. Matthew Weeks, a squad leader who was up the hill from Tillman when he was shot, and the driver of the GMV that carried the Rangers who shot Tillman, Staff Sgt. Kellett Sayre.

When the current inquiry began, the Pentagon projected it would be completed by September 2006.

Now Gimble and the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as CID, are aiming to finish their work by December, say lawmakers and other officials briefed by Gimble.

CID is probing everything up to and including Tillman's shooting.

The inspector general's office itself has a half-dozen investigators researching everything that happened afterward, including allegations of a coverup.

The investigators have taken sworn testimony from about 70 people, some of whom said they were questioned for more than six hours.

But Gimble said investigators have been hindered by a failure to locate key witnesses, even some who are still in the active military.

Moreover, those who are now out of the Army, including three of the four shooters, can't be court-martialed.

They could be charged in the civilian justice system by a U.S. attorney, but such a step would be highly unusual.

The law that allows it, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, has been invoked fewer than a half-dozen times since its enactment in 2000, said Scott Silliman, executive director of Duke Law School's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security and a high-ranking Air Force lawyer until his retirement in 1993.

The investigation, Gimble has said, is also complicated because of "numerous missteps" by the three previous investigators, particularly their failure to follow standards for handling evidence.

Gimble promised lawmakers in a series of briefings this fall that his investigation "will bring all to light."

He has committed to releasing his detailed findings to key legislators, Pentagon officials and the Tillman family, as well as a synopsis to the general public, congressional aides said.

Gimble declined an AP request for an interview.

------

To date, a total of seven soldiers have been disciplined in Tillman's death.

Bailey, the 2nd Ranger Battalion commander who was camped out about two miles down the road with another unit the night Tillman died, surveyed the shooting scene hours after it occurred.

"I don't think there was any criminal act," he said.

"It was a fratricide based upon a lot of contributing factors, confusion," he testified to an investigator in late 2004.

Some high-ranking officers, including Bailey, believe a lack of control in the field was to blame -- starting with the platoon leader and including the soldiers who didn't identify their targets.

Bailey, who approved punishments for several of the soldiers, said he disagreed with the platoon's protests that they were "doing what we asked them to do under some very difficult circumstances, and that there were mistakes made but they weren't negligent mistakes."

He also testified that "three gunners were, to varying degrees, culpable in what had happened out there."

And he said he wanted a fourth soldier involved -- the squad leader, Baker -- "out of the military."

Baker soon left the Army.

As for others involved:

--The three other shooters -- Ashpole, Alders and Elliott -- remained in the service initially but Elliott and Ashpole have since left.

Elliott struck a deal with authorities; in exchange for his testimony to investigator Jones, the Army gave him immunity from prosecution "in any criminal proceedings."

--The platoon leader, Lt. David Uthlaut, was later bumped down from the Rangers to the regular Army for failing to prepare his men prior to the shootings, according to Bailey.

"They didn't do communications checks."

"They didn't check out their equipment."

"So they'd been there 24 hours," Bailey testified.

"For example, some of the weapons systems weren't even loaded with ammunition."

"Many of the soldiers didn't know where they were going."

"They didn't have contingency plans."

A non-commissioned officer on the ground that day, however, testified that the unit carried out required communications checks.

Uthlaut was also wounded by fellow Rangers in the incident.

He was awarded the Purple Heart and later promoted to captain.

--Saunders, the company commander, was given the authority to punish three soldiers -- even though he himself was reprimanded for his own poor leadership.

Both Saunders and Hodne received formal written reprimands for failing to "provide adequate command and control" of subordinate units -- administrative punishments lighter than the Article 15s handed down to the soldiers who shot at Tillman.

This obviously hasn't hurt Hodne's career; he has since been promoted.

"I thought it was (the commanders') fault, or part of their fault that we were even in this situation, when they're telling us to split up," said Ashpole.

Some lawmakers have warned that if this probe does not clear up all questions on Tillman's death, they may press for congressional hearings.

Others have said Congress could call for an independent panel of retired military officers and other experts to conduct an outside probe.

Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat who represents the San Jose district where Tillman's family lives, has pressed the Pentagon for answers on the status of its investigations.

"I'm very impatient and at times cynical," Honda said.

But, he said, the honor of the military -- and the confidence of the public in the military and the government -- are at stake.

"So if we pursue the truth and wait for it," he said, "it may be worthwhile."

end quotes

PUMPED-UP RANGERS ....

Sounds like Afghani HASH-HISH .....

Got to the Russians when they were there, too ....

Just like the opium did to our troops out in the field in Viet Nam .....

PUMPED-UP .....

****ED-UP, MORE LIKELY ....

And so ...

[Livyjr]

"Norway ranked as best country to live in"

Associated Press
Last updated: 11:55 a.m., Thursday, November 9, 2006

OSLO, Norway -- The United Nations ranked Norway as the best country to live in for a sixth consecutive year Thursday, prompting the country's aid minister to tell Norwegians to stop whining about wanting more.

Oil-rich Norway, with its generous welfare state, topped the U.N. Development Program's human development index, based on such criteria as life expectancy, education and income.

Iceland was No. 2, followed by Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, Japan and the United States.

Despite wealth, high levels of education, low unemployment, and an economic boom, Norwegians often complain of high taxes and of weaknesses in their cradle-to-grave welfare state, such as waiting lists at hospitals and a shortage of public care for both children and the elderly.

"There are unsolved problems in Norway, but let us battle this culture of whining, and look at the future with optimism," Aid Minister Erik Solheim was quoted as saying in an interview with the Norwegian news agency NTB.

According to the study, Norwegians earn 40 times more than the study's lowest- ranked country, Niger, live almost twice as long, and have nearly five times the literacy rate.

Solheim said instead of complaining, Norwegians should work on solving those problems, and to share their wealth with poorer countries.

Norway is already one of the world's most generous foreign aid donors per capita, giving nearly 1 percent of its gross national product.

"The top place should make us show humility," said Solheim in the NTB interview.

"Norway should be seen as a modern, rich and successful society, but should also be seen as a generous country."

"The world must see us as rich and generous, not rich and miserly."

Norway, a nation of 4.6 million people, is the world's third-largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia.

The five countries with the lowest scores were Guinea-Bissau in 173rd place, Burkina Faso as 174, Mali as 175, Sierra Leone as 176, and Niger 177.

The report was unable to rank 17 countries, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, because there was insufficient data.

[Livyjr]

"Mubarak warns against hanging Saddam"

By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:07 p.m., Thursday, November 9, 2006

CAIRO, Egypt -- Egypt's president came out strongly against hanging Saddam Hussein, saying in remarks published Thursday that it could make Iraq explode into more violence.

But Iraq's prime minister said the execution could take place by the end of the year.

