And talking about NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ....

This takes the cake ....

"Iraqi survivor wants U.S. troops executed"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writers

Sat Jun 3, 1:01 PM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi whose brother and other relatives were killed in a U.S. attack on a suspected terrorist hideout north of Baghdad condemned a military investigation Saturday that cleared forces of wrongdoing.

A 9-year-old survivor of an alleged massacre by U.S. forces in the western city of Haditha, meanwhile, demanded that those responsible be executed, as anger mounted over accusations that Iraqi civilians have been killed by Americans without provocation.

"We did not do anything to them," said Iman Walid Abdul-Hameed, who lost her parents, a brother, her grandparents and two uncles in the shootings.

She said only she, her brother and a sister survived.

"Because they hurt us, we want the Americans to be executed," said Abdul-Hameed, wearing a violet striped shirt and headband as she sat on a couch at a cousin's home, where she is now living.

She and her brother Abdul-Rahman were slightly injured during the shootings.

New footage shot by AP Television News in Haditha and broadcast Saturday showed walls pockmarked with bullet holes inside a stone house belonging to those killed.

A dusty TV with an apparent bullet hole in the corner sat on the floor as furniture was piled up to the side in the emptied house.

A lawyer representing relatives of some of the 24 Iraqis allegedly killed by U.S. Marines after a roadside bomb killed a colleague pointed to bullet holes in the white walls, which appeared to have been marked by American investigators with Roman letters and numbers.

The lawyer, Khaled Salem Rsayef, complained that compensation paid to the victims' families did not reflect "the magnitude of the disaster."

He also said U.S. officers accused him and other relatives of lying when they recounted the shootings in their first meeting with the military after the Nov. 19 killings.

He did not say when they met.

The AP Television News footage also included an interview with the director of Haditha General Hospital and images of the scattered rubble in the median where the roadside bomb apparently struck a military convoy, killing the U.S. Marine.

The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.

Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials, has said Marines shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot others.

The hospital director, Walid Abdul-Khaleq al-Obeidi, said bodies of the 24 victims, including those of eight women and five children, were brought to the hospital by the Marines at 11 p.m., about 14 hours after witnesses said the last gunshot was heard at the scene of the shootings.

He said the bodies had gunshot wounds to the chest and head, and one body was burned.

The New York Times reported Saturday that commanders learned within two days that civilians in Haditha were killed by gunfire and not a roadside bomb, quoting a senior Marine officer it did not name.

The officer said officials had no information suggesting the civilians had been killed deliberately and saw no reason to investigate further.

The U.S. military in Baghdad declined to comment on the report Saturday because the investigation is ongoing.

In a separate investigation, the U.S. military said Friday it found no wrongdoing by American troops accused of intentionally killing civilians during a March 15 raid in Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad.

As many as 13 Iraqis were killed.

The investigation concluded that U.S. troops followed normal procedures in raising the level of force after coming under fire while approaching a building where they believed an al-Qaida terrorist was hiding, said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S military spokesman.

Caldwell also acknowledged "possibly up to nine collateral deaths" occurred in addition to the four Iraqi deaths that the military announced at the time.

He said Saturday a great deal of attention had been paid to "coalition forces killing innocent Iraqi civilians."

"However, each case needs to be examined individually."

Issa Hrat Khalaf, whose brother was killed in the attack, demanded an independent investigation and said the U.S. forces responsible for the killings should be executed.

"Where are the terrorists?"

"Are they the old lady or the kids?" he said in a telephone interview, referring to the fact that women and children were among the victims.

"It looks like the lives of the Iraqis are worthless."

The bloody aftermath of the attack was captured at the time in the footage shot by an AP Television News cameraman.

The video became the focus of attention Friday when the British Broadcasting Corp. aired it in the wake of recent allegations of U.S. troops killing unarmed civilians.

The footage shows five slain children lying a row, wrapped in blankets, and at least one adult male and four of the children with deep wounds to the head.

One child has an entry wound to the side, and the inside of the walls left standing were pocked with bullet holes.

A voice on the tape said there were clear bullet wounds in two people.

The investigation of the attack in Ishaqi, near Samarra in the Sunni Arab heartland north of Baghdad, was one of three probes into possible misconduct by American troops in Iraq.

U.S. Marines also are accused of deliberately killing two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians in the western town of Haditha on Nov. 19 after one of their own died in a roadside bombing.

Besides Haditha and Ishaqi, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman could face murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man west of Baghdad.

Robert Ford, the U.S. Embassy political counselor, promised during a briefing for Iraqi reporters that "all information about what happened in Haditha will be shared with the Iraqi people."

"What is happening in Haditha is being fully investigated and American soldiers will face military justice if wrongdoings are found," Ford said in Arabic.

Army Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the chief of staff for U.S. forces in Iraq, said Friday the military will cooperate with the Iraqi government in its own investigation of Haditha and other incidents of alleged wrongdoing by U.S. troops.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday upbraided the U.S. military for "a horrible crime" in Haditha and accused U.S. troops of habitually attacking unarmed civilians.

His office had no immediate comment on the exoneration of the troops in the Ishaqi killings.
___

Associated Press reporters Robert Burns in Washington and Hamza Hendawi, Patrick Quinn and Qais al-Bashir in Baghdad contributed to this report.

I personally don't think that Iraqi lives are any more worthless ....

To George W. Bush ....

Than American lives are .....

Or at least NON-REPUBLICAN American lives, anyway ....

But since ours are indeed worthless to George W. Bush ........

Well .....

In our America watch advertisers. Here in Nebraska the Republic challenger to Ben Nelson is Pete Ricketts! Who is Pete Rickets think very rich and started Ameritrade.
OK so he has his picture and adds come from small towns and farms...Ya right do you think he cares?
Advertising from Charles Swab and other wall street companies are all switching to personal investment accounts (private accounts key word get rid of employee investing, matched funds social security and medicare/medicaid).
Every action there is a reaction. If private accounts become the only thing people have to depend on in the future then they better talk to their grandparents who lose all savings to get medical care and who sign over all their assets and even their homes when the go into care facilities. If you save their will be a way it will be taken from you.
We do not need Pete Rickets voting in Washington for his self interest. Even though Chuck Hagel is a republican our Senate representative Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel are doing a good job.
Our Nebraska representative in the House are a different story.
Do not forget to listen to the advertisers as Drug companies say they need money to do research on Drugs that will help people... Not true most drugs are invented with government and patents are sold to pharmaceutical companies. AZT for aids is the best example remember it was invented by government and sold to pharmaceutical company and it cost as much as a house.
Fight locally, stay constantly vigilant and choose wisely our America.
( As I read this stream I was impressed to note the stream remembered that Democracy was Greek and Roman and both are remembered by ancient monuments).
A good question is if government in our America is evolving what do we want it to look like?

That is beyond a good question, cutecat ....

To me, an older American ...

Who took an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution ...

From its domestic enemies ...

As well as any foreign enemies who might be foolish enough to try and alter OUR form of government by force ....

As an older America ...

Who still has a memory ....

Of another America ....

I would say that what you have presented us with ....

IS THE QUESTION ....

And so ....

"Mom: Stress drove Marine to commit crimes"

Associated Press
Last updated: 5:55 a.m., Sunday, June 4, 2006

HANFORD, Calif. -- A Marine who followed orders to photograph corpses of Iraqis allegedly slain by members of his unit last fall claims post-traumatic stress drove him to commit felonies while on leave, his mother said.

Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, is accused of stealing a truck and crashing it into a house in Hanford in April.

He was charged Friday with felony auto theft, hit-and-run and drunken driving, according to Kings County District Attorney Ronald Calhoun.

Briones' mother, Susie, told The Fresno Bee this week that her son hit his breaking point during the April incident.

His best friend was killed Nov. 19, the day of the attack in the western Iraqi city of Haditha, and he was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians.

Susie Briones said her son told her he saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis that day.

Twenty-four were slain.

U.S. authorities have launched two investigations -- one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up.

Ryan Briones is seeing a psychologist in San Diego to help deal with the stress, and military officials are aware of his deteriorating mental health, his mother said.

Calhoun said he was aware of Briones' situation, adding that the Marine has agreed to be evaluated by a psychiatrist to determine whether he has post-traumatic stress and whether it played a role in the alleged crime.

Briones, who has returned to Camp Pendleton, is scheduled to appear in court June 19.

The Fresno Bee said he could not be reached for comment Friday.

end quotes

PLEASE ...

Don't go blaming this guy's alleged criminal conduct ...

On PTSD .....

How about saying a lack of maturity and discipline caused him to commit these felonies?

And perhaps a lack of parental guidance as well, in his formative years ...

When it might have done some good .....

And clearly, being a Marine didn't do much for this guy, either, in terms of teaching him right from wrong ...

And so ...

Add that all up ...

And it probably gets you to some conclusion or other ...

And so ...

And jumping right in here this evening ....

With further news of George W. Bush's IRAQINAM debacle ....

Which has done nothing to make us "safe" .....

From anything at all ...

And which has given OUR nation ...

Nothing but a bunch of continued ugliness ....

And which has done nothing for OUR America .....

Except to sink OUR reputation as a nation of law ....

RIGHT ON DOWN INTO THE MUD .....

Which only serves to make us more "unsafe" than we might have been before George W. Bush came to power, here in OUR America ....

We have ...

"General vows full probe into Iraqi deaths"

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:15 p.m., Sunday, June 4, 2006

SINGAPORE -- The top U.S. military officer pledged a thorough investigation into the alleged massacre of Iraqi citizens in Haditha by Marines, saying it is important to avoid a rush to judgment.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the allegations involving the deaths of about two dozen Iraqis have raised concerns among Iraqi officials and in the United States.

"But you don't want to have the emotions of the day weigh into the process," Pace told the Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

"We need to stick with our judicial process."

"We want to be sure that it moves forward without any influence."

Pace said it is not clear exactly what happened last November when as many as two dozen Iraqis were killed during a U.S. attack.

U.S. military investigators have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by the Marines, a senior U.S. defense official said last week.

Iraq said last week it was undertaking its own investigation.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sharply criticizing the conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq and said what occurred in Haditha "appears to be a horrible crime."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in broadcast interviews Sunday in Washington, said "American forces are the solution here, not the problem" and promised that in the Haditha investigations, "We'll get to the bottom of it."

At the same time, she spoke of the difficulty in fighting insurgents "when they can hide among the civilian population."

Over the weekend, Pace joined U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at a conference of defense leaders in Southeast Asia.

In some countries in the region with sizable Muslim populations, the war in Iraq has soured attitudes toward the U.S.

The killings in Haditha have contributed to that, leading the U.S. military on Thursday to order that the 150,000 coalition troops in Iraq, including 130,000 Americans, get special training in ethics and "the values that separate us from our enemies."

The additional instruction, Pace said, "should provide comfort to those looking to see if we are we a nation that stands on the values we hold dear."

U.S. troops should benefit from the additional training, particularly as they run through various battle scenarios, Pace said.

"Emotions on the battlefield are intense," Pace said.

"It's good to stop and check your moral compass."

Pace, the first Marine to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman, is no stranger to such combat emotions.

To this day he keeps a photo on his desk at the Pentagon of the first Marine killed under his command when he was a platoon leader in Vietnam.

According to Barney Barnes, one of the men who served with Pace, Pace's first inclination was to call in the artillery "and bomb the heck out of that village."

Barnes said that Pace kept his emotions in check and went ahead with a search of the village -- ultimately in vain -- for the sniper whose bullet had killed Cpl. Guido Farinaro.

Those serving in the military, Pace said in the AP interview, need to train for combat situations "and think about when you go in, 'Who do you want to be?'"

"If you do that, you are much better prepared for combat -- to know what you're going to do."

In addition to the renewed ethics training for coalition troops in Iraq, U.S. Marine Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee has been talking to Marines about proper conduct on the battlefield.

Hagee last week spoke to troops about the danger of becoming "indifferent to the loss of a human life."

To Pace, "It's a very good thing to take an operational pause and talk about what we do and what we do not do in combat."

Pace has declined to talk about the specifics of the two investigations into the Haditha killings.

He said Sunday he does not know when they will be completed.

Both he and Rumsfeld have said they do not want to make comments that might taint the probes.

The investigation that will be finished first is the one examining whether the Marines in Haditha or their commanders tried to cover up what happened, Pace said.

The second, a criminal investigation, will take longer.

The results of both investigations will be made public as soon as possible without interfering with the legal process, Pace pledged.

"Regardless of the outcome of these investigations, 99.9 percent of the servicemen and service women are doing what we expect them to do," he said.

Haditha, about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, has been plagued by insurgents.

On Nov. 19, a bomb rocked a military convoy, killing a Marine.

Residents said Marines then went into nearby houses and shot members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl.

At first, the U.S. military described what happened as an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol, with a roadside bombing and subsequent firefight killing 15 civilians, eight insurgents and a Marine.

The statement said the 15 civilians were killed by the blast, a claim the residents strongly denied.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was an Air Force lawyer and is in the Air Force Reserves today, termed the allegations "unnerving" but said Sunday that "if it is true that our Marines killed innocent civilians, noncombatants, out of revenge, they will be severely dealt with."

end quotes

It sounds like this BUSHCO Pace and the Iraqi leader are on quite different pages, here ...

If they are even in the same book, at all ....

And as to the U.S. military on Thursday ordering that the 150,000 coalition troops in Iraq, including 130,000 Americans, get special training in ethics and "the values that separate us from our enemies" ....

IF INDEED WE WERE ....

As he implies ....

"A nation that stands on the values we hold dear ......"

THERE WOULD BE NO NEED FOR THIS "SPECIAL TRAINING" ....

IN THE FIRST PLACE ....

IN ETHICS ....

AND "THE VALUES THAT SEPARATE US FROM OUR ENEMIES" ....

WHO WE ARE CLEARLY INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM, RIGHT NOW ...

According to this BUSHCO Pace ....

Since we now need SPECIAL TRAINING ....

TO RECTIFY THAT OBVIOUS PROBLEM ....

And all this perversion and other crap of the BUSHCOS that is going on in IRAQINAM ....

NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED ....

And so ...

Because if we really did have values that separate us from our alleged enemies ...

Those values would have prevented what has been going on in IRAQINAM .....

From having happened in the first place ...

And so .....

The admission of the need to have this special training .....

Is an admission of the underlying problem ...

Which is that as a nation ...

WE HAVE NO VALUES THAT SEPARATE US FROM ANYONE ....

And we clearly lack ethics ...

Since SPECIAL TRAINING is now needed to teach ethics to OUR military .....

Long after the fact .....

Since we have now been in IRAQINAM since 2003 ...

Based on George W. Bush's very unethical lies ....

And so ....

And as to "CON-JOB CONNIE'S" DRIVEL about how hard it is to fight a guerilla war .....

If she had known anything at all other than how to suck up to George W. Bush when she was the alleged NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR to the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ...

She would have known this about guerilla wars ....

Since the American REVOLUTION was fought that way ...

For that reason ...

And so ...

And in the interests of fairness and balance in OUR American politics of today ....

For anyone out there who might be interested in aiding or assisting the candidacy of UNDERDOG Tom Suozzi to be the next governor of the State of New York ....

We have ....

From that CAMPAIGN ...

As follows .....

There are just 3 days left until our Summertime Volunteer and Supporter Rally on Tuesday, June 6th at 7:00pm, at the Cradle of Aviation Musuem in Garden City, Nassau County.

As you know, we have a big task in front of us, as we run full speed ahead for Governor to fight high property taxes, help troubled schools, and create more jobs across New York State.

On that evening, we will be giving you the materials and the information you need to get me on the ballot!

You will also meet the team of fantastic people who, like you, are ready to work to "Fix Albany."

Again, please join my team and me on Tuesday, June 6th at 7:00pm, at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, Nassau County.

To RSVP (please do) and for more information please call (516) 676-4043.

http://www.tomsuozzi.com

And since we are on the subject of politics ....

What with elections facing us this fall ....

"Third parties assign support - Democrats Spitzer, Clinton and Republican Pirro all gain key endorsements Saturday"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, June 4, 2006

COLONIE -- Gubernatorial front-runner Eliot Spitzer and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats, and Republican Jeanine Pirro will all run on three ballot lines this fall after receiving the support of key third parties Saturday.

Spitzer, the state attorney general, and Clinton received the state Independence Party's nod and were then endorsed by the labor-backed Working Families Party.

For the two Democrats, who already enjoy big leads in public opinion polls, these lines could further increase their likely margins of victory come Election Day.

For Pirro, the state attorney general candidate many Republicans view as their best hope for a win in November, the Independence Party line could offer Democrats a place to support her that is more palatable than either the GOP or Conservative Party lines, which she received earlier this month.

Although both the Independence and Working Families parties selected their slates by majority votes Saturday, their respective conventions were not without drama.

A faction of Independence Party members abstained from voting to protest party leaders' efforts to sideline the organization's most controversial member -- Lenora Fulani -- whose past anti-Semitic statements led Spitzer and Clinton to threaten not to accept its line.

At the Working Families Party, there was a passionate debate over whether to back Jonathan Tasini, a Democrat running against Clinton on an anti-Iraq War platform, or forgo an endorsement altogether to protest the senator's "Yes" vote on the war and subsequent refusal to call for immediately withdrawing the troops.

In the end, both parties chose pragmatism over ideology -- a move that rankled some.

"You've just witnessed the disenfranchisement of the Independence Party," said Joe Ferris, an Independence member who lost his party's U.S. Senate endorsement to Clinton in a landslide vote at the Holiday Inn on Wolf Road.

"The party members will have no choice in November."

The Working Families Party gave Tasini 6.4 percent of its weighted vote to Clinton's 93.6 percent, but later approved a strong anti-war resolution by voice vote.

Working Families Party Executive Director Dan Cantor insisted the party was not being hypocritical.

"It's a complicated world," Cantor said.

"Our members are very unhappy about the war in Iraq, but we also have a lot of things our members are passionate about that Hillary Clinton is great on, like education."

Clinton was supposed to attend the Working Families Party convention at the Desmond hotel, but the inclement weather prevented her from flying, adviser Howard Wolfson said.

Tasini, who also did not receive enough support at the Democratic convention this past week to land a spot on the ballot, plans to petition his way into a primary with Clinton.

Tasini said he was unsurprised yet "sad" about the Working Families Party vote.

"This party is supposed to be an alternative to the Democratic Party," he said.

"Unfortunately, too many of the organizations that make up the Working Families Party are beholden to some of the very same powers that influence the Democratic Party in not good ways."

Both the Independence and Working Families parties endorsed Spitzer's running mate, Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, D-Harlem, for lieutenant governor and state Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

The Working Families Party also gave its line to Democratic attorney general front-runner Andrew Cuomo.

When it comes to the governor's race, at least, both parties acted with an eye toward self preservation by tapping a front-runner like Spitzer.

Their gubernatorial candidates need at least 50,000 votes for the parties to retain their ballot status for another four years.

A ballot line is power in New York, as it is one of the few states that allows parties to cross-endorse and lets candidates combine the votes they receive on each line -- a practice that can prove crucial in close elections.

This is the first time the Independence Party has cross-endorsed its entire slate of candidates since it was established in 1994.

Billionaire B. Thomas Golisano, a party co-founder who helped land its prominent ballot line -- Row C -- with his three gubernatorial runs, decided to forgo a fourth run this year.

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican who is running for governor, also sought the Independence Party line Saturday, but was rebuffed, receiving only 3 percent of the party's weighted vote to Spitzer's 81 percent.

Clinton and Spitzer accepted the Independence Party nomination only after its leaders heeded their call to sideline Fulani because of anti-Semitic statements she made in 1989 but has repeatedly refused to repudiate.

Fulani and her supporters abstained from voting, and called the party's convention "undemocratic."

Spitzer ran into difficulty Saturday when he tried to explain why he ran for re-election for attorney general in 2002 with the Independence Party's support, despite the fact that Fulani was a significant presence in the organization, but would not so do this year unless her role was was diminished.

Spitzer maintained Fulani's anti-Semitic comments "had not come to everybody's attention" in 2002, despite the fact that Clinton had refused to seek the party's support when she first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000 specifically because of Fulani's presence.

"I honestly don't remember what the dynamic was," Spitzer said.

"The party came to me and said they would be proud to have me on their line, and I accepted ..."

"This time, when we focused on the issue, I said: I will not do so unless she's been removed."

Clinton did not attend the Independence Party convention.

In prepared remarks read by Watertown Mayor Jeff Graham, who ran against Clinton for the U.S. Senate in 2000 on the Independence line, she praised the party for "taking real and decisive steps to reject anti-Semitism and extremism" within its ranks.

Some in Fulani's camp found Clinton's comment disingenuous, noting they believe she attacked Fulani in 2000 because she had little chance at landing the line over Graham and wanted to diminish him as an opponent.

Fulani on Saturday said she believed Spitzer and Clinton inappropriately intervened in the party's business.

She also maintained that her controversial statements made over a decade ago "has absolutely nothing whatsoever" to do with the party and its nominating process.

The uproar over Fulani is a result of her statement that Jews "function as mass murderers of people of color" and "had to sell their souls" to acquire Israel.

She has refused to disavow or clarify the comments she has denied being anti-Semitic and noted that several of her friends are Jewish.

Benjamin can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at ebenjamin@timesunion.com.

"For now, Pataki eyes midterm - Governor tells GOP crowd he has not decided on presidential run"

Associated Press
First published: Sunday, June 4, 2006

CONWAY, S.C. -- New York Gov. George Pataki told the partisan crowd at the annual GOP Elephant Stampede Bog-off just what they wanted to hear Friday night.

"We are two different parties with different points of view," the Republican Pataki said of Democrats.

"We think every day is the Fourth of July, and they think every day is April 15 tax day."

Pataki said he came to the event to encourage voters to cast ballots for Republicans.

But South Carolina also is trying to hold a first-in-the-South presidential primary in 2008 and has seen a number of possible Oval Office hopefuls from both parties hit chicken dinners and county conventions in the past year.

"Come November, I know I will sit down with my wife and our kids and talk about the future," Pataki said.

"I certainly haven't made any decisions at this point."

Instead, Pataki wants to concentrate on the midterm elections.

"There are a lot of people talking about 2008 and looking at 2008, but we have to focus on November of 2006."

"We can't just ignore very important elections."

"We have to make sure Republicans maintain control of the House and the Senate and do our best to see as many Republican governors elected as possible," he said.

Pataki also talked about his record in New York, saying he turned the state around after Democratic governors had brought it down.

He also talked about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Where the towers stood we are going to have a very moving memorial," Pataki said.

"We will tell the story of 9/11, but right beside it we are going to build a new tower."

end quotes

George Pataki is a PURE POLITICIAN ....

Which means that he can slap himself on the back ...

Going 240 .....

As if he deserved the praise ....

But the truth of the matter ...

Is that thanks to George Pataki ....

New York State has a corrupt government ...

That is no better ...

And in a lot of ways is worse ...

Than anything DEMOCRAT Mario Cuomo gave us ....

And I am no fan of Mario Cuomo...

And so ....

But American politics is the art of throwing as much BULL **** as far as you can ...

As fast as you can ...

And in that aspect of American politics ...

Pataki excels ....

And so .....

"Witnesses dispute Haditha report - No investigation followed alleged killings of 24 civilians by Marines"

By THOMAS E. RICKS, Washington Post
First published: Sunday, June 4, 2006

At 5 p.m. Nov. 19, near the end of one of the most violent days the Marine Corps had experienced in the Upper Euphrates Valley, a call went out for trucks to collect the bodies of 24 Iraqi civilians.

The unit that arrived in the farming town of Haditha found babies, women and children, shot in the head and chest.

An old man in a wheelchair had been shot nine times.

A group of girls, ages 1 to 14, lay dead.

Everyone had been killed by gunfire, according to death certificates issued later.

The next day, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a Marine spokesman in Iraq, released a terse statement:

Fifteen Iraqis "were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha."

"Immediately after the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire."

"Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another."

Despite what Marine witnesses saw when they arrived, that official version has been allowed to stand for six months.

Who lied about the killings, who knew the truth and what, if anything, they did about it is at the core of one of the potentially most embarrassing and damaging events of the Iraq war, one that some say may surpass the detainee abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison.

The Marine Corps is saying only that it would be inappropriate to comment while investigations are under way.

But since that Saturday afternoon in November, evidence has been accumulating steadily that the official version was wrong and misleading, and several top officials suspect what happened in Haditha went beyond the usual daily violence in Iraq.

In January, a top military official arrived in Iraq who would play a key role in the case: Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the new No. 2 military officer in the country.

He is an unusual general in today's Army, with none of the "good old boy" persona seen in many other top commanders.

He had praised an article by a British officer that was sharply critical of U.S. officers in Iraq for using tactics that alienated the population.

He wanted U.S. forces to operate differently than they had been doing.

Not long after Chiarelli arrived in Baghdad, an Iraqi journalism student gave an Iraqi human rights group a video he had taken in Haditha the day after the incident.

It showed the scene at the local morgue and the damage in the houses where the killings took place.

The video reached Time magazine, whose reporters began questioning U.S. military officials.

Pool, the Marine captain, sent the reporters a dismissive e-mail saying that they were falling for al-Qaida propaganda, the magazine said recently.

"I cannot believe you're buying any of this," he wrote.

Pool declined last week to comment on any aspect of the Haditha incident.

But Army Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a more senior spokesman in Baghdad, notified Chiarelli of the questions.

The general's response to his public affairs office was short:

Just brief the Time magazine reporter on the military investigation into the incident that Chiarelli assumed had been conducted.

The surprising word came back:

There had been no investigation.

Chiarelli told subordinates in early February he was amazed by that response, according to an Army officer in Iraq.

He directed that an inquiry commence as soon as possible.

He wanted to know what had happened in Haditha, and also why no investigation had begun.

Army Col. Gregory Watt was tapped to start an investigation and by March 9, he told Chiarelli that he had reached two conclusions, according to an Army officer in Iraq.

One was that death certificates showed that the 24 Iraqis who died that day -- the 15 the Marines said had died in the bomb blast and others they said were insurgents -- had been killed by gunshot rather than a bomb, as the official statement had said.

The other was that the Marine Corps had not investigated the deaths, as is the U.S. military's typical procedure in Iraq, particularly when so many civilians are involved.

Individually, either finding would have been disturbing.

Together, they were stunning.

On March 10, the findings were given to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, the first Marine ever to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rumsfeld told aides that the case promised to be a major problem.

He called it "really, really bad -- as bad or worse than Abu Ghraib," recalled one Pentagon official.

On March 11, President Bush was informed, according to the White House.

At the Marine Corps headquarters, there was "genuine surprise at high levels," said an Army officer who has been working with the Marine Corps on the case.

"It caught a lot of people off guard."

The Marine Corps still has not corrected its Nov. 20 statement asserting that the Iraqi civilians were killed in a bomb blast.

And the economy ....

"Economy may be heading for less sunny days"

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Sun Jun 4, 12:37 PM ET

WASHINGTON - After years of talking about the Goldilocks economy — not too hot and not too cold — all of a sudden it appears the little rascal just got mugged by the three bears.

While the economy began the year growing at a strong pace, activity seems to have hit the skids in the spring.

Factory orders fell in April.

The five-year housing boom is cooling, with home sales falling and price gains slowing.

In the biggest shocker of all, the government reported Friday that businesses created just 75,000 new jobs in May — 100,000 fewer than expected.

If the onslaught of weaker economic data was not bad enough, there also are signs that long-dormant inflation may be starting to be a problem, and not just in the pain from $3 per gallon gasoline.

The relentless rise in crude oil to above $70 per barrel seems to be starting to trigger price problems outside of energy.

The core rate of inflation, excluding food and energy, is now above the 2 percent upper limit favored by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues.

Slowing economic growth and rising inflation raise the specter of stagflation.

This dreaded combination of economic stagnation and inflation had the country in its grips for more than a decade through the 1970s and early 1980s, bringing grief to the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

In perhaps the most ominous worry of all, some economists see parallels between May 2006 and May 2000.

Six years ago, an unexpectedly weak payroll number was dismissed as a fluke.

Yet in hindsight, it was the start of a slide that culminated in a recession the next year that ended the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

While economists hope this year's slowdown will have a more benign ending, they are busily marking down their economic forecasts based on the recent weaker-than-expected numbers.

The overall economy grew at an annual rate of 5.3 percent in the January-March quarter.

Economists foresee a rate of about 2.5 percent in the current April-June quarter, down a full percentage point from estimates for these three months.

"We are starting to see evidence that the economy is slowing pretty abruptly," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York.

"The question is will there be enough strength in other areas to offset the slowdown in consumer spending and housing."

All of this comes at an inopportune time for President Bush, who last week nominated Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry Paulson Jr. to replace John Snow as treasury secretary.

The White House hopes the selection of a Wall Street superstar can help lift Republicans' sagging poll numbers before the November elections, a goal that a weakening economy could thwart.

Higher gasoline prices and weaker job growth already have affected consumer confidence, which fell in May by the steepest amount since last fall's hurricanes.

The worry is that overall consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity, will slow.

U.S. automakers already are feeling the pinch, reporting big declines in May auto sales.

Many retail chains did post good sales in May.

But the largest retailer, Wal-Mart, had results that failed to meet expectations, reflecting the squeeze its lower-income customers are feeling from gas prices.

Still, analysts say they do not see the situation in such dire terms that it means the country is headed for a recession.

In some ways, the slower growth is just what the Fed has sought with its string of 16 interest rate increases over the past two years.

The higher borrowing costs were designed to slow economic activity enough to keep inflation under control.

With signs of the slowdown increasing, the Fed is likely to call a halt to further rate increases, especially if the recent jump in inflation proves temporary.

Many economists also dismiss worries the current slowdown could signal that Fed has overdone the credit tightening, raising prospects of a rougher outcome rather than the soft-landing aimed for.

"When the economy slows, it is not surprising that at points we feel like we are slowing too much," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

"It is very tricky to get the economy to throttle back in a smooth, clock-like way."

"The current situation is not unusual."
___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Martin Crutsinger has covered economic issues in Washington for The Associated Press since 1984.

I think Karl is just having some sport with us, here ...

Telling us how good the economy is ...

As if we never went out and bought something twice in a row ...

And so, had a basis for comparison our own selves ....

"Stocks slide as oil climbs on Iran worries"

By CHRISTOPHER WANG, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:35 p.m., Monday, June 5, 2006

NEW YORK -- Oil supply jitters sent stocks skidding Monday after Iran's threat to cut its petroleum exports pushed crude prices to near $73 a barrel.

The Dow Jones industrial average slid 140 points as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's fresh warnings on inflation added to investors' worries.

Iran warned it would curtail distribution if Western nations punish or attack the country over its nuclear arms program, unnerving a market already concerned that severe hurricane activity could devastate Gulf Coast refineries again this summer.

A barrel of light crude gained 62 cents to $72.95 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Bernanke told an international monetary conference that while the economy is slowing down, due in part to energy costs, inflation remains a concern and the Fed would remain vigilant on rates.

That in turn has Wall Street worried about higher rates in a slowing economy -- which would clamp down on any chances for stocks to move higher.

"It looks like a very mixed market; even within sectors, everything is mixed," said Steve Neimeth, senior vice president and portfolio manager at AIG SunAmerica.

"With continued evidence that the economy is slowing and higher risk due to oil prices, the market has become increasingly skittish."

In midafternoon trading, the Dow plunged 140.87, or 1.25 percent, to 11,107.00.

The Dow is about 4 percent off its six-year high of 11,642.98, reached May 10.

Broader stock indicators also fell.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 14.97, or 1.16 percent, at 1,273.25; the Nasdaq composite index slumped 36.66, or 1.65 percent, to 2,182.75, falling into negative territory for 2006.

Bonds were flat after last week's rally, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note steady at 5 percent from late Friday.

The U.S. dollar was little changed against other major currencies; gold prices returned to about $645 an ounce.

Overseas stock markets saw persistent weakness from recent worries about slowing global demand.

Japan's Nikkei stock average slumped 0.77 percent; Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.04 percent, Germany's DAX index plunged 1.16 percent and France's CAC-40 was lower by 0.88 percent.

In economic news, the Institute for Supply Management said its services index for May dropped 2.9 points to 60.1, nearly in line with estimates for a reading of 60.

However, the prices paid component surged 7 points to 77.5, stirring fears about inflation.

Although economists had predicted a dip in the ISM index, the slower growth built on concerns about whether the economy was moderating too quickly.

On Friday, a sharply larger-than-forecast slide in monthly job growth left investors wondering if the economy was headed for a steep dropoff.

Meanwhile, persistently high oil and gasoline prices put more strain on consumers as lending rates continue rising and home values stabilize, the combination of which is feared to trigger a downturn.

Consumer confidence readings later this month will be a critical aspect of the economic picture, said Scott Fullman, chief investment strategist for Hapoalim Securities USA.

"This concern over oil is really the driving force of the market," Fullman said.

"We're coming into vacation season."

"(Energy prices) are going to play an awful lot on how consumers will be spending their money this summer."

Oil-related stocks sold off earlier gains despite the boost in crude prices.

Chevron Corp. dropped $1.40 to $59.35, ConocoPhillips fell $1.97 to $62.54 and Dow Jones industrial Exxon Mobil Corp. fell $1.60 to $60.05.

Drilling services firm Halliburton Co. meanwhile declined $2.53 to $74.25.

Harrah's Entertainment Inc. stumbled after it last week lost a bid to build a new casino resort in Singapore to rival Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Harrah's fell $1.15 to $75.25, and Las Vegas Sands slid $1.35 to $69.25.

Declining issues outpaced advancers by almost 4 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume of 1.63 billion shares trailed the 1.69 billion shares changing hands at the same point Friday.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies tumbled 23.53, or 3.19 percent, to 713.92.

------

On the Net:

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com

And from the economy ...

Let's go take a look at what "GOD'S OWN" are doing ....

Up here in REPUBLICAN George Pataki's corrupt EMPIRE ....

Of New York ....

"State GOP head asks Weld to step aside - Steve Minarik throws his support to John Faso in governor's race, urges Bill Weld to drop primary fight"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 4:17 p.m., Monday, June 5, 2006

ALBANY -- State Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik confirmed Monday he has asked his one-time personal favorite in the governor's race, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, to drop out of the GOP primary in the "name of party unity.''

Minarik said he will throw his support behind John Faso, who defeated Weld in a landslide at the Republican nominating convention last week to become the party's designated candidate for governor.

Minarik once questioned Faso's fund raising prowess, flatly declared the former Assembly minority leader "can't win'' the governor's race, and derided Faso as being in "la-la land'' for thinking otherwise.

Following Weld's big loss to Faso at the convention, where Faso took 61 percent of the vote despite behind-the-scenes efforts on Weld's behalf by Minarik and Gov. George Pataki, Minarik now says he'll do whatever is necessary to help Faso win.

"It's never hard to put the interests of the party first,'' Minarik said.

"I've always done that my entire existence."

"My feelings about primaries -- I've been straightforward about it -- I think it would be destructive and take away from raising money.''

"John worked very hard,'' Minarik continued.

"He deserves the opportunity to have a straight shot at Eliot Spitzer.''

Spitzer, the state attorney general, became the Democratic Party's designated candidate for governor at its convention last week in Buffalo.

He has a wide lead over all potential opponents in public opinion polls, including Faso, Weld and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat who is mounting a longshot primary challenge.

Faso issued a statement Monday thanking Minarik for his "encouragement.''

Minarik said he has informed Weld of his decision, as well as Pataki and state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, who had been holding out hope for a Weld/Faso fusion ticket -- a concept both candidates rejected.

Asked how Weld reacted to the call to end his campaign, Minarik replied:

"I would say he's taking it under consideration.''

There was no immediate response from the Weld camp on whether he would end his bid to be only the second man in history to be elected governor of two states (the first was Sam Houston, who governed Tennessee and Texas).

On Sunday, as the state GOP's eight regional vice chairmen planned a meeting to discuss asking Weld to leave the race, Weld's advisors insisted he would not heed such a call and said the latest developments might even reinforce his "outsider'' aura with voters.

Weld's backers recalled that he won his first term in Massachusetts without party support in 1990.

In fact, he lost the state party convention then, too, and refused to bow to the state GOP chair's request that he drop out of the race.

Ulster County GOP Chairman Peter Savago, who supported Weld at the convention last Thursday, said he talked to Weld Sunday and got the feeling that Weld was "inclined'' to quit the race in the interest of being a "team player.''

Savago said it was clear Faso worked hard in the weeks leading up the election, personally calling many of the GOP convention delegates who he knows well after 16 years in the Assembly and running for state comptroller in 2002.

As a newcomer to New York politics, Weld relied largely on intermediaries to work on delegates for him.

In his convention speech, Weld talked about climbing Mt. Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondacks, one week before the convention -- an effort that kept him away from the political game for at least 9.5 hours.

But Savago didn't blame Weld alone for his poor showing at the GOP convention.

"I think a lot of people let him down,'' Savago said.

Savago didn't name names.

But Weld supporters were disappointed that Pataki never publicly endorsed Weld as his preferred successor.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a longtime friend and business associate of Weld's who encouraged him to run for governor in New York, also shied away from Weld as his party support waned.

Last December, Weld defeated Faso in a straw poll of county chairs, but a number of influential chairs either abstained or didn't show up to vote.

By mid-January, Weld has raised more money than Faso, with $1.8 million on hand to Faso's $932,739.

Weld backers argued that Faso is too conservative to be viable in Democrat-dominated New York.

But Weld also has the baggage of Decker College, a Kentucky trade school he once headed that is now bankrupt and under investigation by the FBI for fraud.

end quotes

"It's never hard to put the interests of the REPUBLIC and the CONSTITUTION first,'' Livyjr said.

"I've done that my entire life."

And if anyone is looking for a "fixer-upper" castle ....

"A majestic folly- Not your average abode, Helderberg Castle is in market for a new ruler"

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, June 5, 2006

NEW SCOTLAND -- The romance between a Manhattan lawyer and her lilac-ringed castle caught fire with a headline.

Castle Seeks Knight in Shining Armor.

When she bought it, Elizabeth Smith hoped to share the cliff-top Albany County estate with loved ones.

But her life over the last decade hasn't followed that script.

Now, the castle may be ready for a new knight.

If you're the right sort of person, willing to cut the right-size check, the keys to the castle could be yours.

"It's a little bit of Provence, and a little bit of Stonehenge and a little bit of 'The Hobbit,' " Smith said.

"All of which appeal to me."

History is the appeal of this complex near New Scotland's Thacher Park, as much as its crooked windowpanes, crumbling walls, or brittle pillars.

Its story begins with Bouck White.

White was a newspaperman, pastor of the "Church of the Social Revolution," radical flag burner, Harvard graduate, author and potter.

He was jailed in 1914 for interrupting services at Fifth Avenue Baptist Church -- John D. Rockefeller's church -- to hold what The New York Times called a joint debate with the pastor "as to the merits of Mr. Rockefeller."

He was also, by some accounts, a fraud.

His refined French wife accused him of posing as a wealthy American during their brief courtship.

He brought her to live in his "summer estate," which turned out to be a tumbledown shack outside Marlboro, north of Newburgh.

And she could forget children.

He told her intellectuals should make books, not kids.

Another headline, this from the front page of The New York Times in 1921, sums up the direction things took from there.

Bouck White Tarred and Feathered on Wife's Complaint.

The tarred-and-feathered anecdote was one of the first to come up on a recent tour of the castle with Willard Osterhout, president of the New Scotland Historical Association.

He ran through the highlights of a life almost as colorful as the panoramic view from the castle's tower.

Which is one of the few parts that still looks as it did in White's day, thanks to the changes of post-White owners and the cyclical freeze-and-thaw that splinters its rocks.

"Every winter, something else falls down," Osterhout said.

"When do you stop trying to maintain it?"

A fire in the 1940s didn't help.

That reduced what was White's home and workshop, known as the House of the Crooked Windows for its concrete-fastened panes of jagged glass, to Romelike ruins.

Now a stone staircase leads to a second floor that doesn't exist.

A sign anchored to the third step by two rocks warns visitors to stay off.

"Castle is crumbling," the sign says.

"Each footstep makes it worse."

White and two helpers built the limestone castle in the 1930s, his marriage a memory by then.

He called it Federalberg, a nod to "his belief in a society of cities instead of nations," according to a biographical write-up about White.

The Helderberg Castle is the name that's stuck, though.

Osterhout played there as a kid.

Now 66 and a gray-haired retiree, the place still befuddles him.

He pointed to a deep cleft between rocks where, the story goes, White slept his first year living on the cliff.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, shook his head, and let out a laugh.

"What would possess a man to come here and build something like this by hand?" said Osterhout, surveying the castle through mirrored shades.

"What normal person?"

"To me, that's a bit eccentric."

He moved on to the tower.

Its cement sign, like so much of this place, looks about to fall down.

Chapel of the American Dream, the writing says.

World League of Cities.

"That's what I think he was trying to do, have a city-state here," Osterhout said.

"But that never came to pass, naturally."

However you judge the man, what's left of his castle isn't worth much.

At least by castle standards.

Smith listed it for sale at $324,999 last year.

The now-expired posting described her Tudor-meets-"Lord-of-the-Rings"-style home, the only somewhat modern building on the grounds, as a "partially renovated old country cottage."

The town, meanwhile, valued the property at $203,600 in this year's reassessment.

The complex of buildings might have a tower on a cliff, and it might sit on Castle Road, but the castle name locals have called it for years "is almost a myth," Town Assessor Julie Nooney said.

Smith is more blunt: "There's no castle."

"And there never was a castle."

"... Bouck White was a radical socialist and would not have called the property a hierarchical name."

Taking care of the castle is pretty much like taking care of any house, Smith said.

Except for episodes like the "trespasser" incident, when she learned a guy had created a whole Web site about her castle, with pictures.

And except for accommodating all the the sightseers, some with memories of the castle's post-White period as a party hot spot.

"I meet a lot of people who tell me they have vomited at my property," said Smith, who is originally from Loudonville.

"That's exactly what they tell me."

Nooney told the Times Union that Smith's castle is a unique property, from an assessment standpoint.

"You don't have any standards or norms to really go by," she said, pulling out the castle's file in her office at New Scotland Town Hall.

"It's not like we have five or six castles being sold anywhere."

Smith isn't actively marketing the castle right now.

But if someone who would respect it -- an artist or historian, say -- came along with a good offer, she would sell.

She's also toying with the idea of posting it with other historic properties for sale on eBay.

She laughs when asked to name a price, though, saying only that the $324,999 listing was "on the low side."

As for White, he never did find another wife.

The "Hermit of the Helderbergs" ended up settling down to an austere life sustained by the income from his crude pottery.

"Present civilization," the biographical sketch quotes him as concluding, was "taking the guts out of its women."

A cerebral hemorrhage forced him to give up the castle in 1943.

He moved into the Home for Aged Men in Menands.

Eight years later, White died.

His ashes were buried in a rock fissure at the castle.

Marc Parry can be reached at 454-5057 or by e-mail at mparry@timesunion.com.

To learn more

The New Scotland Historical Association will present an exhibit about Bouck White and his castle in August at the Altamont Fair.

Amd from run-down castles .....

It's back to politics, we go ....

And let us hope ....

"Political shift in the wind if Democrats take House - Some of Bush's biggest foes could soon have a big say in his agenda"

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press
First published: Sunday, June 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -- If the chips fall right for Democrats and their party seizes control of the House, President Bush's agenda on Capitol Hill would fall into the hands of some of his most dogged opponents.