The statement from President Hosni Mubarak of Eygpt broke an uneasy silence among Arab leaders over Sunday's verdict by an Iraqi court, which convicted Saddam for the killings of some 150 Shiite Muslims after an assassination attempt against him in 1982.

Mubarak, a regional heavyweight and a top U.S. ally, appeared to speak for many in the region who are uneasy about seeing a former Arab president tried and sentenced -- no matter how much they disliked Saddam's regime.

Analysts suggested Arab leaders are worried about the precedent an execution would set, and said Arab publics often identify with their leaders.

"Carrying out this verdict will explode violence like waterfalls in Iraq," Mubarak was quoted as saying by state-run Egyptian newspapers.

Hanging Saddam "will transform (Iraq) into blood pools and lead to a deepening of the sectarian and ethnic conflicts."

Saddam has appealed, and is being separately tried for genocide in the deaths of about 180,000 Iraqi Kurds, mostly civilians, during a crackdown in the late 1980s.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed this week that both legal procedures would go on simultaneously and that Iraq's three-man presidential council is pledged to allow Saddam's hanging if the court rejects the appeal.

"The way I understand the law that we passed ... the execution of the sentence should happen within a month, one month," al-Maliki told the British Broadcasting Corp.

"I expect it to happen before the end of this year."

Leaders in Saudi Arabia, like Egypt a regional powerhouse and U.S. ally, have all but stayed quiet about Saddam's sentencing.

The presidents of Libya and Syria have also avoided personal comment, though the Syria goverment said it opposes the sentence because it was delivered while U.S. troops were occupying Iraq.

"The court acted under the shadow of occupation," Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said Sunday.

"Therefore, the entire court is rejected because the occupation itself is rejected."

Jordan took a neutral line.

"As far as we're concerned here in Jordan, this is an internal Iraqi affair," government spokesman Nasser Judeh said this week.

While many in the Middle East rejoiced at Saddam's ouster in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, spiraling violence in Iraq and the nearly unprecedented public trial against an Arab ruler have left many in the region dubious.

"Saddam's yearlong trial has shocked Arab leaders, including those who are against him, as well as the masses," said Egyptian political analyst Diaa Rashwan.

"We've witnessed leaders being assassinated, but never being judged in the Arab world," he said, adding that many Arabs also perceived the trial as taking place at the whim of the occupying U.S army.

Other analysts alluded to a peer solidarity among Arab rulers.

Dalal el-Bizri, a Lebanese sociologist and political columnist, noted the "vast authority that Arab leaders have, their endless stay in power, their cohesion."

Mubarak has been at the helm of the most populous Arab state since 1981.

He has repeatedly warned against worsening violence in Iraq, and voiced concern about tensions spilling over to the rest of the region.

He and Saddam, who rose to power in 1979, rarely shared the same views during the decades they both spent in office, but in 1991 Mubarak offered the Iraqi leader a haven in exile to avert the Gulf War.

Saddam declined, and Egypt sided with the United States during the war.

Mubarak also initially condemned the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, but blamed the offensive on what he described as Saddam's failure to cooperate with the international community.

El-Bizri said Arab populations tend to strongly associate with their presidents.

"Their presence is felt everywhere."

"It causes a sick relationship between the people and their leaders," she said.

"No matter how despotic a leader is, he becomes a symbol of his country, or even synonymous with it," she said, explaining why many Iraqis and other Arabs were uncomfortable seeing an agitated Saddam arguing in the Iraqi court.

Some hoped the former president's lengthy prosecution and sentencing would pave the way for more accountability in the region.

"Saddam Hussein deserves to be punished for the crimes that he committed against all the Iraqi people," Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon's Druse community, told reporters.

He said Syrian leaders also deserve punishment for allegedly killing former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

[Livyjr]

"Fewer driven to add debt - Substantial drop in consumer borrowing in September is linked to auto loan slowdown"

By MARCY GORDON, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, November 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Consumer borrowing fell in September by the largest amount since the recession of the early 1990s, weakened by a huge drop in auto loans.

The Federal Reserve reported Tuesday that borrowing declined at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in September, compared with a 4.6 percent rate of increase in August.

Borrowing fell by $1.2 billion in September -- the biggest drop since a $1.78 billion decrease in April 1992.

It was the first decline since March, when the rate of borrowing decreased 0.24 percent.

Borrowing for auto loans slipped at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in September, reversed from an increase of 3.5 percent the previous month.

September loans in that category dropped by $4.05 billion, the largest fall since the $4.81 billion decline in October 1991.

The overall economy has lost momentum due to the housing slump.

The struggling auto industry slashed jobs last month, as did companies involved in home building, furniture making and real estate -- casualties of the souring housing market.

Fresh evidence came Tuesday, when luxury home builder Toll Brothers Inc. forecast a 10 percent drop in quarterly construction revenue.

Beazer Homes USA Inc. posted a 44 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings due to lower demand for new homes.

The Fed report showed borrowing in the category that includes credit cards rose at an annual rate of 4.0 percent in September.

That was more anemic than August's 6.7 percent gain.

Both increases were below the double-digit gains in May and June, months in which economists believe consumers used credit cards as a way to cope with soaring energy prices.

[Livyjr]

And then there is the subject of CORPORATE WELFARE ...

Or put another way ...

Having the taxpayers of the state ...

PUT SOME STATE TAX MONEY RIGHT INTO THE POCKETS OF THE CORPORATE SHAREHOLDERS .....

As if they were owed that .....

These CORPORATE SHAREHOLDERS ...

By the citizens of the state .....

"GIFTING" ....

Or "TITHING" ....

OR A STATE GUARANTEE OF CORPORATE PROFITS ....

Whatever name you want to put to it .....

IT IS STEALING FROM THE TAXPAYERS, ON THE ONE HAND .....

And it is playing favorites, on the other .....

As to which business is to get the GIFT to its CORPORATE PROFITS from the "state" this time around ...

And so .....

"All sides air views about $650M for AMD - At open forum, residents debate state's plan to chip in for construction of $3.2 billion chip fab"

By ERIC ANDERSON, Deputy business editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, November 7, 2006

MALTA -- One o'clock on a Monday afternoon before Election Day wasn't the most convenient time to hold a public hearing, several Saratoga County residents suggested Monday.

They had gathered at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta to voice their views on the state's plan to provide $650 million to Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s planned $3.2 billion semiconductor plant there.

Stillwater resident Linda Cepiel, who leads the grass-roots Citizens for Responsible Growth, called for state officials to hold another hearing at a time when more taxpayers could attend.

"I ask that we give another opportunity to these people that can't come out ... because they're working hard, to pay for the project," she said.

Monday's hearing was part of the process before the state Public Authorities Control Board votes on whether to approve the financial package on Nov. 15.

In all, state assistance is expected to total about $1.2 billion, and AMD is committed to creating 1,205 jobs at the plant by 2014.

Those attending the hearing packed a small conference room in an older building on the campus.

The hearing lasted about 90 minutes.

Some, such as Ron Deutsch, representing New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, said notice of the hearing had been inadequate, publicized through newspaper legal advertising.

And he questioned the use of state Empire Zone incentives to lure AMD.

"This is not a distressed area," he said.

"In fact, it's a pristine forest."

Deutsch, Cepiel and several other opponents spoke at an outdoor news conference before the hearing began.

In the background, crews felled trees as work continued on a new access road to the site.

"Why would the Capital District want to become the next Silicon Valley?" asked Susan Lawrence of the local chapter of the Sierra Club.

She suggested building the chip fab, as the plants are called, in the Utica area, where unemployment is higher and the economic impact might be more beneficial.

Several speakers voiced approval of the plant.

One began reading several letters from people who couldn't attend, but after protests from the crowd, a hearing officer decided the letters would be submitted as exhibits.

Another, Phil Tucker, president of the Glens Falls Building and Construction Trades Council, said he welcomed the AMD project to Luther Forest.

"We have been strong supporters of the Luther Forest Technology Campus for years," he said.

Still others hoped that inner-city residents would share in the benefits.

"I'm worried because as I look around, there are no African-Americans in the room," said the Rev. Van Stuart of ARISE -- A Regional Initiative Supporting Empowerment, a faith- and community-based organization in Albany.

Another ARISE representative, Tom McPheeters of Albany, suggested a community benefit agreement that would commit developers and AMD to provide job training and employment opportunities, and to fund affordable housing trusts.

"Creating jobs is great, but let's make sure they work for everybody," he said.

Others who spoke in support said their children and other young people they know had to leave the state after college to find jobs.

One, Ed Skorupski of Stillwater, said the company he worked for expanded, but in South Carolina, not New York state.

"The opportunity in New York state just has not been there," he said.

Still, the ultimate size of the incentive -- about $1 million per job troubled some people.

"I'm actually in total disbelief this project has gotten so far," said Louise McNeilly, who identified herself as a "refugee" from Silicon Valley.

"Not only are we turning public dollars over to a private company, we have no control over it."

But another, David Stiles, said he had worked in Vermont and seen what IBM Corp. had done there to improve the Burlington economy.

One billion dollars is "the going rate" for a project like this, he said.

Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

And then there is the subject of CORPORATE WELFARE ...

Or put another way ...

Having the taxpayers of the state ...

PUT SOME STATE TAX MONEY RIGHT INTO THE POCKETS OF THE CORPORATE SHAREHOLDERS .....

As if they were owed that .....

These CORPORATE SHAREHOLDERS ...

By the citizens of the state .....

"GIFTING" ....

Or "TITHING" ....

OR A STATE GUARANTEE OF CORPORATE PROFITS ....

Whatever name you want to put to it .....

IT IS STEALING FROM THE TAXPAYERS, ON THE ONE HAND .....

And it is playing favorites, on the other .....

As to which business is to get the GIFT to its CORPORATE PROFITS from the "state" this time around ...

And so .....

"Incentive inflation"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, November 5, 2006

Want to know just how jaw-dropping New York's $650 million cash grant to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is, relative to the rest of the country?

Just look at Manassas, Va., where another semiconductor company, Micron Technology Inc., has a computer "chip fab."

Last year, Micron announced a bold plan for a $1.2 billion upgrade to its facility there, which would require the hiring of 860 additional workers.

The plant already employed 1,100.

As a comparison, the $3.2 billion fab AMD plans for Malta will employ 1,205 people.

So what was the incentive package that Virginia and Manassas gave Micron?

Former Gov. Mark Warner announced $4 million in work force education grants to supplement a $27 million incentive package offered by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the city of Manassas.

Compare that to New York's incentive package, which totals $1.2 billion when tax breaks and infrastructure improvements are calculated.

[Livyjr]

****NEWS UPDATE****

THE PROMISE OF ELIOT SPITZER ...

TO HIS CRONIES IN THE BUSINESS WORLD .....

A COWED AND COMPLIANT NEW YORK STATE WORK FORCE ....

TO SERVICE THEIR EVERY NEED ...

"Improving the Business Climate"

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer

New York State Business Council, Bolton's Landing, NY

September 21, 2006

[As Prepared for Delivery]

Thank you, Peter, for that kind introduction, and thank you all for inviting me here today.

I want to recognize Dan Walsh and thank him for his leadership over the past 18 years as President and CEO of the Business Council.

Dan, you have been an outstanding advocate for New York's private-sector business community, and you will be missed.

I also want to welcome Ken Adams as the Business Council's new President.

Ken, I look forward to working with you to make New York the best place to do business in the world.

Well, I have a message for you: If I am elected Governor, on Day One of next year we are going to begin to implement an aggressive strategy to reduce the cost of doing business in New York and make New York the best place to do business in the world.

And we will streamline regulations to make them friendly to business.

As Governor, I will ensure that the Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform places renewed focus on breaking the regulatory logjam in the State's permitting process for new development.

It's time that our State government becomes part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Thank you.

http://www.spitzerpaterson.com/main.cfm?ac...7116&s=spitzer3

****FLASH****

THE PROMISE OF ELIOT SPITZER ...

THE BILL OF RIGHTS ....

OF THE NEW YORK STATE CONSTITUTION IS DEAD!

ELIOT SPITZER KILLED IT!

INTEGRITY IN GOVERNMENT IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK IS DEAD!

ELIOT SPITZER CRUSHED IT!

THE DAY AND AGE OF JAY GOULD ....

AND THE POWER OF TAMMANY HALL ....

IS SET TO FLOURISH ....

IN THE EMPIRE STATE ....

ONCE AGAIN .....

AND ONCE AGAIN ....

AS IS ONLY PROPER ....

IN THE BEST PLACE TO DO BUSINESS IN THE WORLD ...

NEW YORK CITY WILL RULE THE EMPIRE STATE ....

AS ROME DID ITS COLONY ITALY ....

WITH A FIST OF IRON ...

AND A BOOTHEEL ON ITS NECK ....

AND SO .....

STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER DETAILS!

LIVE!

LATE-BREAKING!

NEWS AS IT HAPPENS!

JUST AS FAIR AND BALANCED AS FOX!

AND THEN SOME!

LIFE IN OUR AMERICA!

****BREAKING NEWS****

THE PROMISE OF ELIOT SPITZER ...

TO HIS CRONIES IN THE WORLD OF BUSINESS ......

LICENSED PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS WITHOUT A SHRED OF ETHICS IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK ...

WHO WILL OPENLY AND BLATANTLY LIE TO THE PUBLIC ON DEMAND ....

ON YOUR BEHALF .....

AND MAKE AND FILE FALSE REPORTS ON YOUR BEHALF ....