It's not just would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, but a boatload of Democrats newly running committees who would determine what legislation gets debated and which programs and agencies get scrutiny.

So who are the chairmen-to-be?

A Polish-American lawyer with a reputation for making witnesses quiver.

A die-hard liberal from New York's Harlem with 35 years in the House.

A free-spending progressive from Wausau, Wis.

One of the few remaining "Watergate babies" swept into Congress in 1974.

For that to happen, Democrats would need help from voters in November: Right now, Republicans hold 231 of the 435 seats in the House, with 201 Democrats and one independent.

Two seats are vacant.

As for those prospective Democratic chairmen, the group is overwhelmingly liberal-leaning.

Only two of 20 earned grades of less than 90 percent on last year's voting records from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action interest group.

Half had perfect scores of 100 from the ADA -- or would have had it not been for missed votes.

The lawyer is Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the dean of the House and the once and maybe future chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

He is a staunch ally of the auto industry and a fearsome inquisitor of bureaucrats and CEOs alike.

Dingell, 79, has lost a step in recent years but is among the most respected Democrats.

The liberal with the distinct New York accent is Rep. Charles Rangel, poised to grab the helm of the Ways and Means Committee, which has a sweeping portfolio: taxes, trade, Social Security, Medicare and welfare.

He has battled Bush's tax cuts every step of the way, opposed the 1996 overhaul of welfare laws, opposed the North American and Central American free trade accords and pushed for a more generous Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Rep. David Obey, a liberal from Wisconsin, is eager to retake the gavel of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which holds the reins on government spending.

He briefly led the committee in 1994 before the GOP landslide that year awarded control of Congress to Republicans.

Obey came to Washington at the height of the Vietnam War; ever since, he has been an ardent opponent of GOP efforts to clamp down of domestic agency budgets that Congress approves each year.

Rep. George Miller of California is one of three still-serving members of the huge class of 1974 that swamped Congress after the Watergate scandal.

He is in line to head the Education and the Workforce Committee; he was chairman of the Resources Committee in the early 1990s when it was the Natural Resources Committee.

Miller also is an unalloyed liberal, but he proved able to work with Bush in writing the 2002 No Child Left Behind education bill that is up for renewal next year.

For Republicans, the prospect of the House being led by a San Franciscan and so many left-leaning chairmen has supporters in business and Washington's K Street lobbying shops aghast.

The switch could mark the demise of Bush's tax cut agenda and would usher into power union allies such as Rangel and Miller.

"The whole issue agenda would change," said GOP lobbyist Jack Howard.

"All the businesses and trade associations would find themselves on defense."

The prospect of some of Congress' biggest liberals running committees probably will not be much of an issue in GOP fall campaigns, which typically focus more on local issues, said Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee.

Former conservative Democratic Rep. Charles Stenholm of Texas says that regardless of any chairman's personal ideology, he would have to produce legislation that was middle of the road.

Even if Democrats win control of the House, it would almost certainly be by a narrow margin in which the balance of power would rest with moderate Democrats.

"There will be very little if any legislation that passes that is to the left of center or very far to the left of center," Stenholm said.

The responsibility for determining the floor schedule probably would fall to Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who could advance to the majority leader's post from his current job of minority whip.

Hoyer and Pelosi fought a sometimes bitter race five years ago for a leadership post, but seem to have patched up their relationship.

In a potential power switch between the parties, more than an unrelenting string of liberal Democrats are positioned to take over committees.

Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who would run the Agriculture Committee, is anti-abortion and as pro-gun as practically anyone in the House.

Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri is a longtime hawk in line to lead the Armed Services Committee.

Black lawmakers would run major committees.

Besides Rangel, there is Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, in line for the top spot on the Judiciary Committee; Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi on the Homeland Security Committee; and Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida at the Intelligence Committee.

Conyers has been accused by former aides of misusing his office by turning them into baby sitters for his children.

He is the prime sponsor of a resolution that seeks to investigate grounds for possible impeachment of Bush over the war in Iraq.

Impeachment is hardly the message Democrats want to take to the swing voters expected to decide the outcome of the election.

"Democrats are not about impeachment," Pelosi said last month on NBC's "Meet The Press."

Hastings, a charismatic former federal judge, was impeached and removed from the bench in 1989 for fabricating evidence that secured his acquittal in 1983 on bribery charges.

Republicans award chairmanships based on the evaluation of a leadership committee that takes into account leadership fealty, fundraising prowess and other factors.

Democrats would award would-be chairmanships strictly by seniority.

And from politics ....

We go to George W. Bush's IRAQINAM fiasco ....

Which is really just an extension of the inept and incompetent "politics" of George W. Bush ....

And so ....

Here's some more "George" for everyone to ponder this evening ....

While we think back on all this pap and drivel that George W. Bush has been trying to sell us .....

About how safe he has made OUR America ....

Which is not safe at all ...

And so ....

"Possible hush-up probed in Iraq - Whether U.S. personnel tried to hide or missed signs that civilian deaths were not accidental is now a major part of general's investigation"

By DAVID S. CLOUD and ERIC SCHMITT, New York Times<
First published: Saturday, June 3, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Marine commanders in Iraq learned within two days of the killings in Haditha in November that Iraqi civilians had died from gunfire, not a roadside bomb as initially reported, but the officers involved saw no reason to investigate further, according to a senior Marine officer.

The commanders have told investigators they did not view as unusual, in a combat environment, the discrepancies that emerged almost immediately in accounts about how the two dozen Iraqis died, and that they had no information at the time suggesting that any civilians had been killed deliberately.

But the handling of the episode by the senior Marine commanders in Haditha, and whether officers and enlisted personnel tried to cover up what happened or missed signs suggesting that the civilian killings were not accidental, has become a major element of the investigation by an Army general into the entire episode.

Officials have said that the investigation, while not yet complete, is likely to conclude that a small group of Marines carried out the unprovoked killings of two dozen civilians in the hours after a makeshift bomb killed a Marine.

A senior Marine general familiar with the investigation, which is being led by Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell of the Army, said in an interview that it had not yet established how high up the chain of command any culpability for the killings extended.

But he said there are strong suspicions that some officers knew that the Marine squad's version of events had enough holes and discrepancies that it should have been looked into more thoroughly.

The Marine general was granted anonymity, along with others who described the investigation, because he was not authorized to publicly discuss it.

On another controversial front, the Chicago Tribune reported that the U.S. military issued a forceful and unusually detailed denial of revived allegations that American soldiers had also wantonly killed 11 Iraqi civilians during a March 15 raid north of Baghdad.

The military said the investigation cleared U.S. forces of wrongdoing.

But it found that as many as 12 civilians had died as a result of "collateral damage" during the raid, nine more than the military had reported in its original account of the raid on a suspected insurgent hideout in the village of Ishaqi, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell IV, spokesman for Multi-National Force-Iraq, said in a statement issued from Baghdad that U.S. forces killed one suspected terrorist and captured another during the March 15 raid in the village of Ishaqi, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Allegations that U.S. forces executed a family during the raid then covered it up by directing an airstrike on their house "are absolutely false," Caldwell said.

In yet another incident, however, a group of Marines could face murder charges in the death of a civilian in Hamandiya in April and other charges for possibly attempting to cover up the killing.

In an exclusive interview with Knight Ridder on Friday, Hashim Ibrahim Awad's family said U.S. Marines dragged Awad from his home on April 26, killed him and then planted an AK-47 assault rifle and a shovel next to him to make him look like a terrorist.

Awad's friends said he told them that U.S. Marines had approached him several times, asking him to help them find who was planting explosives in this small village outside Baghdad.

Every time, Awad, in his 50s with a lame leg and bad eyesight, refused.

His family considered the job shameful.

-Zarqawi blasts Shiites

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, railed against Shiites in a four-hour-long audiotape harangue posted on the Internet on Friday, saying militias are raping women and killing Sunnis and the community must fight back.

The tape's authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on a Web forum often used by al-Qaida in Iraq for messages and the voice resembled al-Zarqawi's on other tapes.

The recording emerged amid a surge in violent attacks in Iraq.

At least 100 Iraqis were reported killed since Sunday.

The Iraqi Health Ministry reported Friday that 657 civilians were killed between April 30 and May 21.

-handler avoids jail

At Fort Meade, Md., Army Sgt. Santos Cardona, a dog-handler convicted of assaulting an Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib prison, was sentenced to three months of hard labor without confinement, a reduction in rank and a $7,200 fine -- but no time in prison.

Cardona, 32, of Fullerton, Calif., was the 11th soldier to be convicted of abuse stemming from the prison scandal.

The reduction in rank means that Cardona will no longer be a sergeant and his monthly base pay will drop from $2,496.60 to $2018.40.

When you have a Commander-in-chief who is a liar ....

Then right on down the chain of command from him ....

You would have a bunch more liars ....

Because the "example" of leadership comes from the top down ....

And where the top man's example is that the harder right should always be sacrificed for the easier wrong ....

Well ...

Why should those further on down the chain-of-command buck the system?

And so ....

"Haditha inquiry cites scrutiny lapse"

By THOMAS E. RICKS, Washington Post
First published: Thursday, June 1, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military investigation of how Marine commanders handled the reporting of events in the Iraqi town of Haditha last November, where troops allegedly killed 24 Iraqi civilians, will conclude that some officers gave false information to their superiors, who then failed to adequately scrutinize reports that should have caught their attention, an Army official said Wednesday.

The three-month probe, led by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, also is expected to call for changes in how U.S. troops are trained for duty in Iraq, the official said.

Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely.

In anticipation of the Bargewell report, the Marine Corps has placed on hold its plan to nominate Maj. Gen. Stephen Johnson, who was the top Marine in Iraq when the Haditha incident occurred, for promotion to lieutenant general, a senior Defense official said.

That decision reflects concern that the report may conclude that leadership failures occurred at senior levels in Iraq.

President Bush, in his first public comment on the Haditha incident, said Wednesday that if an investigation finds evidence of wrongdoing, those involved will be punished.

Bargewell has pursued two lines of investigation: not only whether falsehoods were passed up the chain of command, but also whether senior Marine commanders were derelict in their duty to monitor the actions of subordinates.

The inquiry is expected to conclude by the end of this week, the official added.

He said there were multiple failures but declined to say whether he would characterize it as a "cover-up" as alleged recently by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a former Marine.

Troops head to Basra

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered thousands of troops to Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, to disarm the Shiite Muslim militias that have taken control there.

Al-Maliki said Iraq's 10th Army Division would set up checkpoints and round up illegal weapons from militias, gangs and tribes that had seized control in Basra.

He said the state of emergency would last a month.

Regret for shootings

U.S. officials expressed regret that American troops shot two Iraqi women -- one pregnant -- whose car entered a restricted area north of Baghdad.

Troops shot the women, the Los Angeles Times reported, as their car drove into a prohibited area near an observation post.

According to a military statement, the area was clearly marked and troops attempted several auditory and visual warnings before shooting to disable their vehicle.

The military said it is investigating the shooting.

end quotes

If in fact there were leadership failures at senior levels in Iraq .....

And likely there were ....

It is because there are even worse leadership failures ....

Higher up the chain-of-command .....

Right on up into the White House in Washington, D.C. ....

Where the COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF sits ....

Not having a clue, of course ....

As to what he should do ...

To stop the mess he started ...

Over there in IRAQINAM ...

With his big mouth ...

And his puffed-up ego ....

And his lack of wits ......

And so ....

"Economy dulls jobs growth - Rising costs leave companies cautious about hiring new workers"

By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press
First published: Saturday, June 3, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Cautious employers added just 75,000 jobs in May, the fewest in seven months, in a fresh sign the national economy is losing momentum heading into summer.

Rising energy prices, higher borrowing costs and a cooling of the once red-hot housing market are the main forces shaping the slowdown in the country's overall economic activity.

Those factors, along with sagging consumer confidence, are making companies wary of bulking up payrolls in case the economy takes an unexpected turn for the worse, analysts said.

Taking a bit of the sting out of the sluggish job creation was the fact that the nation's unemployment rate dipped to 4.6 percent, the lowest in nearly five years.

Still, when the Labor Department's employment snapshot, released Friday, is viewed as a whole, it points to slower -- not faster -- economic speed ahead, analysts said.

Wage growth also slowed, a development that may be disheartening to workers but comforted economists who worry about inflation taking off.

"The May employment report was weak in almost all dimensions," said Nigel Gault, economist at Global Insight.

Economic growth in the April-to-June quarter will probably clock in around a 2.5 percent pace or slightly better.

That would mark a deceleration from the brisk 5.3 percent pace logged in the first quarter.

The count of new jobs generated last month was the smallest since October, when hiring practically stalled as the fallout from the Gulf Coast hurricanes jolted companies.

It fell far short of the 170,000 new jobs economists had predicted.

Manufacturers, retailers, home builders, trucking firms, hotels and motels were among those shedding jobs last month.

Financial firms, health care providers, educational services, accountants and bookkeepers, architects and engineers and computer designers all boosted employment.

Job growth, which has steadily weakened since February, was lower in March and April than previously reported.

Employers added 175,000 jobs in March and 126,000 in April -- 37,000 fewer positions for both months combined than estimated a month ago.

"Firms have grown more cautious of taking on additional workers," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.

In a brighter note, though, the unemployment rate dropped a notch from 4.7 percent in April to 4.6 percent in May, the lowest since July 2001.

The payrolls figure and the unemployment rate come from two different statistical surveys, which can provide -- as in Friday's case -- a somewhat conflicting picture of what is happening in the labor market.

The seasonally adjusted overall civilian unemployment rate -- 4.6 percent in May -- is based on a survey of 60,000 households.

It showed that 288,000 people said they found employment last month, outpacing the number of people who couldn't find work.

Economists tend to put more stock, however, in the much broader business survey of 400,000 work sites that is used to calculate the payroll figures.

"Breakdown in morality, leadership"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Monday, June 5, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The saying that the cover-up is worse than the crime surely cannot be applied to war crimes.

The U.S. military is investigating whether Marines on patrol in the Iraqi town of Haditha committed an atrocity last November, killing up to 24 people, including women and small children, in house-to-house raids.

Part of the inquiry is meant to determine who among the higher-ups in charge of such things concocted the apparently false public account that civilians had been killed in the blast of a roadside bomb.

The alleged cover-up is to be one focus of Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, its chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., says.

Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and ranking House Armed Services Committee member who has withdrawn his earlier support for this war, is particularly incensed.

"Who covered it up?" he wants to know.

"Why did they cover it up?"

But, it is fair to ask, why such surprise?

The American endeavor in Iraq always has been a deception built upon a foundation of fraud.

In the beginning were the false claims that Saddam Hussein possessed potent weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons program that could lead to the fearsome "mushroom cloud."

When Joseph Wilson wrote in The New York Times that his own CIA-sponsored trip to Africa essentially disproved evidence of an advancing nuclear program, the former ambassador and his wife, Valerie Plame, became targets of a leak-and-smear campaign orchestrated by Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

The criminal probe into the Plame leak centers on whether high-level administration officials lied to the grand jury about it.

The lie that Saddam had some unspecified connection to the 9/11 attacks, promoted indirectly in the President's own speeches and more directly by the vice president, was for a time so potent that a huge majority of Americans believed it.

More recently exposed falsehoods include President Bush's public claim on May 29, 2003.

"We have found the weapons of mass destruction," he declared, after two small trailers purported to be mobile biological weapons labs turned up.

In truth, according to The Washington Post, a secret Pentagon fact-finding mission to Iraq had already concluded that the trailers weren't weapons labs at all, and had reported this to Washington.

With the commander in chief apparently incapable of telling the truth about Iraq, who can be stunned at duplicity in the ranks?

This, too, started early on.

The early, iconic image of Saddam's statue being toppled in a Baghdad square was not a spontaneous act by joyous Iraqis.

It was an Army psychological warfare operation that began when a Marine colonel chose the statue for its symbolism and the psychological team encouraged Iraqis to participate.

In the end, a Marine vehicle dragged down the statue with a chain, but the evocative image was indelible -- because the military team filled the vehicle with cheering Iraqi children.

Soon after came the fable of Jessica Lynch, the Army private who was captured after her Humvee crashed -- but who supposedly was taken prisoner only after her own heroics, which officials said included emptying her weapon at her attackers.

A fuller fairy tale promoted Lynch's rescue from an Iraqi hospital, helpfully illustrated by the Pentagon with a dramatic night-vision video.

In truth, Lynch says she never fired her weapon and that the hospital already was in friendly hands when American soldiers retrieved her.

We still do not know the whole truth about Pat Tillman, for dead men tell no tales.

The former pro football player starred in a fictitious press release the Army put out after he was killed in action in Afghanistan.

The stirring script of Tillman's death had him storming a hill to take out the enemy when he was hit, a fabrication that the Pentagon let stand through a nationally televised memorial service that drew 3,500 people.

Though military officials knew early on that Tillman had been killed by friendly fire, it did not tell his family, or the public, this tale of negligence and official concealment.

The President himself is responsible for setting this standard.

The Marines at Haditha, and those who shielded them, may well have suffered a "total breakdown in morality and leadership," as one official told the Los Angeles Times.

But that is because our country is suffering the very same breakdown.

Marie Cocco's e-mail address is mariecocco@washpost.com

And for those of us with memories ...

Here is some real American history to ponder ....

As George W. bush ...

Turns OUR America ...

REAL UGLY ...

In his image ....

One more time again ....

First published on May 7, 1970.

"The Killings at Kent"

Albany, New York Times Union

The news from Kent State University in Ohio last Monday came as a stunning shock, immediately followed by a feeling of alarm.

So the campus disorder had finally come to this -- four students shot to death during a confrontation with National Guardsmen.

Nothing, of course, can diminish the tragedy of four young lives so needlessly lost.

On the other hand, responsible second thought suggests how much can be done to prevent a recurrence of similar tragedies.

The shootings at Kent, hopefully, could be the first and last of their kind.

We are not unduly hopeful.

The most unusual fact about the occurrence is that something of the sort had not happened before.

Young guardsmen, pelted by rocks in an all too familiar scene of anarchy, apparently panicked.

They could do so again elsewhere in the angry chain reaction of new student demonstrations already under way.

What is needed -- immediately and no doubt is being provided -- is a fresh crash course in mob control for guardsmen everywhere.

Also required immediately -- and already under way by the Justice Department -- is a series of the most thorough probes by all agencies with jurisdiction.

Guardsmen found guilty of breaking discipline at Kent must be punished.

And so must be the student radicals whose irresponsible leadership led to the tragedy.

What is needed most of all is a sober reassessment by student extremists of what they have been doing to colleges and their country.

At Kent they have experienced the inevitable result of what many thought was a kind of fun and games exercise.

It is a bitter lesson, but not half so bitter as what would have happened to them elsewhere in the world.

Hopefully -- and the word is stressed -- what happened at Kent may also instruct others in positions of authority.

Some college officials may have learned, at last, that permissiveness and compromise can literally be fatal.

And President Nixon may come to realize that all campus demonstrators are not necessarily "bums."

There are many lessons to be learned from the tragedy at the Kent State campus -- by many people.

If a sincere effort to learn them is made by all concerned, the needless deaths of four young Americans will not have been in vain.

And speaking about American history ....

Which "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice appears to be totally ignorant of ...

And AMERICAN GUERILLA FIGHTERS ....

Or INSURGENTS, if you will, par excellance ....

Which again ....

"CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice seems to know nothing about ...

Which is not surprising ...

Since she is but a suck-up ....

To a boss who knows none of this stuff either ....

We have ....

"Burial site dig yields skeletons, controversy - Some want amateur archaeologists to halt work on Rogers Island, historic birthplace of Army Rangers"

By CHRIS CAROLA, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, June 6, 2006

FORT EDWARD -- Two amateur archaeologists have unearthed human skeletons, believed to be about 250 years old, at a burial site on the Hudson River island that's considered the birthplace of today's U.S. Army Rangers.

Richard and JoAnne Fuller said it is very likely the remains found on private property date back to the French and Indian War, when Rogers' Rangers earned a place in American military lore while operating out of Fort Edward.

The couple said the skeletons appear to be buried in an unmarked cemetery that doesn't appear on any colonial or contemporary maps.

No other cemeteries are known to have existed on the island over the past 200 years.

"Everyone knows there's something on Rogers Island."

"Nobody knew where the cemetery was," said Richard Fuller.

He said buttons found among the bones could give clues to whether the remains are those of some of the 15,000 soldiers and civilians who lived there in the late 1750s, when Fort Edward was the largest British military outpost in North America.

It was also the base of operations for the guerrilla fighters known as Rogers' Rangers.

There are concerns that the Fullers' activities could jeopardize what one archaeologist called "quite a significant discovery."

"You don't just rush out there and start digging because you think it's interesting," said David Starbuck, who spent more than a decade conducting extensive excavations on Rogers Island and at nearby sites but didn't uncover any cemeteries.

"It's important to proceed very cautiously."

While he and his wife aren't professional archaeologists, Richard Fuller said they're "well-versed in archaeology techniques" from their previous work with an Albany-area archaeological firm.

There are no plans to give professional archaeologists access to the site, although Richard Fuller said he has talked with an anthropologist about having the skeletons analyzed and studied.

Their work at the site is being questioned by some local officials who have been at odds with the couple over development plans for the island.

"It's certainly a major concern," said Town of Fort Edward Supervisor Merrilyn Pulver, adding that "all digging should cease immediately."

Most of Rogers Island, named for French and Indian War hero Maj. Robert Rogers, is private land owned by Frank Nastasi, a retired Long Island construction executive.

He owns 33 acres on the 42-acre island, including the site where the skeletons were found.

Nastasi is a fellow French and Indian War buff and Rogers' Rangers aficionado, said Richard Fuller, who works for Nastasi as caretaker of the Rogers Island property.