WITH COMPLIANT STATE AGENCIES AND GOVERNMENT PLANNING BOARDS ....

WITHOUT FEAR OF CENSURE ...

BY THE STATE OF NEW YORK ...

AND WITHOUT FEAR OF CHALLENGE ....

BY ANY CITIZEN ....

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK .....

IN A COURT OF LAW!

BY DECREE OF ELIOT SPITZER, ATTORNEY GENERAL AND GOVERNOR-ELECT, THE EMPIRE OF NEW YORK

[Livyjr]

THE REAL COST OF GOVERNMENTAL CORRUPTION IN NEW YORK STATE!

Hey ......

HOW ABOUT THAT AMERICAN ECONOMY .....

"More homeowners now shown the door - Foreclosures increase in region as heavy debt loads meet higher interest rates, property taxes"

By ERIC ANDERSON, Deputy business editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, November 10, 2006

Foreclosures have been rising this year in the Capital Region as overextended homeowners struggle to keep up with higher interest rates and rising property taxes.

For the first nine months, 471 properties entered some stage of foreclosure in the five-county metropolitan area, more than quadruple the number a year ago, according to online foreclosure marketing firm RealtyTrac.

Foreclosures slowed somewhat from the second to the third quarter, but were still well above year-earlier figures.

At least one long-time real estate broker expects things to get worse.

"This is just the start," said D. Wallace Bryce of Bryce Real Estate Inc. in Troy.

"I'm getting more and more calls."

"People have to sell immediately."

Bryce blames job loss, people who tapped into their home's equity and now can't keep up with payments, and property taxes that in Rensselaer County are expected to climb 25 percent next year.

But as bad as it appears, it's worse elsewhere, according to figures from RealtyTrac.

Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Denver, Miami and Dallas had the greatest foreclosure rates in the third quarter.

One foreclosure for every 80 households gave Detroit the highest rate.

The Capital Region's rate, by comparison, was one for every 2,232 households, for a ranking of 96th out of the top 100 metropolitan areas.

People who bought at or near the top of the real estate cycle are the most vulnerable.

As houses have grown more expensive, mortgage brokers came up with new types of loans to make the early years of a mortgage more affordable.

Among them were interest-only mortgages with low introductory rates.

As long as house prices continued climbing, purchasers would see their equity grow, even though they were only paying the interest.

But that changed when prices stopped climbing.

For the first time since November 2000, house prices in the Capital Region in September declined from the year before.

The median price -- at which half the houses sold for more and half for less -- was down 4 percent, to $187,000, according to the Greater Capital Association of Realtors Inc.

"Folks are overextended," said Anthony M. Gucciardo, an associate broker in Latham with Re/Max Park Place.

He said the local housing market is still strong, but those who bought more house than they could afford are now struggling.

As interest rates adjust upward, they boost monthly payments.

At the same time, house prices have softened, so it's harder for homeowners to sell at a price that will cover their debt.

"What our third-quarter research appears to be showing is that the first wave of adjustable-rate mortgages is having a negative impact on the number of homes going into foreclosure," James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement.

"With the volume of loans -- more than $1 trillion of them due to adjust over the next 15 months -- this is a trend that definitely bears watching."

Rising tax burdens are another troubling trend for homeowners.

"I had a couple last week -- they're downsizing because they couldn't afford the home," Gucciardo said.

They found a smaller, less expensive house in Cohoes, but the taxes were $6,500, Gucciardo said, and that was just too much.

Bryce said rising taxes are actually depressing property values as would-be buyers steer clear of those areas.

"High taxes -- low property values," he said.

Still, the Capital Region may be spared the worst of the national housing slump.

"I've already listed 15 houses this month, and I've already sold three or four," Gucciardo said.

"We're still busy," Bryce said.

"But the guys on a shoestring -- it's going to be a washout."

Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.

Foreclosures on the risel

The number of foreclosures this year is more than quadruple last year's pace in the Capital Region.

Foreclosures also are rising statewide.

2005 2006

Capital Region 100 471

New York state 24,320 38,170

Source: RealtyTrac

[Livyjr]

"Mehlman to step down from RNC post"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose party lost both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, will step down from his post when his two-year term ends in January, GOP officials said Thursday.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mehlman had not yet made his intentions public.

Brian Jones, an RNC spokesman, declined to comment beyond saying that an announcement about Mehlman's future with the party would be made in the days ahead.

Democrats won control of the House and Senate on Tuesday by capitalizing on voter frustration with President Bush, the war in Iraq and the scandal-scarred Congress.

Democrats also took a majority of governors' posts and gained a decisive edge in state legislatures.

The officials said Mehlman made the decision not to run for a second term more than a month or two ago — well before the election.

During his tenure, Mehlman, 40, traveled extensively to promote the Republican agenda.

When he became chairman in January 2005, he said he hoped to tighten the GOP's grip on power in Washington.

"Nothing is permanent in politics," he said then.

"The goal is how do you — both in the short term and the long term — do things to make it sustainable?"

Mehlman also said then that he hoped to expand the GOP base and help Bush enact his agenda.

Last year, Mehlman told NAACP members that the Republican Party was wrong for ignoring the black vote for decades and said he hoped the groups could restore their historic bond.

"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," Mehlman said at the NAACP convention.

"I come here as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

A protege of Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, Mehlman became RNC chairman after managing Bush's re-election campaign in 2004, when the president won re-election and Republicans expanded their majorities in the House and the Senate.

Before that campaign, he served as White House political director under Rove.

In 2000, he served as national field director for Bush's first presidential campaign, charged with coordinating the efforts of GOP leaders in every state.

Previous to that, he worked on Capitol Hill and practiced environmental law in Washington.

Mehlman, a Baltimore native, is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.

end quotes

When he became chairman in January 2005, he said he hoped to tighten the GOP's grip on power in Washington.

DON'T TREAD ON THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA, MEHLMAN!

SEE WHERE IT GOT YOU!

[Snuffysmith]

A Call For Leadership,
Not For Empire
By Terrell E. Arnold
11-9-6

On November 7, the American people did what they do well, when they know they must. They ignored the messages of existing leadership; they canceled the mandates of a large cadre of Republican lawmakers, and they said, loud and clear, "It is time for a change." They reacted against the neo-con "cakewalk" that has turned into chaos and civil war in Iraq. They reacted against a government that has gone deeply into debt to fight an unnecessary war, while expanding and defending tax cuts for its buddies and power brokers. They reacted against a pattern of growing foreign debt and declining foreign confidence in the ability of American leadership to show the way. They reacted against the fact that American policies and decisions are more roundly disliked by other countries than ever before in a virtual century of incessant American global involvement.

The Democrats did not win because they posed clear and decisive alternatives to Bush administration policies and actions. If anything, the overall messages of Democratic candidates added up to a great deal of confusion about what is needed. In the face of urgent--and obvious--needs to the contrary, some leading Democrats such as Howard Dean basically endorsed the Bush strategy of staying the course. Even the about to be Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has often refused to wander far from current administration policies, particularly where Israel is concerned, even as that alliance grows more toxic with each Israeli war crime such as this week's massacre of Palestinian women and children at Beit Hanoun.

However, on the day after, the Democrats and the serving Republicans in the House and Senate need to recognize that the reason the American people said "enough" was because those policies were taking our country deeper and deeper into disaster, debt, and, as some predict, eventual American failure. That means the need for change is absolutely real, and the question is what, not whether.

The truth is that the neo-con dream of empire is dead. It was thought by numerous thoughtful people to have been stillborn, but those reservations were not expressed forcefully enough to stop the drift into war. It may be fair to say that people were bedazzled by the horror of 9/11, but they were misled and misused by the Bush response that has resulted, according to the British journal Lancet, in easily 100,000 conflict-related Iraqi civilian deaths and countless more injuries. That includes more American combat deaths than the 9/11 casualty toll, along with over 30,000 American combat injuries.

What changes then are needed? The answers are not mysterious, nor above the abilities of the new Democratic leadership that will be installed next year. The answers are, however, well beyond anything the Democratic candidates proposed during the campaign. Moreover, unless the leadership to be does an enormous amount of homework in the next three months, we will have new congressional leadership taking over without a plan. They will be faced with working with a President who, so far, has shown no inclination either to recognize the enormous flaws in Republican performance or to change course in the face of urgent necessity.

Our national needs have been slowly accumulating. Last week the population clock said we ticked through 300 million people. That means we are about 4.6% of the world's people. Upward of 15% of our people have no health insurance. At least 5% of them have no jobs, and that does not include a sizeable number who--on paper at least-- have stopped looking. A large percentage of Americans live by minimum wage jobs. Globalization has been stripping the country of manufacturing jobs, as we make less at home and buy more abroad. To do that, we have been going deeper into debt, living beyond our means in a frightening degree. Meanwhile, the resource needs of our system grow in an environment of explosive competition for resources abroad.

So far our best answers to resource problems, especially energy needs, have been preemptive and, where necessary, combative. That is done by making exclusive deals backed up by the possibility of forcible intervention. That strategy serves and enriches the most powerful states. However, it feeds a growing conflict environment, because others such as China, India, Brazil and several smaller countries are applying similarly preemptive strategies wherever they can.

Present resource acquisition strategies are reminiscent of imperial times. They worked in those times mainly because the peoples whose resources were being preempted were not strong enough to resist, or their leaders, e.g., in such places as the Congo, had been totally co-opted. And they work today in countries, such as those in central Asia, where governments are strong enough to dispose of national resources without consulting their own people. In short, the strategy works best when the developed and developing countries, led by the United States, are doing business on key resources with autocratic governments, i.e., dictators.

Part of the motive for invading Iraq was to secure oil resources. That choice, in every sense, was too expensive. Consider purely financial costs. Say we were buying roughly a million barrels of oil a day from Iraq when the war began in 2003. That oil, based on the OPEC price pegs, was costing us $25 a barrel or less. That would mean 365 million barrels of Iraqi oil a year at a cost of less than $10 billion. With everything involved in running Iraqi operations, the average cost today has been estimated at upward of $400 billion a year. That would mean well over $1,000 per barrel. That does not show in the pump price, but it does show up on our tax bill and in America's growing foreign debt.

Our future is about how to obtain needed resources to maintain our essential lifestyle without paying such exorbitant conflict premiums on commodity prices. The same might be said for the prices of technologies that we need and that can be obtained only abroad. It can and should be argued that the solutions should not require dismantling, that is resource starving, of the world's strongest economies. But systems for allocating resources that permit other economies to grow and prosper must be found. That cannot be achieved without the knowing and willing cooperation of the rest of the world. Immediately that means reaching workable and mutually acceptable understandings with the leading economies--the Europeans, Russia, Japan, India, China, Brazil a growing slice of South Asia and Latin America--on how key resources will be allocated. We are not even close to that solution at this time.

The challenge is to develop and gain global acceptance of a better system for allocating and using the world's declining resources. There are enormous economic, political, financial, and external power implications for the ways such challenges should be approached and managed. The neo-cons tabled a preemptive strategy at the beginning of the Bush administration: That essentially meant (a) figure out what you need; and ( make bilateral deals with supplier countries, and/or © go take control of it. Above all, do not be deterred by other people's interests, preferences, or national boundaries.

The rest of the world has grown increasingly restive under this American strategy, as well as increasingly suspicious of American motives. Our failure, first to justify and then to manage the Iraqi engagement, has forcibly called into question our capabilities as well as our sensitivity to the interests of others. Our schizophrenic and obviously self-serving approach to nuclear non-proliferation has torn jagged holes in the global effort to control the spread of nuclear weapons, while our investments in advanced conventional weaponry set an absurd example for humanity as a whole.

The challenge facing the newly-elected Democratic leadership of the House and Senate is to bring America to a position of global leadership, working willingly and supportively with others to solve common global problems. It may not be possible to do much on those levels in the last years of the Bush lame duck presidency. It is vital, however, that this new Congress recognize the need to discard all thoughts of American empire in favor of promoting enlightened and active American leadership of the developed nations in a campaign to improve the whole of the human condition. Our welfare depends upon it. Most urgently, our future lifestyle, however much or little it resembles what we now extravagantly enjoy, depends on how we work these problems.

The time must come when our economy is not dependant on military investments to maintain growth and prosperity. We have driven that priority to the point where American defense spending is greater than that of all other major countries combined. Much of that spending is key resource intensive, especially the high tech weaponry acquisitions. An increasing element of it requires procurement from abroad.

Our difficulties therefore are self-feeding. Our spending at home and abroad for the weapons and materials of war ups the cost of our lifestyle, while our aggressive buildup of arms stokes the global conflict environment. We simply need a more constructive power mode than the urge to empire drives us toward. The global need is for a cooperative model that reduces everybody's expenditures on military readiness. We had that window for a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and we need urgently to get it back. The critical path lies through global cooperation, not through empire building.

**********

The writer is the author of the recently published work, A World Less Safe, now available on Amazon, and he is a regular columnist on rense.com. He is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US Department of State whose immediate pre-retirement positions were as Deputy Director of the State Office of Counterterrorism, and as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National War College. On State assignment, he did a year of advanced study in development economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He will welcome comment at wecanstopit@charter.net.

http://www.rense.com/general74/callfor
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...t&CODE=00&f=228

[Livyjr]

Good to see you, Snuf ....

I thought perhaps you had journeyed to the dark side of the moon or something .....

Just to get some peace and quiet ....

Welcome back ....