Nastasi has abandoned plans to build a marina and hotel on the island and is instead considering building a park dedicated to Rogers and the Rangers, or selling the site to New York state.

It was on the island, in 1757, that Rogers wrote his "Rules of Ranging," a manual on guerrilla warfare that became a blueprint for modern Army Ranger fighting tactics[/u].

His original 28 rules have been boiled down over the years into the 19 "Standing Orders" taught to today's Army commandos.

Fuller said he discovered the first skeleton late last fall while looking for other artifacts, and reported the find to local police.

Village Police Chief Walter Sandford said the county coroner's office determined the remains were of a historical nature and not from a recent crime.

In one of the uncovered graves, a full skeleton lay on its back, its hands folded on its pelvis.

The skull, which contained a full set of teeth, was caved in on the left side.

Other partial skeletons were lined up in 18-inch-deep plots nearby, with another set off a few feet away.

JoAnne Fuller has given the remains names such as Caleb and Sammy, taken from the actual colonial militia rosters the Fullers have among the extensive French and Indian War collection that fills their nearby home in Washington County.

History ...

And then ...

What else, these days ....

What with elections looming larger and larger on the horizon ....

But politics ....

And the UNDEMOCRATIC AUTOCRATIC THUGS up here in REPUBLICAN George Pataki's CORRUPT EMPIRE of New York who are in "CONTROL OF THINGS" ....

Or is that POWER?

"Elbow to elbow in 108th - Bruno backs county legislator in crowded race to replace Casale"

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, June 6, 2006

ALBANY -- State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and a battery of Republican officials lined up behind a Rensselaer County legislator Monday who's being tabbed to succeed outgoing Assemblyman Pat Casale in the 108th District.

Bruno and Casale joined about 40 supporters on the steps of the state Capitol as Sand Lake-reared Martin Reid formally entered the increasingly crowded Assembly race.

Peter Santiago, Reid's Republican rival across the river in Albany County, quickly denounced what he called the closed-door selection.

Bruno has forgotten about democracy and the open process of a primary, he said.

Reid, 42, won election to the County Legislature in 1995.

He represents the towns of Sand Lake, Schodack and Nassau.

He previously served as an aide to then-Assemblyman John Faso and as director of government relations for the State University of New York.

"It's a background that was made for the state Legislature," Bruno said as he introduced Reid during Monday's news conference.

"And I'm glad that he's running for the Assembly and not the Senate, because he's in my district."

Casale, R-Speigletown, said last month he would not seek re-election after 14 years in the Assembly.

The 71-year-old former Troy mayor and liquor store operator will be absent from the ballot for the first time in 32 years.

The 108th Assembly District spans four counties.

In Rensselaer County, it encompasses parts of Troy plus the towns of Schaghticoke, Brunswick, Poestenkill, Sand Lake, Schodack and Nassau; in Albany County, Bethlehem and Coeymans; in Columbia County, Stuyvesant, Chatham, Kinderhook and New Lebanon; and in Greene County, New Baltimore and Coxsackie.

Reid is taking a leave of absence from his job in the state Department of Transportation's Office of External Relations to run.

If elected, he would resign from the County Legislature.

In his announcement speech Monday, Reid railed against unfunded state mandates, declared he's dedicated to improving air quality and pledged to work on cutting the property tax burden.

"Do not underestimate the power of one assemblyman to make changes that are needed," Reid said.

The Rensselaer County Republican Committee threw its support behind Reid on Saturday.

Albany County GOP Chairman Peter Kermani said he's supporting Reid over Santiago -- a Bethlehem resident -- because Reid's "a better candidate, stronger on Republican principles."

But Santiago, 37, said he's already raised $125,000 and plans to pursue a primary.

The technology consultant and former Pataki appointee attacked Reid for tax increases and voting to raise his pay.

Asked if he'd been urged to quit the race, Santiago said, "I've been offered jobs if I would be willing to step aside to avoid a primary."

Beyond saying the offers were political jobs from Republican leaders, he declined to be more specific.

Elsewhere in the race, Bethlehem Town Board and Independence Party member Tim Gordon wants the Democratic line.

Conservative Party member Bill Reinhardt, an Averill Park school board member, also is seeking Democratic support.

So is Bethlehem's Ken Preston.

Parry can be reached at 454-5057 or by e-mail at mparry@timesunion.com.

end quotes

Bruno has forgotten about democracy and the open process of a primary, he said?

NO .....

I don't think that is true, actually ....

Based upon my own experiences with "BIG JOE" ....

I don't think "BIG JOE THE HAMMER" Bruno knows doodly-squat about DEMOCRACY ....

And if he does ...

Which is doubtful ....

He sure don't give a TINKER'S DAMN about it ....

And so ....

And from George Pataki's corrupt REPUBLICAN EMPIRE of New York ...

Where George Pataki is fashioning himself out to be one of these UNITARY EXECUTIVES a la George W. Bush ....

Which is really just another name for "TIN-POT DICTATOR" ....

Let's see what is going on ...

With George W. Bush's BOTCH JOB ...

Over there in IRAQINAM ....

Where we have ....

"Rumsfeld pressed to disclose findings of Haditha probe"

2 hours, 21 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The top US senator on military affairs pressed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quickly make public the findings of a probe into the alleged killing of Iraqi civilians by US Marines.

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, in a letter to the defense secretary, also vowed to hold a "series of hearings" on the alleged atrocities in the Iraqi town of Haditha on November 19.

"Congress and the American people are entitled to a timely disclosure of the official findings and recommendations of these inquiries," the influential Republican wrote in the June 6 letter.

"Delays in getting out the official findings of fact due to a protracted review process will mean a mixture of information, misinformation and unconfirmed facts will continue to spiral in the public domain," he said.

"Given the alleged seriousness of these events ... these hearings are the first priority of our committee," the senator wrote.

The Pentagon is investigating whether US Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, a town northwest of Baghdad, after a marine was killed by a roadside bomb.

A separate inquiry is looking into whether there was a military coverup of the killings.

Pentagon officials have said the investigations are nearing completion but not given an indication when findings will be released.

"U.S. commander to review Haditha report"

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press
Last updated: 1:25 p.m., Monday, June 5, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The No. 2 American general in Iraq will soon review a preliminary criminal report into the alleged massacre by Marines of Iraqi citizens in Haditha, a congressman just back from Iraq said Monday.

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., one of four House members who traveled to Iraq over the weekend, said the lawmakers discussed the investigations with Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. general in Iraq.

Kline said it was unclear when the report would be released.

"General Chiarelli expressed some concern in that he did not want to sign off an investigation until he felt like he had all of the information that he needed" from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said Kline, a former Marine.

The investigative service is probing whether crimes were committed in the killing of two dozen Iraqis last November.

A senior defense official told the Associated Press last month that evidence points to unprovoked killings by the Marines involved.

A separate probe is examining whether there has been a coverup of the incident by the U.S. military.

The four House members who visited Iraq took issue with comments made by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who complained that coalition forces have shown "no respect for citizens, smashing civilian cars and killing on a suspicion or a hunch."

"The prime minister has a platform and a pulpit now that he may not have had in the past," said Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas.

Conaway said with that platform comes "responsibility to be very careful and to choose your words very carefully."

Kline said his group was told that U.S. military officials and embassy staff had told al-Maliki that his comments were not helpful.

Kline also said Iraqi generals told the U.S. lawmakers that they were frustrated about the slow pace in filling the new Iraqi government's security posts, saying it was hindering the training of the Iraqi military.

"The generals were very candid with us," he said.

"There's no question that they understand that until you get a functioning ministry of defense, until you get a functioning Pentagon -- Iraqi Pentagon -- they're not going to be able to reach their full potential."

On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed confidence that Iraqi leaders will be able to fill key security posts in the next few days while downplaying recent sectarian violence.

Rice, who appeared on three television news shows, said of the vacant security posts, "Of course, they need to get this settled, but they will get it settled."

"When they get it right, and they will get it right, everybody will forget how long it took them."

An Iraqi parliament session was postponed earlier Sunday after al-Maliki again failed to reach consensus on candidates to head ministries that run Iraq's military and police.

Also Sunday, the top U.S. military officer pledged a thorough investigation in the alleged massacre at Haditha, acknowledging that the charges have raised concerns among Iraqi officials and in the United States.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it is not clear exactly what happened last November when as many as two dozen Iraqis were killed during a U.S. attack in Haditha.

Still, he said it was important not to rush to judgment.

"You don't want to have the emotions of the day weigh into the process," Pace told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

"We need to stick with our judicial process."

"We want to be sure that it moves forward without any influence."

Rice appeared on "Fox News Sunday," CBS's "Face the Nation" and CNN's "Late Edition."

------

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Hope Yen contributed to this report.

end quotes

Well, General Pace ....

You say that you want the "judicial process" to move along without any influence ....

And supposedly ...

Both you and Donald Rumsfeld have said you do not want to make comments that might taint the probes .....

And so ...

As an American citizen ...

And as a disabled veteran ...

I would say that was a good thing ...

But then ...

I would say ...

That as CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS ....

YOU ARE CERTAINLY EXERTING CONSIDERABLE INFLUENCE ON THE ALLEGED "JUDICIAL PROCESS" ....

And you appear to be doing your damndest ....

To taint the probes ...

By making what are obvious and blatant political speeches ...

Wherein you state ....

Or assert ...

Or certainly imply ...

That as CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS ...

You are possessed of some kind of HARD EVIDENCE ......

WHICH WOULD PROVE ....

TO US, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ....

That 99.9 percent of the servicemen and service women are doing what we expect them to do ....

And so ...

What you have done with your words, here, General Pace ...

In your capacity as CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS ....

IS TO HAVE SET A QUOTA ....

As to how many bad apples there can possibly be in OUR military ........

And the MAXIMUM NUMBER, therefore ....

Of bad apples ....

THAT YOU WILL ACCEPT .....

OR ALLOW YOUR SUBORDINATES DOING THE INVESTIGATION ....

TO PRESENT YOU WITH ....

And so ...

General ...

Do us a favor ...

AND STOW THE BULL **** .....

About not wanting to influence this investigation ...

Because you already have ...

And so ...

Yeah, right, "CONNIE CON-JOB" .....

American forces are the solution in IRAQINAM ....

If the original problem was how to turn all of the world against the United States ...

Because the United States has turned into the biggest THUG nation on the face of the earth ....

Thanks to you and yours ....

And all your lies, "CON-JOB CONNIE" .....

All your lies ...

Posted on: Mar 8 2005, 08:15 AM

"Friendly fire's terrible toll in Iraq - Troops make snap decisions amid constant threat, and sometimes the consequences are horrific"

By RAWYA RAGEH and TODD PITMAN, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, March 8, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- They're told every day across Iraq -- tragic stories of people dying amid gunfire, shattered windshields and car seats covered in blood.

Friendly fire -- often at U.S. military checkpoints -- is taking a toll on the United States and its allies, as the shooting deaths of an Italian intelligence agent and a Bulgarian soldier highlight the terrifying reality of Iraqi roads.

But Iraqi civilians are getting tangled up in the violence as well, at an alarming rate.

[size=4]"They're just cowboys," Abdullah Mohammed said Monday of U.S. troops who killed his brother Feb. 28 in Ramadi.

Mohammed said his brother edged too close to an American patrol.

"They killed him without any reason, they suddenly shot at his car."

In a country where insurgents strike daily, there's no doubt some of the force is justified.

Weary of suicide car bombers, U.S. military vehicles in Iraq carry signs in Arabic warning civilians to keep a distance or risk "deadly force."

Similar warnings are affixed to fortified, tank-manned U.S. checkpoints around the capital.

But despite such warnings, Yarmouk hospital -- just one of several large medical facilities in Baghdad -- receives several casualties a day from these types of shootings, said Dr. Mohamed Salaheddin.

On Saturday, American soldiers fired on a civilian vehicle in Baghdad, killing a woman and wounding her husband, said Iqbal Sabban, a police officer.

But both sides are often to blame, she said.

"Soldiers carry signs asking people to stay away, but people are sometimes careless," Sabban said.

"The Americans are sometimes jittery and open fire at civilians just like that."

While shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians are so common they're rarely reported in the media, deaths of foreigners can grab headlines and increase pressure on America's allies to pull out.

On Friday night, U.S. troops raked a car with gunfire that was carrying Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad's international airport, wounding her and killing an Italian intelligence officer who'd just negotiated her release from insurgents.

The Bush administration described the shooting as a "horrific accident" that came after soldiers at a particularly dangerous checkpoint tried to motion to the speeding car to stop, thinking it may have been carrying suicide attackers.

The White House rejected Sgrena's claim that American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire and that soldiers may have targeted her car because the United States opposes Italy's policy of negotiating with kidnappers.

"It's absurd to make any such suggestion that our men and women in uniform would deliberately target innocent civilians," countered spokesman Scott McClellan.

He said the airport road "has been a place where suicide car bombers have launched attacks."

"It's been a place where (former Saddam Hussein) regime elements have fired upon coalition forces."

"It is a dangerous road, and it is a combat zone that our coalition forces are in."

"Oftentimes, they have to make split-second decisions to protect their own security."

Italian military officials said two other intelligence agents were wounded in the shooting; U.S. officials said it was only one.

Sgrena rejected the U.S. military's account of the shooting, claiming that American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire.

That same day, a Bulgarian soldier was shot to death with a machine gun.

Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said Monday that coalition forces likely shot the soldier by accident.

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov summoned the American ambassador, James Pardew, and complained about the lack of coordination among coalition troops.

And Svinarov insisted "the coalition partners undertake emergency measures to improve coordination."

In both Bulgaria and Italy, the deaths sparked debate over keeping troops in Iraq.

Bulgaria has a 460-member infantry battalion in Iraq; Italy has deployed about 3,000 soldiers.

A U.S. spokesman, Marine Sgt. Salju Thomas, said every incident in which there is a loss of life or injury would be investigated, at least those involving U.S. troops and civilians.

Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the rules of engagement at checkpoints in Iraq are built around the concept of "escalation of force."

Soldiers are taught to warn a potentially threatening vehicle before shooting at it.

Soldiers who shoot at vehicles are told to try to disable it by hitting the engine block, he said.

But routine guard duty can turn into deadly combat with lightning speed, and soldiers often must make split-second decisions.

Venable said the rules are "a guide to help our soldiers bear the responsibility of pulling the trigger or not."

Asked if rules of engagement changed after the Italian agent was killed, Thomas said:

"I can't discuss rules of engagement for operational security."

"But we're constantly evaluating our procedures."

In Rome, Italy paid homage Monday to the intelligence officer killed while escorting Sgrena to freedom, with a state funeral in a Rome basilica drawing as many as 20,000 mourners -- some bringing flowers, some waving flags -- and all of the country's top officials.

The killing of Nicola Calipari, 50, fueled anti-American sentiment in a country that was strongly opposed to war in Iraq, and prompted Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led military campaign, to demand that Washington provide a full explanation of the shooting in Baghdad.

The Santa Maria degli Angeli basilica -- originally designed by Michelangelo on the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian -- and the surrounding piazza were packed with mourners.

Berlusconi and U.S. Ambassador Mel Sembler were among dignitaries at the service.

ORIGINALLY POSTED Jul 29 2005, 06:53 PM

"Shots to the Heart of Iraq - Iraqi civilian deaths fueling hatred of U.S."

By Richard C. Paddock, LA Times Staff Writer

Mon Jul 25, 7:55 AM ET

BAGHDAD — Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit.

The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car.

At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass.

Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other.

The sedan's driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments.

The soldiers drove on without stopping.

This kind of shooting is far from rare in Baghdad, but the driver of the car was no ordinary casualty.

He was Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit.

His passengers were unarmed hitchhikers whom he was dropping off on his way to work.

"The reason they shot us is just because the Americans are reckless," the general said from his hospital bed hours after the July 6 shooting, his head wrapped in a white bandage.

"Nobody punishes them or blames them."

Angered by the growing number of unarmed civilians killed by American troops in recent weeks, the Iraqi government criticized the shootings and called on U.S. troops to exercise greater care.

U.S. officials have repeatedly declined requests to disclose the number of civilians killed in such incidents.

Police in Baghdad say they have received reports that U.S. forces killed 33 unarmed civilians and injured 45 in the capital between May 1 and July 12 — an average of nearly one fatality every two days.

This does not include incidents that occurred elsewhere in the country or were not reported to the police.

The continued shooting of civilians is fueling a growing dislike of the United States and undermining efforts to convince the public that American soldiers are here to help.

The victims have included doctors, journalists, a professor — the kind of people the U.S. is counting on to help build an open and democratic society.

"Of course the shootings will increase support for the opposition," said Farraji, 49, who was named a police general with U.S. approval.

"The hatred of the Americans has increased."

"I myself hate them."

Among the biggest threats U.S. forces face are suicide attacks.

Soldiers are exposed as they stand watch at checkpoints or ride on patrol in the turrets of their Humvees.

The willingness of the assailants to die makes the attacks difficult to guard against.

By their nature, the bombings erode the troops' trust of the public; every civilian becomes suspect.

U.S. military officials say the troops must protect themselves by shooting the driver of any suspicious vehicle before it reaches them.

Heavily armed private security contractors, who number in the tens of thousands, also are authorized by the U.S. government to use deadly force to protect themselves.

One contractor who works for the U.S. government and saw a colleague killed in a suicide bombing said it was better to shoot an innocent person than to risk being killed.

"I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by six," said the contractor, who insisted that he not be identified by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The U.S. military says it investigates all shootings by American personnel that result in death.

But U.S. Brig. Gen. Don Alston, spokesman for the multinational force in Iraq, said he was unaware of any soldier disciplined for shooting a civilian at a checkpoint or in traffic.

Findings are seldom made public.

A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "making no new enemies" was one of the military's priorities.

At the same time, he said, "it's still a combat zone."

"There are going to be times when what the soldier needs to do and what the civilian feels he should be able to do come into conflict."

On June 27, the day he turned 49, Salah Jmor arrived in Baghdad to visit his family.

His father, Abdul-Rihman Jmor, is the chief of a Kurdish clan that numbers more than 20,000.

Salah had left Iraq 25 years ago for Switzerland, where he earned a doctorate in international relations and eventually became a Swiss citizen.

For a decade, he represented Iraqi Kurds at the United Nations Office at Geneva.

In 1988, he helped call the world's attention to Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons on Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja and the massacre of at least 100,000 Kurds in what is known as the Anfal campaign.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Salah Jmor was offered a post in the new Iraqi government.

But he turned it down, preferring to remain in Geneva, where he was an associate professor at the Center for International and Comparative Programs of Kent State University of Ohio.

The morning after he arrived in Baghdad, he decided to go with his younger brother, architect Abdul-Jabbar Jmor, to his office.

Abdul-Jabbar, 38, drove his Opel hatchback down the eight-lane Mohammed Qasim highway through central Baghdad.

It was 9:30 a.m. and many vehicles were on the road.

The Opel hatchback is a model favored by insurgents.

The brothers were in the fast lane as a U.S. military convoy of three Humvees was entering the highway from the Gailani onramp.

Neither of them saw the soldiers, Abdul-Jabbar said.

Abruptly, Salah slumped over into his brother's lap.

Abdul-Jabbar asked what was wrong and then saw blood pouring from Salah's head.

There was a single bullet hole in the windshield.

He saw the convoy moving ahead as he pulled over to the side of the road.

He said he had seen no signal to slow down and heard no warning shot.

The soldiers turned around and came back a few minutes later.

One said he was sorry, Abdul-Jabbar said.

Together they waited more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive.

"I asked them, 'Why didn't you shoot me?"

"I am the driver,'" Abdul-Jabbar recalled.

"But they didn't answer me."

Abdul-Jabbar said he and his family had supported the U.S. troops when they first invaded Iraq, but no longer.

"This kind of incident makes people hate the Americans more and more," he said.

"They don't care about the lives of the people."

"Each day they make new enemies."

Switzerland has requested an explanation of Jmor's killing.

In Washington, the State Department said the United States had sent its condolences to the Swiss government and Jmor's family and that the Pentagon had begun an investigation.

In Baghdad, Abdul-Jabbar said the family had met with the Swiss ambassador but had received no expression of condolences from the U.S. government.

No U.S. investigator has contacted the family, he added.

There is a strong tradition of revenge in Iraq's tribal culture.

The killing of such a prominent clan member could have triggered a bloodbath that would claim 200 lives, said the patriarch, Abdul-Rihman.

But the Jmors, a well-educated family of doctors and engineers, say they want the judicial process to hold Salah's killer accountable.

"People say if they kill my brother, I have to kill one of them," Abdul-Jabbar said.

"But I believe in justice."

"I can't just go kill them."

"The United States says it is the leader of justice in the world."

"Let us see that."

In Iraq, the U.S. military has redefined the rules of the road.

Military checkpoints — elaborate affairs with mazes of concrete barriers, razor wire and snipers' nests — have been set up at intersections all over Baghdad.

Signs are posted in English and Arabic saying "Deadly Force Authorized."

Cars that approach too quickly risk being fired upon by troops who shoot to kill.

At times, troops set up temporary checkpoints during raids or other military operations.

These can be even more dangerous for civilians because they can appear on city streets without warning.

Military convoys, usually made up of three Humvees, patrol the streets.

In each vehicle, a gunner stands with his upper body partially exposed and ready to operate a machine gun mounted on the roof.

For troops, it is among the most hazardous places to be in Iraq.

The military expects all vehicles to stay at least 100 yards from a convoy.

When cars come too close, troops signal them to move back, sometimes by waving a little stop sign and sometimes by holding up a clenched fist.

Some Iraqis say the fist can be easy to miss.

It also can be confusing for motorists in Iraq, where the normal signal for stop is an upraised open hand, as it is in the United States.

On the highway, traffic normally bunches up well behind the American Hummers.