[Livyjr]

"A Call For Leadership - Not For Empire

By Terrell E. Arnold

11-9-6

Our future is about how to obtain needed resources to maintain our essential lifestyle without paying such exorbitant conflict premiums on commodity prices.

The same might be said for the prices of technologies that we need and that can be obtained only abroad.

It can and should be argued that the solutions should not require dismantling, that is resource starving, of the world's strongest economies.

But systems for allocating resources that permit other economies to grow and prosper must be found.

The writer is the author of the recently published work, A World Less Safe, now available on Amazon, and he is a regular columnist on rense.com. He is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US Department of State whose immediate pre-retirement positions were as Deputy Director of the State Office of Counterterrorism, and as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National War College. On State assignment, he did a year of advanced study in development economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He will welcome comment at wecanstopit@charter.net.

http://www.rense.com/general74/callfor
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...t&CODE=00&f=228

Perhaps what we really need to do is to take this word "ECONOMY" and toss it right out the window ....

IT IS NOT A NATURAL WORD .....

It is an invented word ....

And as such ....

It has meaning to its inventors ....

But not to anyone else ...

AND JAMMING ECONOMIES DOWN PEOPLE'S THROATS IS A SURE WAY TO WAR, SO FAR AS I CAN SEE .....

ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE TELLING THOSE PEOPLE THAT THEY HAVE TO BE ALMOST LIKE YOU ...

BUT NOT QUITE AS EQUAL ....

RATHER THAN HAVING THE CONTINUED RIGHT TO LIVE THEIR OWN WAY OF LIFE ...

WHICH HAS TO BE DISRUPTED IN THEIR COUNTRIES .....

BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT TO BE FAT AND LAZY IN OURS ....

[Livyjr]

NEW YORK TIMES ENDORSES SPITZER COVER-UP OF ASSAULT AND FALSE IMPRISONMENT OF DISABLED VETERAN IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK TO STIFLE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH AND DISSENT OF HARMFUL NEW YORK STATE GOVERNMENT POLICIES

For Immediate Release: October 22, 2006
Contact: Press Office, 212-725-8825

NY TIMES: The Promise of Eliot Spitzer

http://www.nydems.org/news/archive/2006_10_001765.html

"A freedom in need of fighting for"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, November 11, 2006

There was a war going on back when I was young enough to be a soldier, but my draft lottery number was high.

That bit of luck kept me safe at home.

For other guys my age, luck ran out.

They went to Vietnam, and some of their names are now inscribed on a memorial in Washington.

So here we are, on Veterans Day, four days after a national election that was dominated by debate over an unpopular war.

For those of us who remember the other unpopular war -- the one fought by those guys who could have been me -- what comes to haunt you is the question of what's worth fighting for or dying for, then or now.

It's easy to say that Americans fight for freedom, a simple phrase we hear over and over from Washington.

But that glosses over the fact that we don't all agree about what freedom is.

What to me seems like the most fundamental exercise of freedom is under attack by our government, and that makes me mad when I think about all the veterans we salute today who gave up years of their lives, or gave up their very lives.

The day after we elected a new Congress this week, I listened to some chilling stories from journalists who are reporting on what our government is doing to protect us and are facing intimidation, and even imprisonment, for their work.

They were speaking in an elegant Manhattan ballroom before hundreds of people who were quite nicely dressed, but there was a sense that we were on a battlefield -- not one where our lives were endangered, mind you, but where the freedom of Americans was at risk.

Among others, there was Dana Priest, the Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting about the CIA's controversial counterterrorism operations, and James Risen, the New York Times reporter who revealed the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping.

There was Pierre Thomas, the ABC News correspondent, who recounted quietly telling his wife that he might be locked up because he won't give investigators the name of a confidential source.

The next day, I happened to be on the phone with a San Francisco Chronicle reporter who is facing imprisonment for refusing to reveal who leaked secret information about steroid abuse in Major League Baseball.

For a while, the people who run the sport were content to watch trainers go to prison as they protected the superstars.

The Chronicle's reporting revealed that people who bought tickets to cheer Barry Bonds and other drug-drenched athletes had been duped.

Yet prosecutors don't seem as interested in Bonds as in the reporters who blew the whistle on him.

And that's just baseball, folks.

If federal prosecutors are willing to imprison sportswriters, imagine what they might do to Priest or Risen, who cover national security issues.

Risen has been threatened with prosecution under the Espionage Act, which is aimed at spies.

In recent years, vast amounts of information previously available to the public have been reclassified as secret.

If journalists can be jailed for publishing anything the government considers secret, where will the line next be drawn in the battle for freedom?

Of course, government must keep some secrets.

Every beginning reporter on the cops beat knows that you don't let the bad guys know when they're going to be busted, and senior reporters who cover national security understand not to reveal information that could harm our national interest.

What's in question is whether the press, on behalf of citizens, can maintain the check on official power that the Founding Fathers envisioned in drafting the First Amendment.

This isn't a purely partisan matter.

Warnings against this assault on free speech are being sounded from thoughtful officials in both parties, from the conservative Indiana Republican Mike Pence, a potential successor to Dennis Hastert as leader of the House GOP, and from Bernie Sanders, the liberal senator-elect from Vermont.

The term "freedom fighter" has been misappropriated sometimes, but it really ought to apply to those we salute on Veterans Day.

And you have to ask: What is it our veterans put themselves at risk to protect, if not something as precious as the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment?

Rex Smith is editor of the Times Union.

[Livyjr]

"Nat'l Guard units face 2nd tours in Iraq"

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

58 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The nation's citizen soldiers, already strained by long tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be tapped again under new plans being developed by the Pentagon.

National Guard combat brigades that have already served in Iraq may be called for a second tour, likely breaking the 24-month deployment limit initially set by the Pentagon, the Guard's top general said.

While active-duty soldiers and smaller Guard units and members have returned to Iraq for multiple tours, the new plans would, for the first time, send entire Guard combat brigades back to the battlefront.

Brigades generally have about 3,500 troops.

The move — which could include brigades from Arkansas, Florida, Indiana and North Carolina — would force the Pentagon to make the first large-scale departure from its previous decision not to deploy reserves for more than a cumulative 24 months in Iraq.

For some units, a second tour would mean they would likely exceed that two-year maximum.

The planning was described by Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, who commands the Guard, in an Associated Press interview this week.

In a related move, the Pentagon is preparing to release a list of active units — and perhaps reserves as well — scheduled to go to Iraq that would largely maintain the current level of forces there over the next two years, another senior defense official said Thursday.

There are about 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

That official requested anonymity because the plan has not been made public.

The Pentagon routinely notifies units to prepare for deployment, knowing it is easier to cancel a move overseas than to suddenly make such a large troop movement.

It was not clear whether this week's resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would affect deployment plans.

President Bush has selected former CIA chief Robert Gates, who has criticized U.S. policy in Iraq, to replace Rumsfeld, but he has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

"We are doing contingency planning for one or two (units), and we have contingency plans for more than two if necessary," Blum said Wednesday.

The North Carolina brigade, he said, is being considered since it was one of the first to go to Iraq after the war began in 2003.

Blum also said defense officials have been discussing whether they need to adjust their policy that limits the deployment of reserves in the war to 24 months.

"When that policy was originally formulated, I seriously doubt anyone thought we would be where we are today, at the level of commitment that is necessary today," he said.

Just last month, defense officials said the Marines are drawing up similar plans that would for the first time send some reserve combat battalions back to Iraq for a second tour.

Under the authority by which Bush ordered a call-up of the Guard and Reserve after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, troops could be mobilized an unlimited number of times as long as each mobilization is no longer than 24 consecutive months.

Until now, Pentagon officials have interpreted that as 24 cumulative months.

While the ultimate goal for the National Guard is to deploy one year overseas and spend six years at home, Blum said current demands could force soldiers to deploy as often as one year every three or four years.

Blum said he believes that Guard combat brigades are prepared and willing to make a second trip to Iraq if needed.

He said the first units to deploy in the war — such as the 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina, the 76th Infantry Brigade from Indiana, the 53rd Infantry Brigade from Florida and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas — would probably be among those first called for a second tour.

"Logic would lead you to go back to the ones that went first, and start going around again," said Blum.

"But that's probably not exactly how we'll do it" because the decision will depend partly on what types of units are needed.

Blum also said the Pentagon will no longer break up the brigades and send them to war in smaller units.

He said Guard brigades are more effective working as teams.
___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

[Livyjr]

Today in America ....

It is supposedly Veteran's Day .....

BUT IS IT, REALLY?

IS IT "ALL-VETERAN'S DAY" .....

Or more likely ...

IS IT REALLY JUST "POLITICALLY-CORRECT" VETERAN'S DAY ....

OR "POLITICALLY-CONNECTED" VETERAN'S DAY ....

Or "COMPLIANT" VETERAN'S DAY?

Because when an honorably-discharged combat veteran CANNOT work in government service here in OUR America ....

BECAUSE HE WOULD NOT BETRAY HIS PUBLIC TRUST ....

TO THE PEOPLE OF OUR AMERICA ....

Then perhaps .....

Something is radically wrong over here in America ....

AND NOT WITH THIS VETERAN ....

BUT WITH THE NATION, ITSELF ....

WHEN AN HONORABLY-DISCHARGED DISABLED VETERAN CAN HAVE HIS GOOD NAME REMOVED FROM HIM ....

BY THE "GOVERNMENT" OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ....

WITH NO DUE PROCESS OF LAW AFFORDED HIM WHATSOEVER ....

INCLUDING AN OPPORTUNITY TO VINDICATE HIMSELF BEFORE A JURY IN A COURT OF LAW ....

THEN WHAT COUNTRY HAS THIS REALLY BECOME?

AND WHO ARE ITS PEOPLES ....

THAT THEY CARE SO LITTLE ...

FOR THE ALLEGED JUSTICE ...

THAT OUR VETERANS ARE ALLEGEDLY AND SUPPOSEDLY FIGHTING AND DYING FOR AROUND THE WORLD .....

ONLY TO COME BACK ....

NOT TO "HOME" ....

BUT MERELY "BACK TO HERE" ....

FOR THE "PRIVILEGE" OF BEING LESS THAN A DOG ....

A PERSON WITHOUT RIGHTS ....

IN AN AMERICAN COURT OF LAW ...

WHICH IS NOT FOR HIM ....

And so .....

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...90&#entry647790

[Livyjr]

"Political maverick hits final appeal - Brooklyn man whose conviction spurred voting rights activism seeks pardon from Pataki"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, November 11, 2006

He's part Don Quixote, part Susan B. Anthony, and he's been trying to clear his name for a decade.

Now, time is running short for John Kennedy O'Hara, whose 1997 conviction for illegal voting has become a cause celebre.

O'Hara sent his request for a pardon to Gov. George Pataki on Friday.

By year's end, the governor will grant his last pardons and commuted sentences.

While his case may not be as well known as that of the comedian Lenny Bruce, whom Pataki posthumously pardoned in 2003 of a 1964 obscenity conviction, O'Hara has gained notoriety for falling prey to the sheer vindictiveness of New York politics.

An attorney who worked his way through law school by driving a cab, O'Hara was convicted of felony voter fraud when he opposed Democratic Brooklyn Assemblyman James Brennan in a 1996 primary.

O'Hara had run a series of primary challenges against members of Brooklyn's fabled Democratic machine for years, becoming a thorn in the side of people like Brennan and District Attorney Charles Hynes, he said.

In 1996, his opponents learned he had claimed his then-girlfriend's house, about 14 blocks from his own home, as his residence.

He used her address when voting, which prosecutors successfully argued was voter fraud.

Discrepancies between where people actually sleep and where they register to vote are nothing new, and have long served as grist for political battles.

But the severity with which O'Hara was prosecuted came as a shock, not just to him but to others who have since taken up his cause.

The last time a New Yorker was criminally prosecuted for voter fraud was in 1876, when Anthony cast a ballot before women had the right to vote.

O'Hara was convicted, lost his law license and his right to vote, was fined $20,000 and sentenced to 1,500 hours of community service.

He has since been the subject of numerous articles and supportive editorials in newspapers, including the Times Union and Harper's magazine.

Alex Gibney, best known for "The Smartest Guys in the Room," which chronicled the Enron scandal, is doing a documentary about him.

"This puts a chill on people wanting to get involved," said Sandra Roper, a lawyer and political protege of O'Hara who prepared his pardon request.

Roper heads a social advocacy group, the Justice Card Alliance, and believes the precedent this case sets bodes ill for immigrants, the poor and others who change addresses frequently and thus face being shut out of the voting process.

The fact that O'Hara faced more than two decades in prison for a blip on his registration address could scare many people away from the polls, said Roper.

"When the country locks people up for voting, I thought it was very important to take a stand," said O'Hara, 45.

O'Hara developed an early interest in politics.

He leafletted in 1972 for Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern.

"I remember when he lost, I felt awful," O'Hara said.

In the 1990s, he joined a group of reformers seeking to open Brooklyn's notorious political cliques.

That led to the discovery of his two addresses.

Hynes reportedly expected O'Hara to plead guilty to a misdemeanor.

But O'Hara wouldn't roll over.

They went to trial.

After three tries -- there was one reversal on appeal, followed by a mistrial -- Hynes got his conviction.

Since then, the state and federal appeals have dominated O'Hara's life.

The end of the litigation line came in July, when a federal appeals court upheld the verdict.

O'Hara said he didn't realize a pardon was an option until a few months ago.

"You can only apply for a pardon after you've exhausted all your remedies," he said.