But keeping the required distance from a convoy can be difficult when the military vehicles unexpectedly change course or merge onto a highway.

The U.S. rules of engagement call for "escalation of force" when a vehicle comes too close.

Soldiers are trained to give hand and arm signals first, then fire warning shots and ultimately shoot to kill, the senior U.S. official said.

"Nothing in the rules of engagement takes away the right of self-defense for him and his buddies if the soldier feels threatened," he said.

More than 1,770 U.S. troops have died in the Iraq theater since the March 2003 invasion.

Despite the rising number of civilian deaths, the official said escalation-of-force incidents had fallen by half in the past four months.

He declined to provide specific figures.

According to one European diplomat, the American military's emphasis on protecting its troops has made U.S. soldiers more likely to kill and injure civilians than are other members of the coalition, such as the British, who are stationed in southern Iraq.

"The U.S. has force protection as their No. 1 priority," said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified because his remarks did not have his government's prior approval.

"The British have it as a priority, but not by any stretch the absolute priority."

"I think that makes the U.S. soldiers more jumpy."

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the transitional National Assembly, said he personally knew three people, including Salah Jmor, who had been shot and killed by U.S. troops during traffic incidents.

Of the other two, one was an athlete, the other a doctor who had been called to her hospital to handle an emergency.

"I understand American soldiers are nervous."

"It's very dangerous," said Othman, who was a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council that helped run Iraq after the invasion.

"But the killings are undermining support for the U.S. government."

"It has helped people who call themselves the opposition."

"It has helped terrorism."

A recent case highlighted by the Iraqi government in its criticism of the U.S. was the June 24 killing of Yasser Salihee, 30, an Iraqi special correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers.

Salihee, a physician, had taken a rare day off and planned to take his wife and daughter swimming.

He went to get gasoline and was returning home at midmorning.

By then, U.S. troops were conducting a military operation in his neighborhood.

It appears he did not see them until it was too late.

The route he chose was not blocked off and there was no sign warning motorists to halt, witnesses say.

As he neared the scene of the military operation, a U.S. Army sniper fired at his car.

One bullet hit a tire.

The other hit Salihee in the forehead.

That bullet also severed fingers on his right hand, indicating he was holding up at least one of his hands at the time he was killed.

U.S. officials are investigating the shooting.

Salihee's widow, Raghad al Wazzan, said she accepted the American soldiers' presence when they first arrived in Iraq because "they came and liberated us."

She sometimes helped them at the hospital where she works as a doctor.

But not anymore.

"Now, after they killed my husband, I hate them," she said.

"I want to blow them all up."

Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and Paul Richter in Washington and special correspondent Asmaa Waguih in Baghdad contributed to this report.

end quotes

I wonder if George W. Bush and "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice will have her killed too .....

As part of their "FINAL SOLUTION" for IRAQINAM .....

Where these soldiers killing these civilians ....

Including women and children ....

Are doing just what CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS General Peter Pace wants them to do ....

And so .....

In OUR America .....

BY IMPERIAL DECREE OF THE GOD EMPORER ...

GEORGE THE EXCEEDINGLY MALODOROUS .....

NO CHILD, IN FACT, WILL BE LEFT BEHIND .....

And in the "America" of the GOD EMPORER GEORGE ....

There is no justice .....

So ....

Given that ....

It would be very difficult for the "America" of the GOD EMPORER ....

To be any kind of world leader in that regard ....

And so ....

ATTENTION, AMERICA ...

Do you know where your kids are today?

And what it is that they are putting in their mouths?

"More antipsychotics being prescribed for children"

By Karla Gale

Tue Jun 6, 9:53 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The prescription of antipsychotic medications for children and adolescents in the US increased nearly 6-fold between 1993 and 2002, according to survey results.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved only three antipsychotic drugs - haloperidol, thioridazine hydrochloride and pimozide -- for use in patients younger than 18 years, but most of the prescriptions written were for newer medications.

"What was most striking is that nearly one in five -- 18 percent -- of visits to psychiatrists by young people resulted in their being prescribed an antipsychotic medication," lead investigator Dr. Mark Olfson told Reuters Health.

Interest in this issue followed "earlier studies that reported significant increases in the use of antipsychotics by young people within the Medicaid population," the researcher added.

"We wanted to find out if this was a general trend that more broadly affects the mental health care of youths in the US."

Olfson, from Columbia University in New York City, and his associates therefore evaluated data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.

Their findings appear in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The data indicate that "there is a gap between what has been learned in carefully controlled studies and what is actually occurring in practice," the researcher noted.

Approximately 90 percent of antipsychotics prescribed were for the second-generation drugs -- clozapine, risperidone, olanzapine, and quetiapine.

None of these drugs are approved for treating adolescents or children.

The researchers note that these drugs were prescribed primarily for disruptive behavior disorders (37.8 percent), mood disorders (31.8 percent), or pervasive developmental disorders or mental retardation (17.3 percent).

Only 14.2 percent were prescribed for psychotic disorders.

"It is my guess," Olfson said, that the "water cooler effect," in which "physicians learn from one another informally" during discussions or attendance at professional meetings, "has probably contributed to the dissemination of these kinds of prescribing practices."

A major concern, Olfson said "is that we don't know enough about the metabolic effects of newer antipsychotics, particularly the long-term effects in young people."

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, June 2006.

"Rumsfeld Painting Expected to Be a Hit in Baghdad"

By HAMZA HENDAWI, AP

BAGHDAD, Iraq (June 7) - Muayad Muhsin was both inspired and enraged by a photo of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld slumped on a seat with his army boots up in front of him.

"It symbolized America's soulless might and arrogance," said Muhsin, whose similar painting of Rumsfeld will be unveiled in an exhibition opening in Baghdad on Monday.

The painting, expected to be the show's main attraction, and the rest of the exhibit illustrate the simmering anger of Iraqis with the United States as the country continues to endure violence, sectarian tensions and crime three years after Saddam Hussein's ouster.

Muhsin's Rumsfeld painting is not the first artistic expression by Iraqis of the perceived injustices by the United States in their country, but it is the first to depict a top member of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

After Bush, most Iraqis see Rumsfeld as the man behind the invasion of their oil-rich country and the chief architect of U.S. military actions in Iraq.

Those who closely follow him remember his infamous comment - "Stuff happens" - when asked why U.S. troops did not actively seek to stop the lawlessness in the Iraqi capital in the weeks that followed their capture of the city in April 2003.

Another memorable Rumsfeld comment, also made in 2003, was his suggestion that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction were deeply hidden in Iraq.

"It's a big country," he said.

Muhsin first saw the Rumsfeld photo about 18 months ago.

He went to work right away, but did not finish the painting - entitled "Picnic" - until about two weeks ago.

The oil-on-canvas, 5-by-3-foot work shows Rumsfeld in a blue jacket, tie, khaki pants and army boots reading from briefing papers.

His boots are resting on what appears to be an ancient stone.

While Rumsfeld's image is true to life, he sits next to a partially damaged statue of a lion standing over a human - a traditional image of strength during the ancient Babylon civilization.

The statue's stone base is ripped open, revealing shelves from which white piece of papers are flying away, later turning into birds soaring high into an ominously gray sky.

Muhsin said the symbolism has to do with Washington's repeated assertions in the months before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that Saddam's regime had weapons of mass destruction, the cornerstone in the Bush administration's argument for going to war.

No such weapons turned up, but the Bush administration maintained that removing Saddam's regime alone justified the decision to invade Iraq.

"They did not find the weapons and, instead, found the annals of an ancient civilization that turned into birds of love, peace and knowledge," said Muhsin, himself a native of the area around the central Iraqi city of Babil, or Babylon, south of Baghdad.

"Rumsfeld's boots deliver a message from America: 'We rule the world,"' Muhsin, 41, told The Associated Press in an interview.

"It speaks of America's total indifference to what the rest of the world thinks."

Muhsin said he signed the painting in the middle, instead of the customary bottom corner, to avoid having it under Rumsfeld's boots.

Muhsin's works borrow heavily from Iraq's ancient history.

Images of historical ruins and other ancient landmarks are often depicted in the background.

His human subjects, like those in most of the 15 paintings to be exhibited, often cut tormented figures.

The central subject of his "Execution Plaza," another attraction in the exhibition, is a slender woman in a red dress, blindfolded and standing barefoot on dry ground.

In the background is a twilight sky dotted with clouds and a distant mosque minaret.

Muhsin's opposition to the U.S. military presence in Iraq is matched by his resentment of Saddam's regime.

A veteran of Iraq's ruinous 1980-1988 war against neighboring Iran, he was discharged for just a day in 1990 before he was called back for duty when Iraq occupied Kuwait.

"Saddam took the best years of my life," he lamented, speaking outside a storeroom where he keeps four of the 15 paintings scheduled for display.

The departure of Saddam's regime did not improve things, he said.

"The Americans brought us rosy dreams but left us with nightmares, they came with a broad smile but gave us beheaded bodies and booby-trapped car."

end quotes

And while I respect your right to say each and every word of what you have said ...

The only thing that I would say in return ...

AS AN AMERICAN ....

IS PLEASE ....

Do not say that the AMERICANS brought these things to you ...

FOR WE DID NOT ....

That was George W. Bush ...

And his crowd ....

Which is not America at all ....

But something obscene, instead ...

And malevolent, as well ...

And so ...

And speaking of malevolence ....

"Probe of CIA prisons implicates EU nations"

By JAN SLIVA, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:57 p.m., Wednesday, June 7, 2006

PARIS -- Fourteen European nations colluded with U.S. intelligence in a "spider's web" of human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities, a European investigator said Wednesday.

Swiss senator Dick Marty's report to Europe's top human rights body was thin on evidence but raises the possibility of a cover-up involving both friends and critics of Washington's war on terror.

It says European governments "did not seem particularly eager to establish" the facts.

The 67-page report, addressed to the 46 Council of Europe member states, will likely be used by the rights watchdog to pressure countries to investigate their suspected role in U.S. rendition flights carrying terror suspects.

Marty's claims triggered a wave of angry denials but also accusations that governments are stonewalling attempts to confront Europe's role in the flights.

"This report exposes the myth that European governments had no knowledge of, or involvement in, rendition and secret detentions," said lawmaker Michael Moore, foreign affairs spokesman for Britain's second opposition party, the Liberal Democrats.

In the strongest allegations so far, Marty said evidence suggests planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there, backing up earlier news reports that identified the two countries as possible sites of clandestine detention centers.

Officials in Romania and Poland vigorously denied the accusations.

"This is slander and it's not based on any facts," Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Poland's prime minister, told reporters in Warsaw.

But Filip Ilkowski, leader of Poland's "Stop War" movement protesting the Iraq war, said the Polish government was trying to thwart European Union investigators.

"It is hard to say whether prisoners were dropped off here, but from what we know, U.S. planes landed in Poland outside the official channels."

"The government has done nothing to clarify the matter, it is doing everything to cover it up," Ilkowski said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair also denied the collusion allegations and said Marty's report contained no new evidence.

"I have to say, the Council of Europe report has absolutely nothing new in it," he told lawmakers.

There was no immediate U.S. reaction.

Marty, investigating the flights since November, said the 14 European nations -- along with some other countries including Iraq, Morocco and Afghanistan -- aided the movement of at least 17 detainees who said they had been abducted by U.S. agents and secretly transferred to detention centers around the world.

Some former detainees said they were transferred to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and others to alleged secret facilities in countries including Egypt and Jordan.

Some said they were mistreated or tortured.

"I have chosen to adopt the metaphor of a global spider's web, a web that has been spun out incrementally over several years using tactics and techniques that had to be developed in response to new threats of war," Marty said.

In his investigation, Marty -- a former prosecutor -- relied mostly on flight logs provided by the European Union's air traffic agency, Eurocontrol, witness statements gathered from people who said they had been abducted by U.S. intelligence agents, and judicial and parliamentary inquiries in various countries.

He concluded that several countries let the CIA abduct their residents, while others allowed the agency to use their airspace or turned a blind eye to questionable foreign intelligence activities on their territory.

"European governments simply agreed not to want to see," Marty told journalists.

He listed 14 European countries -- Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Romania and Poland -- as being complicit in "unlawful interstate transfers" of people.

Some, including Sweden and Bosnia, already have acknowledged some involvement.

Marty put airports in Timisoara, Romania, and Szymany, Poland, in a "detainee transfer/drop-off point" category, together with eight airports outside Europe.

He said one plane arrived in Timisoara from Kabul, Afghanistan, on the night of Jan. 25, 2004, after picking up Khaled El-Masri, a German who said he had been abducted by foreign intelligence agents in Skopje, Macedonia, and taken to the Afghan capital.

The investigator said the plane stayed in Timisoara for 72 minutes before leaving for Spain.

"The most likely hypothesis of the purpose of this flight was to transport one or several detainees from Kabul to Romania," Marty said in the report, without elaborating.

But Dan Andrei, the head of Romania's Civil Aeronautic Agency, denied that the CIA operated the plane.

"The plane did not drop off or pick up any passengers and declared five passengers on board."

"We don't have any evidence that it was a CIA plane," he said.

Marty said he believed the Szymany airport in northeastern Poland was also used for a rendition flight in September 2003.

A parallel investigation by the European Parliament has said data show there have been more than 1,000 clandestine CIA flights stopping on European territory since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Officials said it was not clear if or how many detainees were on board.

"We're definitely not talking about hundreds of detainees, it likely is a much smaller number," Marty said.

Allegations that CIA agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers, including compounds in eastern Europe, were first reported in November by The Washington Post.

Clandestine prisons and secret flights via or from Europe to countries where suspects could face torture would breach the continent's human rights treaties, including the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Council of Europe has no power to punish countries for breaching the treaty other than terminating their membership in the organization.

Based on irrefutable evidence, the European Union might be able to suspend the voting rights of a country found to have breached the convention.

Well ....

First they didn't say anything ...

The BUSHCOS, that is ....

But now ...

Well ....

Now, they're saying plenty ....

The BUSHCOS, that is ....

But of course, these days ....

After all the lies ....

WHO BELIEVES A SINGLE WORD A BUSHCO SAYS ....

And so ....

"US blasts Council of Europe report on secret CIA flights"

1 hour, 43 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States criticized a Council of Europe report on secret CIA flights for "war on terror" suspects, dismissing it as heavy on charges but thin on hard facts.

"We're certainly disappointed in the tone and the content of it," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told a press briefing.

"This would appear to be a rehash of the previous efforts by this group."

"I don't see any new solid facts in it."

"There seem to be a lot of allegations but no real facts behind it."

According to the report, 14 European countries colluded in or tolerated the secret transfer of terrorist suspects by the United States, and two of them -- Poland and Romania -- may have harboured CIA detention centers.

Drawn up by Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty, the report identified a "spider's web" of landing points around the world used by the US authorities for the practice of "extraordinary rendition" -- the undercover transfer of security suspects to third countries or US-run detention centres.

"It is now clear -- although we are still far from establishing the whole truth -- that authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities."

"Other countries ignored them knowingly, or did not want to know," the report said.

McCormack said that renditions "are an internationally recognized legal practice.

"(Venezuelan terrorist) Carlos the Jackal wouldn't be in jail today without the practice of rendition."

McCormack also decried the "tone in the report and some of the discussion that there's something inherently bad or illegal about intelligence activities."

Intelligence cooperation "between the United States and Europe and between the United States and other countries around the world saves lives in the war on terror," he said.

The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, which is a separate body from the European Union, was set up after World War II to promote democracy and human rights across the continent.

It has 46 member states.

And what about Tony Blair, then, says a reader ....

What's he up to ...

Besides denials ....

And so ..

Let's go see ....

"Brown will replace Blair 'well before' election: Straw"

1 hour, 37 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair will quit and hand over to Gordon Brown "well before" the next general election in 2009 or 2010, Leader of the Commons Jack Straw said in an interview to be published Thursday.

"Everybody knows that Tony will go, go well before the next election; that unless something astonishing happens, that I'm not anticipating, that Gordon is his successor," Straw told the Spectator magazine.

Straw, who was moved from the Foreign Office in last month's Cabinet reshuffle, said he would be "astonished" if Brown was not elected unopposed by the party when Blair stands down.

"I think there'll be one candidate."

"And I think that'll be a great relief to people."

"Because if there is one obvious candidate, why on earth spend so much time and money, let me say, in the party having an unnecessary contest?" he said.

Blair has said previously that he intends to step down before the next election but he has not set a date.

Straw also confirmed his interest in taking over from John Prescott, who is under intense pressure to resign, as deputy prime minister.

Several other candidates have also thrown their hat into the ring.

This morning ...

On the radio ....

I heard it said ...

That one of George W. Bush's .....

Many or innumerable enemies ....

On the face of this earth ...

Had been killed ...

By an American bomb ....

And so ...

Who really knows if this happened ...

And as for me ...

Quite frankly ...

I AM DAMN SICK AND TIRED ...

OF HEARING DAILY ...

ABOUT EVERYBODY THAT GEORGE W. BUSH HAS KILLED ...

OR ELSE ...

ABOUT THE REST ...

THE ONES THAT GEORGE W. BUSH WANTS TO KILL ...

BUT HASN'T YET DONE SO ....

That in some ways ...

Although I abhor the taking of a human life ...

Especially by the cowardly means ....

Of dropping massive bombs ....

From a distance ....

I am somewhat glad that this Abu Rabu Zimbuku ....

Or whoever the Hell else he might have been ...

Is finally gone .....

So that maybe ...

Finally ....

George W. Bush ..

Will finally run out of enemies ....

So that we can get some peace back ...

In OUR lives ...

Those of us who don't have enemies, anyway ....

Because we have outgrown the need for such childish notions ....

And so ....

Although that is quite doubtful, really ....

That we are going to see peace in my remaining lifetime, anyway ....

Because George W. Bush has started way more than he is capable of finishing ....

And so ...

While I would hope that the death of this al-Hambra Zimbabwe ....

Or whoever the Hell he might have been ...

Will strike a blow ...

Towards getting back to some semblance of world peace .....

I just don't think this Bush ....

This immature boy that we are stuck with as president ....

Has that gear ....

In his gearbox ....

And so .....

Soon ...

There will be another Zarcoffee ....

Or whatever that guy's name really was ...

To be George W. Bush's next enemy ...

Because George W. Bush seems to have some kind of obsession with all these enemies ...

A need ...

A "JONES" ....

Like a barking dog ....

Just having this need to bark ...

That will keep him ....

Perpetually in motion ....

Like a shark .....

Looking for more and more "enemies" .....

That he can then ordered killed ...

And so ....

My fear ...

Or my belief .....

Whatever .....

Is that killing this Sambuku fellow .....

Will end exactly nothing .....

And that we are going to have years and years and years and years and years more ...

Of this daily BULL **** .....

That we have had to endure ...

Of who has been killed ...

Which is mostly women and children ....

And who has yet to be killed ...

Which is the men ...

Who are fighting back ...

Because George W. Bush ...

Is killing their wives, and sisters and mothers and grand-mothers, and children, and grand-children, and relatives .....

THIS DAILY CRAP ....

That we Americans have had to endure ...

Since this abomination named George W. Bush ...

Took over things ....

Here in OUR America ...

To OUR detriment ...

AS A PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH ...

WHO ARE NOT ALL A RAMPAGING BARBARIAN HOARDE ....

And so ....

"Poll: U.S. disapproves of war in Iraq"

Associated Press
Last updated: 4:25 p.m., Thursday, June 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq came as more Americans than ever thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, according to AP-Ipsos polling.

The poll, taken Monday through Wednesday before news broke that U.S. forces had killed al-Zarqawi, found that 59 percent of adults say the United States made a mistake in going to war in Iraq -- the highest level yet in AP-Ipsos polling.

Approval of President Bush's handling of Iraq dipped to 33 percent, a new low.

His overall job approval was 35 percent, statistically within range of his low of 33 percent last month.

The poll of 1,003 adults has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Among other findings:

--More than half, 54 percent, said it's unlikely that a stable, democratic government will be established in Iraq, a new high in AP-Ipsos polling.

The survey was completed before Iraq's parliament approved three key new government ministers.

Just 67 percent of Republicans, 63 percent of conservatives, and 57 percent of white evangelicals believed a stable, democratic government is likely.

--Only 68 percent of Republicans, 57 percent of white evangelicals and 51 percent of self-described conservatives -- key groups in Bush's base of support -- approved of his handling of Iraq.

Those most likely to disapprove are Democrats (89 percent), women (70 percent), minorities (84 percent), city dwellers (72 percent), those with household incomes under $25,000 (71 percent), and unmarried men (70 percent).

--Those most likely to believe the war in Iraq was a mistake are Democrats (84 percent), women (63 percent), especially suburban women (67 percent), minorities (76 percent), city dwellers (66 percent), self-described liberals (82 percent), moderates (64 percent), and Catholics (62 percent).

------

AP Polling Director Mike Mokrzycki, AP Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this story.

"Bush: al-Zarqawi death won't end violence"

By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:46 p.m., Thursday, June 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush hailed the killing of "the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq" but said Thursday it wouldn't stop the violence there or bring a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Officials were on the watch for possible retaliation in this country, while Bush laid plans for an Iraq strategy meeting with advisers early next week.

Confidence in the president's handling of Iraq was at its lowest point ever, according to an AP-Ipsos poll taken before the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was announced.

An Air Force F-16 dropped precision-guided bombs on an al-Qaida safe house north of Baghdad, killing al-Zarqawi and several others, the U.S. said.

Special operations forces had tracked an al-Zarqawi adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, who unwittingly led U.S. forces to the building.

"Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues," a grim-faced Bush said during an early morning Rose Garden appearance.

"We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him."

The United States has about 133,000 troops in Iraq more than three years into an increasingly unpopular war.

The AP-Ipsos poll this week, before word of the killing, showed more Americans than ever thought the war in Iraq was a mistake.

Al-Zarqawi was one of the few identifiable enemies in the war, which has changed from a conventional military confrontation to a campaign to counter guerrilla-style insurgent attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians.

The Jordanian-born terrorist is believed to have personally beheaded two U.S. hostages in Iraq, and he claimed responsibility for attacks in and out of the country that killed many more.

"The ideology of terror has lost its most visible, aggressive leader," Bush said, calling al-Zarqawi the most wanted terrorist in Iraq and the "operational commander of the terrorist movement" there.

The war has not seen the downfall of such an iconic figure since late 2003 when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured.

Shortly afterward, Iraq's new prime minister announced long-delayed political appointments that Washington hopes will help inspire confidence and gradually sap the Sunni Arab-driven insurgency of popular support.

Bush planned to convene his defense and foreign policy advisers at Camp David next week for a two-day strategy session.

There also will be a teleconference discussion with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and members of the Iraqi Cabinet.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said al-Zarqawi's death "will not mean the end of all violence in that country."

"Over the past several years, no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands," Rumsfeld said at a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels, Belgium.

Bush learned of the killing Wednesday afternoon during an Oval Office meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, said spokesman Tony Snow.

Bush discussed the events by phone Thursday with al-Maliki and also with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Britain has been the Bush administration's staunchest ally in Iraq, with about 8,000 troops on the ground.

The AP-Ipsos poll found that 59 percent of adults say the United States made a mistake in going to war in Iraq -- the highest level yet.

Approval of Bush's handling of Iraq dipped to 33 percent, a new low.

Only 68 percent of Republicans, 57 percent of white evangelicals and 51 percent of self-described conservatives -- key groups in Bush's base of support -- approved of his handling of Iraq.

A U.S. counterterrorism official predicted little disruption to al-Qaida activities because of the decentralized nature of the terror group, but also said the charismatic al-Zarqawi would not be an easy figure to replace.

Al-Zarqawi provided guidance and strategy for insurgent attacks, was an able fundraiser and maintained a long list of foreign contacts far beyond Iraq, the official said.

Without al-Zarqawi, the official said, it is unclear how well his organization will be able to launch attacks outside Iraq such as a hotel bombing last year in Amman, Jordan, that killed guests at a Palestinian wedding.

A U.S. defense intelligence official warned that there could be retaliatory attacks in the United States or elsewhere.

Both officials requested anonymity because events were still unfolding.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department was watching for signs of retaliation or other threats to the United States.

But he indicated there were no immediate plans to step up domestic security measures.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said al-Zarqawi's death "reinforces our view that American forces will hunt down and destroy terrorists where they hide. "

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who was his party's nominee for president in 2004, said the killing, coupled with the political events in Iraq, should speed the U.S. exit.

"Its time to work with the new Iraqi government to bring our combat troops home by the end of this year," said Kerry, who supported the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

And it seems ...

That you cannot say the name of George W. Bush ....

Whether at home ...

Or abroad ....

Without that name being associated with violence ....

And the continued degradation ...

Of OUR standard of living ...

Here in OUR America ....

Which George W. Bush ...

Is turning violent ...

Just as he has done in Iraq ....

And so ....

"Cities struggling with increased violence"

By SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press Writer

Thu Jun 8, 1:58 PM ET

HARTFORD, Conn. - A man who refused to give up his gold and diamond chain.

Two teenagers hanging out on a front porch.

Four family members in front of their house planning a cookout.

They were among 20 people shot, three fatally, in Connecticut's capital since May 24 in a surge of seemingly senseless violence that has clergy and state lawmakers calling for a cease-fire and state troopers preparing to walk the beat.

Hartford and some other cities around the country are seeing a disturbing rise in shootings — many of them prompted not by drugs or money, but by petty squabbles and perceived slights.

Young people are drawing guns over respect, turf and relationships.

Much of the bloodshed is attributed to 12- to 16-year-olds "settling beefs, dirty looks and somebody looking at somebody else's girlfriend," said Albert DiChiara, director of the University of Hartford's criminal justice program.

"I'm anticipating a very, very bad summer," he said.

Summer violence is not unusual in Hartford, a city of 125,000 that is a pocket of poverty in the nation's second-wealthiest state.

But residents say this year is different because so many people have been shot in such a short time.

From Jan. 1 to May 27, the most recent figures available, police reported 83 shootings, up 25 percent from the same period last year.

Those killed include Kerry Foster Jr., 15, described as a good kid with perfect school attendance who tried to stay away from the turf wars roiling his neighborhood.

He and a 14-year-old friend were hit by shots from a passing car as they stood on Foster's front porch.

"I'm fretting these numbers because one of these days, it could be coming to your door," said Sam Saylor, a father of two teenagers.

"I'm feeling helpless, and when men feel helpless, they go to drastic measures."

DiChiara, who is part of a federally-funded project that works to keep the peace in the two Hartford neighborhoods where most of the shootings have occurred, said this year's violence is the worst since he arrived in the city 16 years ago.

He said the gang wars of the early 1990s were easier to deal with because they involved organized factions that could be reasoned with.

Across the country, cities have reported recent increases in violence after years of declining national crime rates.

In Little Rock, Ark., there have been 33 homicides so far this year, slightly ahead of the pace of 1993, when gang violence caused a sharp increase.

Sgt. Terry Hastings said most of the killings this year were prompted by drugs or soured relationships.

"We can't figure out why suddenly you're talking and then you start shooting," he said.

"How, as a law enforcement agency, do you deal with that?"

Philadelphia's homicide toll is running about even with last year's count, when a total of 380 people were killed, the most since 1997.

In San Francisco, the number of killings is running at a 10-year high.

And in Jacksonville, Fla., there have been at least 64 homicides this year, compared with 36 this time last year.

In Hartford, where clergy and lawmakers have asked for a 60-day cease-fire, the plan is to create teams of adults to visit high schools and teen centers to talk with young people and their families.

Teams of mental health workers will also be sent out into the community to talk about anger management and available mental health services.

"We're here to listen to you."

"This is not the police coming," said state Rep. Kenneth Green of Hartford.

"We want to begin to engage you in how to solve this problem."

For the fourth summer in a row, uniformed state troopers and plainclothes officers will be dispatched to help city police patrol neighborhoods.

Federal agents will also help out.

Despite the increased police presence, many parents are keeping their children inside.

Saylor said he is willing to submit to random traffic stops by police or other measures that could help stop the gunfire.

"I'm willing to give up some civil liberties if it means saving one kid's life," he said last week.

"There's a sense of a complete absence of law right now, and I'm not ashamed to say I'm scared to death."
___

Associated Press Writer Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

end quotes

There is more than a sense of a complete absence of law here in OUR America ..........

There is a complete absence of law ...

Because the man at the very top ....

George W. Bush, that being ....

Has made it incandescently clear ....

To all the candid world ....

That to him ...

The "law" ain't worth doodly-squat ....

And so ....

With that kind of example being set by the leader ....

Who is surprised by the results, when they happen?

And so ....

A "PUSH" for DEMOCRACY ....

IS NOT DEMOCRACY ....

And the PROMISE OF LIBERTY, of course ...

IS NOT LIBERTY ...

To the contrary ....

IT IS A STATE OF SLAVERY ....

With an implied promise of liberation ...

BY THE MASTER ...

At some future point in time ...

And so ....

"Iraq orders driving ban to prevent attacks"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

27 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's prime minister imposed a daytime driving ban in Baghdad and in the province where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by American bombs, fearing insurgents will seek to avenge the death of the al-Qaida in Iraq leader.

As Iraqi and U.S. leaders cautioned that al-Zarqawi's death was not likely to end the bloodshed in Iraq, an American general said another foreign-born militant was already poised to take over the terror network's operations.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Egyptian-born Abu al-Masri would likely take the reins of al-Qaida in Iraq.

He said al-Masri trained in Afghanistan and arrived in Iraq in 2002 to establish an al-Qaida cell.

Al-Masri, whose name is an obvious alias meaning "father of the Egyptian," is believed to be an expert at constructing roadside bombs, the leading cause of U.S. military casualties in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi, who was born in Jordan, was killed in a U.S. airstrike Wednesday near Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, which is in the heartland of the Sunni-led insurgency and has seen a recent rise in sectarian violence.

Baqouba is 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The vehicle ban will be in effect from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday in Baghdad and from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for three days starting Friday in Diyala, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Adnan Abdul Rahman said.

The ban falls during the times that most Iraqis go to mosques for Friday prayers.

Bombers have been known to target Shiite mosques during the weekly religious services with suicide attackers and mortars hidden in vehicles.

Iraqi authorities imposed the vehicle ban as a security measure "to protect mosques and prayers from any possible terrorist attacks, especially car bombs, in the wake off yesterday's event," a government official said, referring to al-Zarqawi's death.

The official from the prime minister's office spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media.

The U.S. military displayed images of the battered face of al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most feared terrorist, and said he had been identified by fingerprints, tattoos and scars.

Biological samples from his body also were delivered to an FBI crime laboratory in Virginia for DNA testing.

The results were expected in three days.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also hailed a breakthrough on the political front Thursday, gaining approval from the Iraqi parliament for three key security ministers in a move that ended a three-week stalemate among Iraq's fractured ethnic and sectarian groups.

The new Iraqi Defense Minister Gen. Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim al-Mifarji, a Sunni Arab, promised to work with the other security forces to stop the violence in the country.

"I will cooperate completely with the other security forces, the interior ministry, the national security, the intelligence service," he said Thursday at a handover ceremony.

"We have to be one team with the multinational forces to achieve victory against terrorism."

Members of that formerly dominant minority are the backbone of the insurgency, and many people feel it is crucial to have Sunnis deeply involved in the new government to weaken support for the guerrillas.

Sunni Arabs also have complained of random detentions and maltreatment at the hands of the Shiite-dominated interior ministry, which oversees the police.

The defense ministry controls the army.

The other two new ministers came from the Shiite majority — Jawad al-Bolani as interior minister and Sherwan al-Waili as minister of state for national security.

The two breakthroughs on Thursday may give the United States and its Iraqi allies another brief chance to build momentum toward stability and away from violence.

With al-Zarqawi out of the way and the new government in place, some Sunni Arab leaders may be emboldened to resume a dialogue they started last fall — exchanges sunk by al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq.

If another effort is made, much will depend on the Iraqi government's ability to live up to its promises to build a political system that includes all groups, including disaffected Sunnis.

More than a dozen Sunni Arab insurgent groups are believed to be operating in Iraq, and a few use tactics just as ruthless as al-Zarqawi's.

President Bush and U.S. military leaders cautioned that the death of the 39-year-old militant was not likely to end the bloodshed — just as the capture of Saddam Hussein and the killings of his two sons failed to dampen the insurgency.

A rash of bombings that killed nearly 40 people in Baghdad on Thursday confirmed that assessment.

Five civilians were killed and three were wounded Friday during a firefight in the area of Ghalibiya, west of Baqouba, according to the regional authorities.

The circumstances of the firefight, which demolished five houses, were unclear.

Elsewhere, the torso of a man wearing a military uniform was found floating in a river Friday morning near Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, morgue official Hadi al-Ettabi said.

Police also found five unidentified bodies late Thursday of men who had been shot in the head in eastern Baghdad.

And gunmen opened fire on Friday's funeral procession for the brother of the governor of the northern city of Mosul.

Zuhair Kashmola was killed by gunmen on Thursday.

Meanwhile, an Australian security guard was identified as one of four victims in a roadside bombing in northern Iraq on Thursday.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the 34-year-old man, whose name was not released, was guarding a vehicle convoy at the time of the attack, which occurred about 190 miles north of Baghdad.

Further details of the attack were not immediately available.

Al-Zarqawi, who had a $25 million bounty on his head, was killed at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday after an intense two-week hunt that U.S. officials said first led to the terror leader's spiritual adviser and then to him.

U.S. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the American airstrike targeted "an identified, isolated safe house."

Four other people, including a woman and a child, were killed with al-Zarqawi and Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, the terrorist's spiritual consultant.

Al-Qaida confirmed al-Zarqawi's death in a statement and vowed to continue its "holy war."

Curiously, the announcement was signed by al-Iraqi, who was identified as deputy "emir" of the group, perhaps in an attempt to spread confusion.

Caldwell said the U.S. military had discussed the succession question with the Iraqi government even before al-Zarqawi was killed.

Al-Maliki said Thursday that it made no real difference.

"Whenever there is a new Zarqawi, we will kill him," he told reporters.
___

Associated Press writers Patrick Quinn, Hamza Hendawi, Sinan Salaheddin, Qais al-Bashir and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

I don't know about anyone else ....

Here in America ....

Or out in the world, for that matter ....

But my "DISGUST LEVEL" ....

With the "world situation" .....

Has been running at a fairly high level now ....

FOR YEARS ....

At least since 2003 ....

When I saw some of George W. Bush's IMPERIAL LEGIONS ....

In their designer sunglasses ....

Holding fixed bayonets .....

In the faces ...

Of the IRAQINAMI people ....

Whose lives ....

George W. Bush had so callously disrupted ....

When he invaded IRAQINAM ....

For the purpose of stealing their oil ....

As well as to get a more COMPLIANT PUPPET ON THE THRONE OVER THERE ....

To replace America's former puppet ....

Saddam Hussein ....

Who was no longer CONVENIENT ...

For America to maintain as a puppet ....

And so ....

It is hard to put into words ....

MY DISGUST ...

AND REVULSION this morning ....

When I pulled my newpaper out of its box ....

TO SEE AN OBVIOUSLY DEAD HUMAN FACE ...

PEERING BACK OUT AT ME ....

As PROOF .....

That George W. Bush ....

HAD JUST KILLED SOME MORE HUMAN BEINGS ...

On this earth of OURS ...

Some more women and children ....

Along with one of George's many alleged enemies .....

And so ....

WHAT KIND OF DEPRAVED, GHOULISH NATION ....

PUBLISHES IMAGES OF DEAD PEOPLE'S FACES .....

IN ITS MORNING NEWSPAPERS ....

WHERE THOSE DEAD FACES ...

CAN BE SEEN ...

BY CHILDREN ....

ALONG WITH EVERYONE ELSE ...

Including myself ...

WHO HAS SEEN A GUT-FULL OF OTHER DEAD HUMAN FACES CAUSED BY AMERICA ...

And so .....

When I saw that face looking back at me ....

All I could see ....

Was AMERICA ....

DOWN ON ITS KNEES ....

LAPPING UP THIS MAN'S BLOOD ....

LIKE IT WAS A HYENA ....

OR SOME OTHER SCAVENGING, RAVENING BEAST ....

And so ....

I wonder if they cut out his heart ...

And sent it back to George W. bush ...

And/or Dick Cheney ...

And Condoleeza Rice ....

And Donald Rumsfeld ...

To eat .....

Like real conquerors do ....

Make their enemies strength ...

Their strength ....

As if they were aboriginal savages ....

In the heart of the blackest jungle somewhere near to HELL ...

Or if they hooked chains to his achilles tendons ....

And dragged him around Baghdad .....

Behind one of George W. Bush's HUMMERS ....

As if he were poor slain Hector ....

At the battle of Troy ...

Being dragged behind his slayer's chariot ....

While George W. Bush ...

Has a wreath of laurels ..

Placed around his head ....

By the hands of a GRATEFUL NATION ....

Minus one ....

And so ....

And getting as far away from George W. Bush as I can in here this evening .....

We have ....

Coming at us ....

Perhaps, anyway ....

Some more violent weather ....

Just to make life interesting .....

Or to keep it that way, anyway ...

And so .....

"1st tropical depression heads toward Fla."

By JENNIFER KAY, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:26 p.m., Saturday, June 10, 2006

MIAMI -- A tropical depression in the Caribbean headed toward Florida on Saturday and was expected to become the first named storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season.

The depression formed earlier in the day, nine days after the official start of the season, but the poorly organized system was not expected to become a hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center.

"It will be relatively weak in terms of wind, but that doesn't mean it's going to be weak in terms of rainfall," senior hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart said.

The system, which had maximum sustained wind near 35 mph, would be named Alberto if it reaches the 39 mph threshold for a tropical storm.

At 5 p.m. EDT, the depression was centered in the Caribbean Sea about 50 miles west of Cabo San Antonio on the western tip of Cuba, forecasters said.

It was moving north-northwest near 6 mph.

The hurricane center recommended tropical storm warnings for the Cuban provinces of Pinar Del Rio and the Isle of Youth.

Over the next three days, the system is expected to move through the Yucatan Channel into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, then toward Florida where it could make landfall Monday or Tuesday somewhere between South Florida and the western tip of the Panhandle, forecasters said.

The depression's outer rainbands stretched Saturday to the southern tip of Florida, and heavy rain was forecast over the state's Gulf Coast and the Florida Keys through Monday.

State officials pleaded with residents to update their hurricane preparedness plans but most shrugged at the news.

"The media overplays this, they get people very scared," said Tim Roberts, a Fort Lauderdale condo owner who was visiting Tallahassee.

"Sure, when the time comes to be alarmed, yes, but don't make more out of it until it's time."

Scientists predict the 2006 season could produce up to 16 named storms, six of them major hurricanes.

Last year's hurricane season was the busiest and most destructive in recorded history.

Hurricane Katrina alone devastated Louisiana and Mississippi and was blamed for more than 1,570 deaths in Louisiana alone.

Mike Martino lost his Navarre Beach home twice in the past two hurricane seasons -- first to Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and never got to move into a new home built on the same lot because Hurricane Dennis wiped it out in 2005.

Instead of rebuilding again, he moved to the mainland.

Martino, who rents kayaks, bikes and surfboards out of his store in Navarre Beach, worried that the weather would do more economic damage than property damage.

"I know that we have weather coming, so I can't have weekly rentals, it's all going to have to be done by the day," he said.

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the busiest in 154 years of storm tracking, with records set for the number of named storms (28) and hurricanes (15).

Forecasters used up their list of 21 proper names (beginning with Arlene and ending with Wilma) and had to use the Greek alphabet to name storms for the first time.

Meteorologists have said the Atlantic is not as warm as it was at this time in 2005, meaning potential storms would have less of the energy needed to develop into hurricanes.

Atlantic hurricane seasons were relatively mild from the 1970s through 1994.

Since then, all but two years have been above normal.

Experts say the ocean is in the midst of a 20-year-cycle that will continue to bring strong storms.

From 1995 to 2005, the Atlantic season averaged 15 named storms, just over eight named hurricanes and four major hurricanes, according to the hurricane center.

From 1971 to 1994, there were an average of 8.5 named storms, five hurricanes and just over one major hurricane.

The Atlantic hurricane season ends Nov. 30.

------

Associated Press writers Kelli Kennedy in Hialeah and Andrea Fanta in Tallahassee contributed to this report.

------

On the Net:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

"NITS BREED LICE, KILL THEM ALL ...."

- AMERICAN RULES OF ENGAGEMENT IN GEORGE W. BUSH'S WAR OF TERROR ON THE PEOPLE OF IRAQINAM

"Lawyer: Marine denies Haditha massacre"

Associated Press
Last updated: 5:35 a.m., Sunday, June 11, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The lawyer for a sergeant who led a squad of Marines during an incident that left civilians dead in Haditha, Iraq, says his client insists his unit was following military rules of engagement, did not intentionally target any civilians and did not try to cover up what it had done.

No one has yet been charged in the Haditha case, which centers on allegations that a small number of Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment killed 24 Iraqi civilians -- included unarmed women and children -- on Nov. 19 after a roadside bomb in the town killed one of their fellow Marines.

Neal A. Puckett told The Washington Post in a story for Sunday's editions that Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told him several civilians were killed when his squad pursued insurgents firing at them from inside a house after the bombing.

He quoted the sergeant as describing to him a house-to-house hunt that went wrong in the midst of a confusing battlefield, but denying any vengeful massacre.

"It will forever be his position that everything they did that day was following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of Marines," Puckett told the newspaper.

"He's really upset that people believe that he and his Marines are even capable of intentionally killing innocent civilians."

The Post characterized Wuterich's version of what happened at Haditha as the first public account from a Marine who was on the ground when the shootings occurred, which it said has led to an investigation looking into possible murder charges against a half dozen Marines.

A separate investigation is examining whether Marines tried to cover up the shootings and whether commanders were negligent in failing to investigate the deaths when they were reported to them.

Haditha residents have said innocent civilians were executed, including some who begged for their lives before being shot.

But Puckett said Wuterich told him in initial interviews over nearly 12 hours last week that the shootings were the unfortunate result of a sweep for enemies in a firefight.

The Post said lawyers for two other Marines involved in the incident say Wuterich's account is consistent with what their clients have told them.

Gary Myers, an attorney for a Marine who was with Wuterich that day but not further identified, told the Post the Marines followed standard procedures when clearing houses, using fragmentation grenades and gunshots to respond to a perceived threat.

"I can confirm that that version of events is consistent with our position on this case," Myers told the Post.

"What this case comes down to is: What were the rules of engagement, and were they followed?"

Kevin B. McDermott, who is representing Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, the company commander who was relieved of duty after the incident, told the Post that Wuterich and other Marines informed McConnell on the day of the incident that at least 15 civilians were killed by "a mixture of small-arms fire and shrapnel as result of grenades" after the Marines responded to an attack from a house.

The lawyer told the paper McConnell told him that he had reported the high number of civilian deaths to his superiors that afternoon and that within a few days the battalion's intelligence chief gave a PowerPoint presentation to higher-up Marine commanders.

"Everywhere up the chain, they had ample access to this thing," McDermott said.

Puckett gave this account to the Post, based on his interview with Wuterich:

Immediately after the roadside bomb, Marines noticed a car full of "military-aged men" near the bomb site who ran when ordered to stop.

Marines opened fire, killing four or five men.

The unit subsequently came under fire and a corporal identified the shots as coming from a specific house.