It will be one of dozens of such pleas the governor gets each year.

So far, the Division of Parole's Executive Clemency Bureau has gotten 239 requests for pardons or commutations of sentences, agency spokesman Scott Steinhardt said.

There were 307 requests in 2005.

"They are reviewed all year."

"Recommendations are then provided to the governor, and the governor then makes the decision who is to receive clemency," Steinhardt said.

How does Hynes feel about the affair?

"It's up to the governor's judgment," he said.

O'Hara sees some vindication in the Brooklyn judgeship corruption scandal and still marvels at the effort the district attorney's office put into his prosecution.

"They went through every check and credit card slip of the past 20 years," he said.

Brennan's office was closed Friday, and he could not be reached for comment.

O'Hara has retained a sense of humor about his odyssey, even though it left him broke, unemployed and relegated to picking up trash in a park across the street from his alma mater, Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn.

That stemmed from the community service agreement he made to avoid prison.

"The whole thing is Irish," he quipped.

"Me, Hynes and Brennan."

"This is like a bad bar fight, but with no bar."

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

[Snuffysmith]

You see LIv, People who serve our country, are to me, heroes, veterans or otherwise. And its amazing to me that we have been able to recruit the number of people we have given the way we treat them when they have completed their mission. You correctly point out the status of a dog. Its worse than being a dog. I think anyone who serves our country is owed a life time commitment to education, medical care, housing, employment etc.

[Livyjr]

****FLASH****

THE PROMISE OF ELIOT SPITZER ...

THE DAY AND AGE OF JAY GOULD ....

AND THE POWER OF TAMMANY HALL ....

IS SET TO FLOURISH ....

IN THE EMPIRE STATE ....

ONCE AGAIN .....

AND ONCE AGAIN ....

AS IS ONLY PROPER ....

IN THE BEST PLACE TO DO BUSINESS IN THE WORLD ...

NEW YORK CITY WILL RULE THE EMPIRE STATE ....

AS ROME DID ITS COLONY ITALY ....

WITH A FIST OF IRON ...

AND A BOOTHEEL ON ITS NECK ....

AND SO .....

STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER DETAILS!

LIVE!

LATE-BREAKING!

NEWS AS IT HAPPENS!

JUST AS FAIR AND BALANCED AS FOX!

AND THEN SOME!

LIFE IN OUR AMERICA!

"History holds lesson for Hevesi's case"

By MATTHEW T. LIFFLANDER

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, November 11, 2006

Governor Pataki's inquiry into the possible removal of state Comptroller Alan Hevesi justifies a look back in history.

New York's only impeachment precedent is 93 years old.

In 1913, newly elected Gov. William Sulzer rejected Tammany Hall Chief Charles Murphy's demand that he appoint Murphy's business partner as highway commissioner, a job that controlled expensive state contracts.

Murphy was not accustomed to rejection.

His allies in the Assembly, led by Speaker Al Smith, arranged for Sulzer's impeachment.

They discovered that Sulzer's campaign finance reports violated the law and used this as a legal basis for the attack on the governor's integrity, even though the offense occurred before Sulzer was inaugurated.

Sulzer was tried before the constitutional court consisting of the state Senate and the judges of the Court of Appeals.

After a monthlong trial, managed by prominent legal counsel of the day on each side, Sulzer was removed by the necessary two-thirds majority on Oct. 17, 1913.

Less than a year had passed since Governor Sulzer had won a popular election, by a large majority in a three-way race, defeating his Republican opponent by 200,000 votes.

The rulers of Tammany Hall ignored the people's judgment on that Election Day at their own peril.

The Tammany machine-controlled Democrats succeeded in impeaching Sulzer for failing to report what he called personal contributions as campaign financing in violation of the law, which occurred before he took office, and for the audacious idea that he would try to pressure legislators to support his reform legislation to abolish the boss-controlled state convention in favor of direct primaries to nominate statewide candidates.

During the impeachment process and early on during the trial, he was telling the press, "wait until I testify," but he never did.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt had publicly urged him to do so.

During my research in the governor's private papers at Cornell University, I discovered the reason why, which has never been reported.

When Sulzer's counsel prepared him for cross-examination during the impeachment trial, they learned that he would be a terrible witness for himself because he admitted to taking other small cash contributions for personal use during the campaign.

He just did not see anything wrong with it.

Sulzer had a distinguished career and was a very popular congressman for 18 years.

Twice he had been considered as a potential vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket with William Jennings Bryant.

In Congress, he had chaired the Foreign Relations Committee and had sponsored a lot of good legislation.

During his five years in the state Assembly, he had enacted very progressive social legislation.

In 1893, at age 31, he became the youngest Speaker in the history of the Assembly.

His Tammany Hall career was sponsored by Boss Richard Crocker.

Sulzer went to Congress with a reputation as one of the greatest orators of the day in the Democratic Party.

The night he was removed, Governor Sulzer addressed his friends at the Fort Orange Club in Albany.

He assured them, "Posterity will do me justice."

He then took the train to New York City, where he was greeted by thousands of admirers in a torchlight parade that led him back to the old Lower East Side Assembly district where he started his political career 25 years earlier.

In November his admirers elected him to the Assembly.

For Boss Murphy and Tammany Hall, overreaching caused a disaster.

Every Tammany senator who had voted for Sulzer's removal lost his own seat.

Of the 79 Assembly Democrats who voted to impeach, only 17 survived.

Tammany's candidate for mayor of New York City lost, along with their city legislative and the judicial candidates.

Murphy's upstate cohorts lost control of Buffalo, Albany, Auburn, Amsterdam and Oswego.

Governor Pataki's action in the Hevesi matter could also turn into a political disaster.

Hevesi is legally entitled to a full hearing before the Senate, in which the Republican Party holds only a narrow majority and two-thirds are needed for removal.

To be conducted fairly, such a trial would take several weeks.

The 1913 Sulzer trial took a month.

Witnesses would be subject to examination and cross-examination by the best lawyers available.

I would expect Hevesi's attorneys to take the testimony of drivers for all the other chauffeured government officials to discover how often they drive spouses on personal business, or how often state airplanes or helicopters are used for social events, and how and if the state gets reimbursed.

Were the standards applied to Hevesi universally applied or do we need to clarify state policies?

What good can come of putting senators and state officials on the spot?

If Pataki got Hevesi removed by the Senate, the applicable law says that Pataki could only name a replacement until year's end.

Special Counsel David Kelley says no crime was committed.

New Yorkers do believe in the presumption of innocence.

Those who deemed Hevesi guilty based on an accusation, and before trial, must heed the decision of what's really the state's highest court -- that is, the voters, who decided on Election Day to give him four more years.

Matthew L. Lifflander is a lawyer who served as assistant counsel to Gov. Averell Harriman. He is writing a book about Gov. Sulzer.