A four-man team, including Wuterich, kicked in the door and found a series of empty rooms before hearing people behind one door.

They kicked that one in, tossed a fragmentation grenade into the room and one Marine fired a series of rounds through dust and smoke, killing several people.

Even though they realized they had killed men, women and children, they saw a back door ajar and believed insurgents had moved to a second house.

The Marines moved to the second house, kicking in the door, killing one man inside and then using another grenade and more gunfire to clear another room full of people.

Still having not found the insurgents, Wuterich told his team to stop and headed back to reassess the situation with his platoon leader, realizing that a number of civilians had just been killed.[/b][/color]

end quotes

And finally ...

We are starting to get into the REAL BALLPARK here ....

With this mouthpiece's question ...

"What were the rules of engagement, and were they followed?"

And the ANSWER to that ....

According to this Marine General .....

This BUSHCO Pace .....

IS THAT THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT WERE INDEED FOLLOWED .....

As is evidenced by the fact .....

That everyone in those houses ....

Whether man, woman, or child ....

WAS SLAUGHTERED OUTRIGHT ....

And especially the children ....

BECAUSE NITS BREED LICE ....

Who might be future ENEMIES of GEORGE W. BUSH ....

And so ....

KILL THEM ALL ....

And at some point in time ...

In some future, anyway ...

George W. Bush won't have any enemies left .....

To trouble his fitful sleep .....

And so ...

"British troops, insurgents battle in Iraq"

By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press
Last updated: 12:55 p.m., Sunday, June 11, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgents set a fire in a vegetable market to lure British soldiers into a gunbattle Sunday that left five civilians dead and more than a dozen hurt by the crossfire, Iraqi police said.

The fighting was part of a string of violent incidents Sunday amid a government stalemate and threats of continued violence from insurgents after the death of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Police Capt. Hussein Karim said insurgents started the blaze in the market in south Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, to draw the troops into an ambush.

The British Defense Ministry offered a different account, saying soldiers were sent to search the suspected launch site of a rocket attack and came under small-arms fire.

The ministry said there were reports of "a small number of terrorist casualties," but full details of the incident remained unclear.

It could not confirm that civilians were among the dead and wounded.

Meanwhile, Iraq's national security adviser said he believed the number of coalition forces would drop below 100,000 by year's end.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie also said the majority of coalition forces would leave before mid-2008.

"The more our Iraqi security forces, our police, our army, the more they grow in number, in training and are ready and able to perform and to protect our people, then the less we need of the multinational forces," al-Rubaie told CNN's "Late Edition."

"The overwhelming majority of the multinational forces will leave probably before ... the middle of 2008."

The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Sunday he does not plan to ask President Bush for more troops during meetings this week, but he declined to say whether he would suggest a reduction of his forces.

"I constantly evaluate the situation," Gen. George Casey said.

"And if I think I need more, I'll ask more."

"If I think I need less, I'll tell the president that I need less."

White House officials have played down expectations of troop cutback announcements coming from the president's summit on Iraq.

Roadside bombs struck two Iraqi police patrols in separate attacks in north and south Baghdad, killing two people, at least one of them a police officer, and wounding 11.

At least nine other violent deaths were reported around the country.

Al-Qaida in Iraq vowed Sunday to carry out "major attacks," insisting in a Web statement that it was still powerful after the death of al-Zarqawi.

Insurgents Saturday posted an Internet video of the beheading of three alleged Shiite death squad members.

The attacks since the Thursday announcement of al-Zarqawi's death have been far from the mass bloodshed promised by his supporters.

The government had imposed partial driving bans in Baghdad and Baqouba, which resulted in a slight drop in violence.

An average of about 19 people a day were killed around Iraq in the past three days.

Continuing an already monthlong delay, the Iraqi parliament postponed its session to allow the main political blocs more time to agree on the exact powers of the Sunni Arab parliament speaker.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with party representatives Saturday but failed to break the deadlock.

Fellow Sunni insurgent groups sent condolences for al-Zarqawi in Internet messages Saturday and warned Sunnis not to cooperate with the Iraqi government, an apparent call for unity after U.S. forces killed the terror leader in a targeted airstrike Wednesday.

The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was the defining face of Iraq's insurgency.

His tirades against the nation's majority Shiites and calls for the once-dominant minority Sunni Arabs to rise up and kill them were accompanied by the killings of thousands of Shiites in attacks.

Iraqi and U.S. leaders acknowledged that al-Zarqawi's killing was not likely to stop the insurgency, now in its fourth year.

But they hoped it would rob his supporters of an iconic figure around which they rallied.

Saturday's grisly video was the first known footage of insurgent beheadings posted in months and was clearly designed to quash hopes that the Sunni-dominated insurgency might end attacks on Shiites.

In other violence Sunday:

-- Drive-by gunmen fired on a civilian car, killing the driver, police said.

-- Police in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora found four unidentified bodies, all of which had been tortured and shot.

-- Baghdad police said they separately found the body of a Health Ministry security guard who appeared to have been shot in the head after being tortured and the corpse of a taxi driver who was reported kidnapped yesterday in Dora.

-- Unidentified gunmen in Mosul shot and killed a former Iraqi Army officer, police said.

The assailants were in a speeding car and killed Ali Ahmed Abdullah with a machine gun as he was walking in one of the city's commercial centers.

-- A roadside bomb in western Mosul killed one bystander and injured six others, police Col. Abdul-Karim Ahmed said.

------

Associated Press reporters Sinan Salaheddin and Qais al-Bashir contributed to this report.

"FOR AMERICA, GENOCIDE IS PAINLESS"

Through early morning fog .....

I see ....

Visions ....

Of the things to be .....

The pains ....

That are withheld ....

From America ....

I realize ....

And I can see...

That for America, anyway ....

GENOCIDE is painless .....

While certainly ...

For the rest of the world, anyway ....

It brings on many changes .....

Starting with a major population decline, of course ...

Which means a lot less enemies .....

For George W. Bush ....

To have to trouble himself about ....

Since by having them killed ...

Well ...

Then ...

Nits can't breed lice .....

And so ....

And America ....

Can take or leave it ....

If it pleases .....

Because it is not here ....

And so ....

As for me ....

I try to find a way to make ....

All our little joys relate ....

Without that ever-present hate ....

That emanates ....

From Washington, D.C. ....

But now I know .....

That it's too late, and...

The game of life is hard to play ....

And George W. Bush's victims ...

Are gonna lose it anyway ....

The losing card ....

George W. Bush ....

Has already dealt to them ....

So this is all I have to say.

For George W. Bush ....

And his REPUBLICANS ....

The only way to win ...

Is cheat ....

And to lay down the population of the world ....

Before they are beat ....

And so ...

The sword of George W. Bush ....

Will pierce their skins ....

Including the women and children ....

And it will hurt like hell ...

When it begins ....

And as it works its way on in ....

The pain grows stronger...

Watch George and Connie and Dick and Donald grin, but...

A brave man once requested me ....

To answer questions that are key ....

Is it to be or not to be ....

And I replied, "oh why ask me?"

'Cause to America ....

GENOCIDE is painless ....

For George W. Bush ....

It brings on many changes ....

And since America is not affected ....

It can take or leave it if it pleases .....

And you can do the same thing if you please .....

And so .....

If you like the way things are ....

VOTE REPUBLICAN ....

And your wish will be fulfilled ....

And so .....

And while we are on the subject ...

Of THUGS ....

And LOOTERS .....

In OUR government ....

Over here in OUR America ....

We have ...

From REPUBLICAN George Pataki's CORRUPT EMPIRE of New York ....

As follows .....

"Doling out tax dollars in secret - State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver won't lift shroud on how pork is spent by state legislators"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, June 11, 2006

ALBANY -- Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver refuse to let anyone know how lawmakers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Since April, the two powerful politicians have rejected all requests to disclose the names of legislators who arranged some $340 million in appropriations of the public's money in recent years for thousands of pet projects, grants and gifts.

Some of that money went to churches, private clubs and hundreds of obscure special interest groups across the state -- all of it exempt from auditing by state Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

The special appropriations, called "member items," have become a secret piggy bank for Bruno and Silver.

As leaders, they decide in private how to spend $170 million the Legislature routinely inserts into the state budget each year for themselves and their 210 colleagues.

They add another $30 million for Gov. George Pataki to use as he wishes.

Despite repeated requests from the Times Union made through New York's Freedom of Information Law, the two elected leaders for weeks have claimed the public has no right to see records showing which legislators arranged what deals -- and how much money each lawmaker's projects received.

Bruno and Silver say the information is secret, even though their voluminous lists of member-item projects become an official law of the state each year.

There are plenty of reasons for taxpayers to worry about member-item money.

A continuing Times Union investigation of member items has found hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Senate being funneled to a Bronx charity controlled by former Republican Sen. Guy Velella, even after Velella was convicted of taking bribes in 2004.

The cash was still flowing this year despite the ouster of Velella, who was replaced by a Democrat.

Other large sums from the Assembly are sent to a Brooklyn senior citizen group controlled by Democratic Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

The charity pays Lopez's girlfriend $108,593 a year for a 25-hour-a-week job.

Lopez also is the new chairman of Brooklyn's Democratic Party, succeeding ex-Assemblyman Clarence Norman, who was convicted earlier this year of taking bribes in exchange for doling out judgeships.

Bruno and Silver also have disregarded a handshake agreement with Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, promising him an itemization of this year's member items by mid-May.

Paterson is the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.

In April, Paterson threatened to block a Senate override of Pataki's veto of state spending bills, including a $200 million allotment to replenish the state's member-item fund, unless the Legislature made its member-item process public.

Patterson compromised by agreeing that the Legislature could publish an itemized list of member items and make information about future projects public 30 days before an expenditure.

The governor was to get $30 million to spend from the member-item bill he vetoed, with $85 million going to each house of the Legislature.

The state's member-item fund, also called the 007 Account and the Community Projects Fund, already had more than $250 million in unspent cash on hand.

Member-item dollars, doled out in closed-door negotiations, receive only rudimentary oversight by state agencies or public authorities chosen to implement the funding.

Many member-item grants are buried within large state contracts that bear little or no connection to the member item's purpose.

Lawmakers conceal their identities from the Office of the state Comptroller, which must issue checks, sometimes for $1 million or more.

The comptroller reviews contracts of $50,000 or more to make sure the recipient doesn't owe taxes and the contract is in order.

He also can audit agencies that are supposed to monitor member-item contracts, but otherwise has a minimal role in overseeing member-item spending.

In April, it took Pataki, Paterson and Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco just one week to honor the Times Union's request for details on all their member-item projects funded in the 2004 and 2005 budget years -- including the names of lawmakers sponsoring each grant, the names of the recipients and contact information.

Yet despite a series of FOI letters requesting the same disclosure, Silver and Bruno won't budge.

Silver declares the materials are "intra-agency" and "predecisional," even though tens of millions of dollars already have been spent on the projects at issue and the legislation authorizing them has been enacted.

Bruno argues the documents are not covered by the state Freedom of Information Law, without offering any explanation for his position.

State spending records show that only about $100 million to $120 million was actually spent annually on member items in recent years.

Many lawmakers are willing to discuss the spending, but they don't really like exposure of their own items, Paterson said.

"Members don't want anybody looking at their money trail," Paterson said.

Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said withholding the information is "indefensible" and suggests politicians have something to hide.

The vague member-item records that are available to the public lead down thousands of trails that hide a hundred rats' nests of questionable tax grants -- intertwined with typical government charity for popular public institutions or the arts and intriguing political relationships between giver and receiver.

Gift keeps giving

For instance, tax money kept flowing to former Sen. Guy Velella of the Bronx even after he left the Senate as a felon and served a one-year sentence.

The project was the ninth biggest single recipient of member-item funds during the state's 2004 and 2005 budget years -- and the No. 1 largest grantee of Senate majority funds: the North Bronx Westchester Neighborhood Restoration Association.

Officials with the organization say Velella, a Republican, sponsored the funding, a total of $1.4 million over two years.

Sen. Jeff Klein, a Democrat who now represents the district, said the organization served as an arm of Velella's political machine.

"It's a total waste of money," Klein said.

Yet the organization was still preparing vouchers to receive the last remnants of its secret member-item cash this year.

The nonprofit corporation is being closed down, according to its new executive director, John Reehill.

Its programs for the community, such as graffiti removal, are essentially over.

But the group's longtime executive, Dorothy DeLayo, paid $75,000 annually until she was let go at the end of 2005, contends the charity did good work in spite of its direction by Velella's handpicked board.

"We did a lot of good stuff for the community," she said.

"Did it bounce back on Guy Velella?"

"Yes."

"Is it such a horrible thing to know who brought them the money?"

"... Was the end result helpful to him in his campaign?"

"There is no denying it."

DeLayo says she now wonders how $95,000 in cash remaining when she was forced out is being used under the direction of Reehill, whom Velella arranged to replace her after the senator became angered with her allegiance to a Republican boss the senator no longer favored.

Jennifer Farina, of the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal, said her agency keeps issuing money to the Bronx-Westchester charity at the direction of Majority Leader Bruno's office.

A Bruno spokesman said he thought the program had ended.

The agency, as a rule, holds back 10 percent of grants.

That withholding on Velella's 2003 member item for the group, which totaled $950,000, is being disbursed now that the group provided a final budget, Farina said.

"We get our marching orders from Senate Finance," she said, referring to the powerful committee controlled by Bruno.

Velella said in an interview that DeLayo was removed by the board for overspending on rent and demanding severance.

The organization, he said, was simply drawing down from the grant after his departure and there is nothing nefarious going on.

Klein, according to the former senator, "speaks from envy" and may be worried that Velella would run again, win, and return to the Senate.

The numerous groups that benefited from his member-item funds, Velella said, from Little Leagues to senior centers, would testify to how he provided for constituents.

"It didn't go in my pocket," he said, "it went to the people who voted for me."

Family affairs

Another organization has received nearly $700,000 over the same two-year period under the sponsorship of Democratic Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

It is the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council Inc. in Brooklyn, which employs a part-time executive director, Christiana Fisher, for nearly $129,000 a year and 17.5 hours per week.

That's roughly $141 per hour.

The council also employs Lopez's girlfriend, Angela Battaglia, as a housing director.

She's paid $108,593 a year for 25 hours a week of work -- roughly $84 per hour.

Lopez and both women did not return calls, and the assemblyman's spokesman had no comment.

The council's comptroller, Wesley Hitner, said he was not authorized to discuss the organization.

Critics of Lopez say the organization offers good programs for senior citizens but that Lopez rules over which elderly people get to participate.

They also claim the council provides patronage jobs and political help for the assemblyman.

"They're all tied in with his political club," says Arthur Steier, 70, who has complained to the Brooklyn district attorney's office.

Pataki gets his cut of the so-called 007 Account the Legislature has nurtured.

Pataki gave $443,000 in recent years to a new group, the Museum of Women's History.

The board of directors of the nonprofit includes his former director of communications, Zenia Mucha, now an executive at the Walt Disney Co.

Evelyn Rollins, a $119,200-per-year deputy director for Pataki, is president.

The corporation listed the governor's Manhattan office and telephone number as its own.

State employees field questions for the still unbuilt museum and return calls left for Rollins.

Informed of this, Pataki's spokeswoman, Carmela Uzzi, said Rollins' use of the governor's office was "just an oversight" over the past two years.

She said Rollins has been instructed to change her business address.

Yet another beneficiary of member items has an especially intimate relationship to the Assembly.

The Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty, which received $1.23 million in funding, almost all of it from Assembly Democrats, employs William Rapfogel as its $273,181-per-year executive director.

He is married to Judy Rapfogel, Speaker Silver's chief of staff.

William Rapfogel said his organization had received member-item money for decades, even before he arrived 14 years ago, and that a slew of members help obtain the funds.

He said he does not lobby Silver or anyone else for cash and that legislators expect nothing in return.

"They've never asked us to raise money for them in campaigns or fundraising, which is quite surprising," Rapfogel said of his politician benefactors.

The money pays for services to all people in financial and domestic crisis, he said, as well as for clothing and furniture for poor people.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

"State aide quits in computer probe - Resignation from $128,898 post comes during discipline meeting after equipment goes missing"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, June 10, 2006

ALBANY -- The director of the state Office for Small Cities abruptly resigned Friday after apologizing for a lapse in judgment.

The nearly 12-year state career of Glen King, 58, of Averill Park, ended two weeks after the state Inspector General found he had "removed" at least one computer and two hard drives from work to use for music, pictures and personal materials.

He also refused to cooperate with an Inspector General investigation into the missing items.

During a meeting about disciplining him on Friday, he submitted his resignation.

The board of the Office of Housing and Community Renewal unanimously accepted it.

The board met for two hours Friday, mostly behind closed doors, to decide what to do about King's actions, said Jennifer Farina, a spokeswoman.

King offered a brief statement expressing regret over the incident during an open portion of the meeting.

His resignation is effective immediately, she said.

The Inspector General's office said King returned the computer after officials noticed surplus equipment was missing and proposed calling police.

But he switched its hard drive with an inferior one, the report said.

Other computer components were also missing.

King, a former Rensselaer County planning director, worked for the Small Cities office since 2001 as an appointee of Gov. George Pataki.

He was paid $128,898 a year and provided a state car.

He also served Pataki from 1995 to 2001 as assistant commissioner for community development.

end quotes

Like prison ....

New York State government ....

Is a place ....

Where criminals ...

Teach others .....

To become criminals as well .....

And so ....

And my God ....

Am I ever surprised at this next story....

Who would ever have thought it even could be possible?

And so ....

"Member items help grease political machine - State senator from Bronx used straw donors for campaigns, ex-loyalists say"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, June 11, 2006

ALBANY -- Three people who worked at Bronx charities created by Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. say the state senator secretly gave them currency or money orders and instructed them to personally contribute the cash into his or his son's campaign accounts.

Two of the charities have been heavily financed by special legislative grants of taxpayer money -- called "member items" -- arranged by the senator's son, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr.

State law makes it unlawful for a person to give money in someone else's name to a candidate's campaign, but that is exactly what Sen. Diaz did, three former loyalists said in interviews.

Hundreds of dollars in campaign donations from the three appear on the Bronx Democrat's state and city campaign disclosure reports, as do thousands of dollars more from dozens of employees and former employees of not-for-profit organizations Sen. Diaz controls.

"He would hold a fundraiser and go to the employees and give them cash or money orders," said Edward Padilla, executive director of Soundview Community In Action.

"It wasn't the employees' money."

Sen. Diaz and his son, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., both refused to comment.

Soundview Community in Action is a Bronx nonprofit group that formerly employed Sen. Diaz, his wife and his former wife, the mother of Assemblyman Diaz.

Soundview received hundreds of thousands of dollars in so-called legislative "member-item" funds through the senator's son while his family members were employed.

That act apparently violated Assembly guidelines that render an organization which employs an elected official's relative ineligible for such funds.

A recent story in the Times Union about the Diaz family's use of member item money prompted Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to give Assemblyman Diaz a stern lecture, according to a source familiar with the confrontation.

Silver said he has since bolstered oversight of member-item spending by bolstering monitoring staff and investigatory resources.

Soundview employees had begun to rebel at being used as political tools when Diaz Sr. rose from his position as a city councilman to become a state senator in 2003.

Both the senator and his assemblyman son then began steering hundreds of thousands of dollars in member-item money to Christian Community Benevolent Association, another Diaz organization.

Its staff is closely affiliated with Christian Community In Action, which employs Sen. Diaz's wife.

State records show Soundview's director, Padilla, contributed two checks of $500 each in 2002 to Assemblyman Diaz's campaign -- money Padilla said came from the senator.

Sen. Diaz's filings for his last City Council campaign also list Padilla, misspelling Padilla's first name but using his Bronx address, as providing a total of $1,120 in June of 2001 in three checks -- money Padilla says he did not provide from his own pocket.

A woman who worked for Christian Community In Action, whose name is being withheld by the Times Union to protect her from retaliation, said she also received money from the senator, who also is a minister, to make contributions.

She is listed as contributing to Assemblyman Diaz in 2000.

The woman also is listed as contributing to the Rev. Diaz's City Council campaign in 2001.

That source said the orders to donate and a supply of money orders came from the elder Diaz.

"He's the only one with the audacity," she said.

A third source, who still works for one of the charities, said he received money to donate to campaigns as well.

He is listed in 2002 filings as having given hundreds of dollars to both the senator's and assemblyman's campaigns.

That worker said the senator provided the cash for the contributions.

"He would make money orders and just ask us to put our name on it," he said.

The allegations that Sen. Diaz has used straw contributors were corroborated by a fourth source who worked with Diaz, but they were disputed by several employees at Christian Community In Action, when reached at work.

Those employees say they donated their own money to both the senator and his son.

Even while earning less than $30,000 a year, some gave hundreds or thousands of dollars to Diaz campaigns.

They insisted the money came from their own funds.

Many more would not comment and several others refused to take calls.

Finally, a woman identifying herself as a lawyer for the group threatened legal action and demanded the Times Union stop contacting workers.

In recent years, Padilla and others who worked for Soundview complained to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that the senator forced the nonprofit employees to work on voter campaigns, raise election funds and fill out money orders for campaigns, Padilla said.

Spitzer, Sen. Diaz's filings show, donated $150 in 2002 to the elder Diaz's city council campaign.

A spokesman for Spitzer could not explain the donation.

Spitzer's office concluded its investigation of Sen. Diaz by allowing the senator to use his campaign treasury to reimburse the state and federal government for misused public grants.

Those grants, intended to help Soundview keep kids off the streets, were used to buy furnishings and audio speakers found at the senator's district office.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

And as DEMOCRACY rapidly recedes .....

Here in OUR America ....

In this REIGN .....

Of the DICTATOR George W. Bush ........

And as OUR United States CONSTITUTION ....

And OUR REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT ....

Disappear as well ....

To be replaced .....

By the FOURTH REICH .....

And all of OUR former institutions ....

Such as OUR courts .....

BECOME A MOCKERY ...

And a TRAVESTY ...

Where justice certainly is not to be found ....

"War on terror spawns courtroom secrecy"

By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press
Last updated: 12:25 p.m., Sunday, June 11, 2006

CHICAGO -- Witnesses used bogus names, the public was barred from the courtroom and part of the hearing was behind closed doors in the judge's chambers -- with defense lawyers shut out.

"I don't know what took place back there," grumbled Michael E. Deutsch, chief defense lawyer for Muhammad Salah, a Chicago man charged with laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for murders, bombings and other acts of terrorism by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Court secrecy is getting tighter across the nation as the government wages war on terrorism, and the recent hearings in Salah's case, set for trial Oct. 12, are just one example, attorneys say.

In Maryland, a federal judge last month dismissed a lawsuit filed by a German man, Khaled al-Masri, who claimed to have been illegally detained and tortured in overseas prisons run by the CIA.

After receiving a secret written CIA briefing, the judge ruled that going ahead with a civil trial in the al-Masri case would have exposed state secrets.

The New York Civil Liberties Union is asking an appeals court to order a federal judge in Albany to unseal his decision refusing to toss out charges against alleged money launderers Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain.

They say they may have been targets of a warrantless wiretap.

The judge's decision came two hours after the government submitted a secret court document.

In Chicago, attorneys for Sami Latchin, a man accused of serving as a "sleeper agent" in the United States for the Saddam Hussein regime, have asked U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer whether the National Security Agency eavesdropped on his telephone conversations.

Prosecutors say a representative of the Justice Department in Washington will answer the question -- but only in the judge's chambers with defense attorneys not allowed.

Such secret procedures, once rare in American courts, have become more common since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Prosecutors say they need secrecy to protect undercover agents, informants and witnesses from terrorist reprisals and keep critical information pipelines from being shut down.

But defense attorneys say the right of defendants to confront their accusers, guaranteed by the 6th Amendment to the Constitution, is being worn away under the guise of national security.

"It's critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy that people know what the government is doing in their name," says Professor David Cole of Georgetown University Law Center.

Cole says secrecy has gone too far not only in criminal cases but in civil lawsuits where he says government attorneys have relied on the state secret privilege to bar challenges.

But former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who sent Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik, to prison for plotting to blow up New York landmarks, scoffs at the notion that the public has a right to know what's going on in the shadowy world of terrorism investigations.

"In point of fact, the public doesn't have a right to know a large variety of information maintained by the government, particularly its investigators, its intelligence services, and that presumption doesn't change just because someone is charged with a crime," McCarthy says.

So-called ex parte hearings -- from which one side is barred -- are legal under the Classified Information Procedures Act, passed three decades ago to combat a phenomenon known as "graymail."

Defendants charged with spying would try to force the government to drop the charges by threatening to expose classified U.S. military and intelligence secrets on the witness stand.

Attorneys say the law was meant to let judges sort out the classified information behind closed doors and determine what the defense genuinely needed to make public.

If the judge decided that the defendant couldn't get a fair trial without spilling secrets, the government could decide whether to bite the bullet and let it happen or drop the charges.

But critics say the law is now being overused.

"This has gotten to the crisis point," says professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School in the nation's capital.

"We are turning our courts into something like military tribunals where the evidence is entirely up to the prosecutor."

In the Salah case, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve ruled Thursday that prosecutors may use as evidence statements that the defendant, a Palestinian man who once worked as a Chicago public school teacher, gave to Israel's Shin Bet security service a dozen years ago.

Salah claims that after his 1993 arrest in Israel he was stripped naked, made to sit in an uncomfortable children's chair for long periods, forced to listen to blaring music at high volume, slapped and left with a foul-smelling hood over his head.

St. Eve held hearings starting in March on Salah's request to throw out the statements.

Two of his interrogators, testifying under the code names Haim and Nadav to protect themselves against Hamas reprisals back home, denied that they tortured Salah to make him talk.

Before the hearing, they asked for permission to wear "light disguise," which St. Eve denied.

Federal marshals barred the press and public from the courtroom and sealed off the hallway outside to prevent the curious from peering in.

Some testimony came in St. Eve's chambers with Deutsch and other defense attorneys excluded.

On Thursday, St. Eve ruled that Salah's statements to Haim and Nadav could be used but threw out a statement he made to an Israeli policeman named Suleiman who was not a hearing witness.

In keeping with the secrecy surrounding the hearings, St. Eve issued two versions of her 138-page opinion.

One was complete but classified.

The public version had a number of white spaces where material was redacted for national security reasons.

And in the reign of GEORGE, THE EXCEEEDINGLY MALIGNANT AND MALODOROUS ....

The EMPIRE .....

Of America ...

Was visited ....

By plagues ....

And devastation ....

On a scale ....

Equal to ....

Or greater than ....

The DEVASTATION ....

That the MALIGNANT AND MALODOROUS LORD GOD EMPORER GEORGE ...

Visited ....

Upon the rest of the earth ....

And so ....

"1st named storm of 2006 heads for Fla."

By PHIL DAVIS, Associated Press

Last updated: 8:35 a.m., Monday, June 12, 2006

TAMPA, Fla. -- The first named storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season strengthened slightly in the Gulf of Mexico early Monday, prompting tropical storm warnings for the dry Florida coast.

Tropical Storm Alberto had maximum sustained wind near 50 mph, well below hurricane strength of 74 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

At 8 a.m., the storm was centered 240 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola and was moving north-northeast at about 8 mph, forecasters said.

Alberto's core wasn't expected to reach Florida until Tuesday, but with tropical storm-force wind stretching 230 miles from the center, powerful gusts may be felt long before it makes landfall.

The storm's outer bands brought rain on the state Sunday, and forecasters warned that tornadoes were possible in west-central and northwestern Florida Monday night.

"Right before landfall they expect a little stronger: 55 (mph) gusts to 65 (mph)," said Ron Goodman, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center.

"Things can change, but right now it's not expected to be a hurricane."

Four to 10 inches of rain could fall on the Florida peninsula through Tuesday, forecasters said.

A tropical storm warning was issued for most of Florida's gulf coast, from Englewood to Indian Pass, meaning tropical storm conditions were expected there within the next 24 hours.

A tropical storm watch was in effect from south of Englewood to Bonita Beach.

Patricia Haberland, whose back porch was flooded by 12 inches of rain in March, was keeping an eye on the forecasts but wasn't too worried.

She put a few valuables in plastic bins this weekend just to be on the safe side.

"Other than that, we're carrying on as usual, going to work, going to church," said Haberland, 52.

The prospect of a wet storm without hurricane-force wind was welcomed by firefighters who have been battling wildfires for six weeks on Florida's Atlantic coast.

"A good soaking rain would do a lot to help stop the fires in our area," said Pat Kuehn, a spokeswoman for Volusia County Fire Services.

"It has been a hard fire season."

"We've had several fires a week here."

The tropical depression that produced Alberto formed Saturday, nine days after the official start of the hurricane season, in the northwest Caribbean, which can produce typically weak storms that follow a similar track this time of year, forecasters said.

"They can also meander in the gulf for awhile, and we've seen some dissipate before reaching any land areas," said hurricane specialist Richard Pasch.

Scientists say the 2006 season could produce as many as 16 named storms, six of them major hurricanes.

Last year's hurricane season was the most destructive on record.

Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana and Mississippi and was blamed for more than 1,570 deaths among Louisiana residents alone.

It also was the busiest in 154 years of storm tracking, with a records 28 named storms and a record 15 hurricanes.

Meteorologists used up their list of 21 proper names -- beginning with Arlene and ending with Wilma -- and had to use the Greek alphabet to name storms for the first time.

The first named storm of 2005 was Tropical Storm Arlene, which formed June 9 and made landfall just west of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.

------

Associated Press Writer Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

------

On the Net:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

ONLY IN AMERICA

WHAT WE MISSED WHILE THE YANKS PLAYED THE SOX: AMERICA, LAND OF DENIAL - MICKEY Z. (COUNTERPUNCH, JUNE 9): Americans spend about $7 billion on 21,000 different pesticide products each year.
http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey06092006.html

IN DEBT BEFORE YOU START - SANDRA BLOCK (USA TODAY, JUNE 11): The average college senior graduated this year with more than $19,000 in debt.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/colleg...over-usat_x.htm

POTEMKIN PORTFOLIOS: KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES IS SINKING AMERICANS FURTHER INTO DEBT - SHIRA BOSS (LOS ANGELES TIME, JUNE 12): The Fed says that, as of April, we owed $807 billion on our credit cards -- an average of $7,600 per U.S. household.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

And in the meantime, Snuf ....

"Dow closes down nearly 100 points"

By CHRISTOPHER WANG, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:16 p.m., Monday, June 12, 2006

NEW YORK -- Wall Street extended its monthlong retreat Monday as inflation fears kept investors on edge following hefty losses last week, the worst so far in 2006.

A late-day selloff dragged the Dow Jones industrials down almost 100 points and put the Nasdaq composite index at a seven-month low.

Investors have been reluctant to buy stocks ever since the Federal Reserve said in early May that record oil prices could require higher interest rates to keep prices from climbing elsewhere.

Downbeat inflation comments from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Sandra Pianalto on Monday was another reminder for an already uneasy market.

But recent signs of slowing economic growth now has Wall Street worried that too many rate hikes could send the economy sliding.

Trading was expected to be skittish this week ahead of wholesale and consumer price data, which might bring clues about whether the Fed will boost rates again at its June 28-29 meeting.

"There are certainly some positives in the economy to point to, but until we get some more clarity on the battle between inflation and economic growth, the markets are likely to remain volatile," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at Spencer Clarke LLC.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow tumbled 99.34, or 0.91 percent, to 10,792.58, its lowest close since hitting 10,749.76 on Feb. 7.

The blue-chip index shed 355 points last week and is 7.3 percent below its six-year high of 11,642.98, reached May 10.

Broader stock indicators also retreated.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index slid 15.89, or 1.27 percent, to 1,236.41, and the Nasdaq lost 43.74, or 2.05 percent, to 2,091.32.

------

On the Net:

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com

"Alberto prompts evacuation on Fla. coast"

By MITCH STACY, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:56 p.m., Monday, June 12, 2006

CEDAR KEY, Fla. -- More than 20,000 people along Florida's Gulf Coast were ordered to clear out Monday as Alberto -- the very first tropical storm of the new hurricane season -- unexpectedly picked up steam and threatened to come ashore as a hurricane.

Forecasters posted a hurricane warning for the Gulf Coast and a tropical storm warning from north of Daytona Beach to the Georgia-South Carolina line, saying Alberto could begin battering the coast early Tuesday.

Gov. Jeb Bush signed a declaration of emergency allowing him to call up the National Guard and put laws against price gouging into effect.

"We're talking about powerful forces of nature," Bush said.

"People need to take this very seriously."

If Alberto came ashore as a hurricane, it would be the earliest hurricane in 40 years to hit the United States, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The earliest on record is Alma, which in 1966 struck the Florida Panhandle on June 9 -- the ninth day of the hurricane season.

Alberto started as a tropical depression on Saturday, and forecasters over the weekend were confident it would not become a hurricane.

But the storm's winds accelerated with startling speed from 50 mph to 70 mph in just three hours Monday morning.

The minimum for a hurricane is 74 mph.

"We were surprised, but we've been surprised before," said Richard Pasch of the hurricane center.

"The center in disorganized storms can re-form and jump."

Florida homeowners stocked up on chain saws, plywood and other emergency supplies.

Employees at a marina in St. Petersburg said they planned to work through the night securing more than 600 boats against the wind and waves.

"This is a little earlier that I expected," said marina manager Walter Miller.

"But we've had a bad couple of years, so it's not entirely unexpected."

Forecasters said Alberto would probably become only a weak Category 1 hurricane, meaning winds of 74 mph to 95 mph, because the warm water from which hurricanes draw their strength is not particularly deep in the area.

At 5 p.m. EDT, Alberto was centered about 145 miles southwest of Cedar Key and was moving northeast at about 10 mph.

Its top sustained winds remained at 70 mph.

"We don't want to overdo it."

"It's not a Katrina or a Wilma, but storm surge and flooding could still cause loss of life," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center.

Evacuation orders were posted for people in mobile homes or low-lying areas in at least five coastal counties stretching more than 100 miles.

Those ordered to leave included about 21,000 residents of Citrus, Levy and Taylor counties.

Alberto was expected to blow ashore anywhere from north of Tampa to the Panhandle.

Forecasters said it could bring 4 to 10 inches of rain to central Florida and southeastern Georgia.

Rain already was falling Monday and at least two tornados had formed, but there were no immediate reports of any injuries or damage.

Dick Grier, a retiree from Homosassa, said he planned to gas up his car and bring in lawn chairs.

But "at this point I don't think it's the kind of thing that we worry about," he said.

Alberto also prevented the crew of space shuttle Discovery from flying to the Kennedy Space Center from Houston for several days of dress rehearsals for their expected launch in July.

On Monday, Alberto drenched western Cuba after a weekend of heavy rains prompted evacuations, caused some dilapidated buildings to collapse and flooded low-lying areas in Havana.

There were no reports of other major damage or injuries.

More than 12 inches of rain fell in some rural areas over the weekend, the official Prensa Latina news agency reported.

Scientists say the 2006 season could produce as many as 16 named storms, six of them major hurricanes.

Last year's hurricane season was the most destructive on record and the busiest in 154 years of storm tracking, with a record 28 named storms and a record 15 hurricanes.

The first named storm of 2005, Tropical Storm Arlene, formed June 9 and came ashore just west of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.

------

Associated Press Writers Phil Davis in Tampa, Fla., Michelle Spitzer in Miami, Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

------

On the Net:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

And here's another real surprise ....

This next story ....

I thought George W. Bush ....

Was supposed to be bringing us ...

LAW AND ORDER ....

And all we have instead ....

From him and his REPUBLICANS ....

IS NOTHING BUT ONE GREAT BIG MESS ....

And so ....

"FBI: Violent crime in U.S. on rise in 2005"

By PATRICK WALTERS, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:05 p.m., Monday, June 12, 2006

PHILADELPHIA -- FBI statistics Monday confirmed what big cities like Philadelphia, Houston, Cleveland and Las Vegas have seen on the streets: Violent crime in the U.S. is on the rise, posting its biggest one-year increase since 1991.

In Philadelphia, homicides jumped from 330 in 2004 to 377 in 2005, a 14 percent increase, according to the FBI.

Murders climbed from 272 to 334 in Houston, a 23 percent rise, and from 131 to 144 in Las Vegas, a 10 percent increase.

Jeffrey Sedgwick, director of the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, cautioned that it is not yet clear whether the FBI numbers reflect a real increase, or the ordinary year-to-year variations that statisticians call "static noise."

Sedgwick said it is possible that crime rates in the U.S. are approaching a floor below which it may be difficult or even impossible to go.

"I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect you can always drive the crime rate down," he said.

Some criminal justice experts said the statistics reflect the nation's complacency in fighting crime.

Crime dropped dramatically during 1990s, and some cities have since abandoned effective programs that emphasized prevention, the putting of more cops on the street, and controls on the spread of guns.

"We see that budgets for policing are being slashed and the federal government has gotten out of that business," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston.

Still, Fox said, "We're still far better off than we were during the double-digit crime inflation we saw in the 1970s."

In Philadelphia, which has had more than 160 murders this year, the police department has responded by creating a special unit charged with roaming the streets in the dangerous hours between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.

The program, which is expected to start soon, will shift 46 officers from other assignments.

Philadelphia police Capt. Benjamin Naish said more people appear to be settling disputes with guns.

"I think that everybody continues to be frustrated within the government, within the department," he said.

Philadelphia police have stressed that the number of killings is still below the averages in the mid-1990s and far below the 525 homicides in 1990.

The overall national increase in violent crime was modest, 2.5 percent, which equates to more than 1.4 million crimes.

Nevertheless, that was the largest percentage increase since 1991.

Nationally, murders rose 4.8 percent, meaning there were more than 16,900 victims in 2005.

That would be the most since 1998 and the largest percentage increase in 15 years.

Some big cities felt the brunt.

Murders rose from 59 to 104 in Birmingham, Ala., up 76 percent; from 59 to 85 in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, N.C., a 44 percent spike; from 89 to 126 in Kansas City, Mo., a 42 percent rise; from 87 to 122 in Milwaukee, a 40 percent jump; and from 79 to 109 in Cleveland, up 38 percent.

"The killings are going in spurts," said Judy Martin, a victims' advocate in Cleveland whose son was shot to death in a 1994 carjacking.

"A number of the murders this year seem to come from a number of young men jumping on someone and killing them."

"We are going downhill."

Detroit, Los Angeles and New York were among several big cities that saw murder numbers drop.

Theories about New York's decline vary.

Some experts point to favorable shifts in demographics and the economy, as well as the crash of a once-thriving crack market that fueled violence in the 1980s.

Officials in the 36,000-officer department, the nation's largest, credit their crime-fighting approach.

They cite a tactic refined over the past decade in which commanders use computers to track crime patterns -- particularly those involving guns and drugs -- and deploy patrols where and when criminals are most active.

Police in Houston attributed some of their spike in violent crime to New Orleans gang members who evacuated there along with thousands of other victims of Hurricane Katrina last fall.

The FBI figures were released on the same day authorities announced the arrest in Louisiana of a Katrina evacuee considered one of the Houston area's most-wanted killers.

Authorities said he robbed two other evacuees of their FEMA money and shot them, killing one.

------

On the Net:

FBI: http://www.fbi.gov

end quotes .....

More and more people ....

Are settling disputes with guns ....

BECAUSE THAT IS HOW GEORGE W. BUSH SETTLES HIS DISPUTES ....

And with that kind of example at the top .....

Well ...

And how about this, too?

Whoever could have guessed it would be so?

Besides anyone with a lick of common sense in their head .....

Which sure does not seem to be anyone down there in Washington, D.C. .....

And especially the PRESIDENT of the WORLD'S ONLY REAL SUPERPOWER ....

WHICH IS A "SUPERPOWER" .....

BECAUSE WE HAVE THE SUPERBOWL ....

WITH ITS PLENITUDE OF VIAGRA COMMERCIALS ....

WHEN NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD DOES ....

WHICH IS WHAT MAKES US "SUPER", I GUESS ....

And so .....

"Civilians the forgotten victims of Iraq stress disorder"

by Veronique Kiss

Sun Jun 11, 4:24 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - David Meredith was one of tens of thousands of American civilians who believed the high salary to be earned as a contractor in Iraq outweighed the risks.

"Before, I was a cool, laid-back, easygoing guy," said the 37-year-old truck driver and father of four.

"Since I came back from Iraq, I have suicidal thoughts, angry outbursts, insomnia, flashbacks."

Meredith, who spent one year in Iraq from 2004-2005, is among thousands of military and civilian veterans of the Iraq conflict to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

US soldiers get psychological treatment.

Meredith says he gets no help from his former employer, Halliburton, which had major contracts in Iraq.

Meredith earned 90,000 dollars a year in Iraq.

"It is true, I earned nearly double what I could in the United States but now I feel like my country is turning its back on me," he told AFP by telephone.

Now back at home in Kansas, the driver relies heavily on anti-depressant drugs and his wife's health insurance to pay the medical bills.

A local doctor diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but Halliburton's insurer refuses to pay for treatment.

He can no longer work as a driver because of the drugs he takes.

"I feel betrayed," he said.

After the Vietnam War, US veterans had difficulty claiming compensation for PTSD but now it is an affliction that the US military takes seriously.

Colonel Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatry consultant to the US Army Surgeon General, said special units had been set up in Iraq to counter post-traumatic stress and more than 200 "mental health professionals" work with the 130,000 US troops in the strife-torn country.

"We want to identify (cases) and treat them before it becomes chronic," Ritchie told AFP.

Troops are even monitored for three-to-six months after their return to the United States.

According to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 15-17 percent of soldiers come back from Iraq suffering from PTSD.

At the moment there are an estimated 30,000-35,000 US civilians in Iraq working for companies like Halliburton providing transportation, cleaning, catering and other services for the military and other contractors.

In Iraq, drivers like Meredith faced the daily threat of insurgent attacks, roadside bombs and snipers.

Hundreds of contractors for Halliburton and other companies have been killed in the country since the US-led invasion in 2003.

"In Iraq, no place is safe."

"They can never relax," said Dean Kilpatrick, a professor of clinical psychology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Foreign civilian workers are "always in a stress situation".

Kilpatrick, who has been studying stress disorder for 25 years, said that the army weeds out characters that might not be able to stand a tour of Iraq, while civilian companies take anyone.

Gary Pitts, a lawyer in Houston, Texas, represents about 100 American civilians who have come back from Iraq with PTSD and are now launching legal action for compensation.

He said that insurance companies refuse to pay for victims even when they are diagnosed by independent doctors.

"Insurance companies don't like to spend money," said Pitts.

A truck driver in the United States earns about 35,000 dollars a year, while in Iraq that goes up to 70,000-90,000 dollars for working 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

"Yes, it is a good way to save money, but they also do it also for patriotism reasons because often they are too old to be soldiers," said Pitts.

Charles Figley, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, said that civilians are more at risk of PTSD than soldiers because they recieve less training.

"Companies like Halliburton are only business-oriented, there is no adequate mental health support," he said in an interview.

Halliburton declined requests for an interview.

end quotes

IN A "MERCANTILE REPUBLIC" .....

SUCH AS AMERICA IS .....

"PATRIOTISM" ....

OR WHAT PASSES FOR IT, ANYWAY ....

IS DIRECTLY CONNECTED ...

TO THE SIZE OF THE PAYCHECK BEING OFFERED ....

TO BE "PATRIOTIC" .....

And so .....