Cover-up: FBI Threatens Suspect's Family with Torture

by Valtin
Wed Oct 31, 2007 at 03:14:10 PM PDT

Like a scenario out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, an innocent man was accused of assisting the 9/11 hijackers in their terrorist plot. Abdallah Higazy was an Egyptian national studying computer engineering at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. In December 2001, he was coerced into falsely confessing his "role" in 9/11 after the FBI was tipped that he supposedly owned an air-band transceiver capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground communication.

The transceiver turned out to belong to an airline pilot staying in Abdallah's NY hotel. Higazy was released after 34 days in custody. He subsequently sued both his FBI interrogator and the hotel he stayed in, whose security officers had found the radio. The hotel settled, but initially the FBI suit was dismissed. Upon appeal, the 2nd Circuit remanded the case to district court.

Read at Daily Kos

Theocracy Now!

Read more with Max Blumenthal

Mohammed ElBaradei Thinks Bombing Iran Would Be A "Disaster"

Hans Blix Says Iran Situation Reminiscent Of Iraq

Blackwater guards promised immunity

State Department gave protection to all guards in deadly Iraq incident
BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:49 p.m. PT Oct 29, 2007

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WASHINGTON - The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

As a result, it will likely be months before the United States can — if ever — bring criminal charges in the case that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

“Once you give immunity, you can’t take it away,” said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

A State Department spokesman did not have an immediate comment Monday. Both Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd and FBI spokesman Rich Kolko declined comment.

FBI agents were returning to Washington late Monday from Baghdad, where they have been trying to collect evidence in the Sept. 16 embassy convoy shooting without using statements from Blackwater employees who were given immunity.

Three senior law enforcement officials said all the Blackwater bodyguards involved — both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above — were given the legal protections as investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security sought to find out what happened. The bureau is an arm of the State Department.

Strained relationship with Iraq
The investigative misstep comes in the wake of already-strained relations between the United States and Iraq, which is demanding the right to launch its own prosecution of the Blackwater bodyguards.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell declined comment about the U.S. investigation. Based in Moyock, N.C., Blackwater USA is the largest private security firm protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.

The company has said its Sept. 16 convoy was under attack before it opened fire in west Baghdad’s Nisoor Square, killing 17 Iraqis. A follow-up investigation by the Iraqi government, however, concluded that Blackwater’s men were unprovoked. No witnesses have been found to contradict that finding.


An initial incident report by U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq, also indicated “no enemy activity involved” in the Sept. 16 incident. The report says Blackwater guards were traveling against the flow of traffic through a traffic circle when they “engaged five civilian vehicles with small arms fire” at a distance of 50 meters.

The FBI took over the case early this month, officials said, after prosecutors in the Justice Department’s criminal division realized it could not bring charges against Blackwater guards based on their statements to the Diplomatic Security investigators.

Official: Guards spoke after given protection
Officials said the Blackwater bodyguards spoke only after receiving so-called “Garrity” protections, requiring that their statements only be used internally — and not for criminal prosecutions.

At that point, the Justice Department shifted the investigation to prosecutors in its national security division, sealing the guards’ statements and attempting to build a case based on other evidence from a crime scene that was then already two weeks old.

The FBI has re-interviewed some of the Blackwater employees, and one official said Monday that at least several of them have refused to answer questions, citing their constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. Any statements that the guards give to the FBI could be used to bring criminal charges.

A second official, however, said that not all the guards have cited their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination — leaving open the possibility for future charges. The official declined to elaborate.

Prosecutors will have to prove that any evidence they use in bringing charges against Blackwater employees was uncovered without using the guards’ statements to State Department investigators. They “have to show we got the information independently,” one official said.


Rare move
Garrity protections generally are given to police or other public law enforcement officers, and were extended to the Blackwater guards because they were working on behalf of the U.S. government, one official said. Experts said it’s rare for them to be given to all or even most witnesses — particularly before a suspect is identified.

“You have to be careful,” said Michael Horowitz, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and senior Justice Department official. “You have to understand early on who your serious subjects are in the investigation, and avoid giving these people the protections.”

It’s not clear why the Diplomatic Security investigators agreed to give immunity to the bodyguards, or who authorized doing so.

Bureau of Diplomatic Security chief Richard Griffin last week announced his resignation, effective Thursday. Senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said his departure was directly related to his oversight of Blackwater contractors.

Tyrrell, the Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company was alerted Oct. 2 that FBI would be taking over the investigation from the State Department. She declined further comment.

Government oversight boosted
On Oct. 3, State Department Sean McCormack said the FBI had been called in to assist Diplomatic Security investigators. A day later, he said the FBI had taken over the probe.

“We, internally and in talking with the FBI, had been thinking about the idea of the FBI leading the investigation for a number of different reasons,” McCormack told reporters during an Oct. 4 briefing.

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a series of measures to boost government oversight of the private guards who protect American diplomats in Iraq. They include increased monitoring and explicit rules on when and how they can use deadly force.

Blackwater’s contract with the State Department expires in May and there are questions whether it will remain as the primary contractor for diplomatic bodyguards. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his Cabinet is drafting legislation that would force the State Department to replace Blackwater with another security company.

Congress also is expected to investigate the shootings, but a House watchdog committee said it has so far held off based on a Justice Department request that lawmakers wait until the FBI concludes its inquiry.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on JOTC may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.

Beyond the Age of Petroleum

Petroleum is, of course, a finite substance, and geologists have long warned of its ultimate disappearance. The extraction of oil, like that of other nonrenewable resources, will follow a parabolic curve over time. Production rises quickly at first and then gradually slows until approximately half the original supply has been exhausted; at that point, a peak in sustainable output is attained and production begins an irreversible decline until it becomes too expensive to lift what little remains. Most oil geologists believe we have already reached the midway point in the depletion of the world's original petroleum inheritance and so are nearing a peak in global output; the only real debate is over how close we have come to that point, with some experts claiming we are at the peak now and others saying it is still a few years or maybe a decade away.

Read at The Nation

The Post Office vs. the Founding Fathers

On July 15, the postal rates for America's most important political magazines, both left and right, increased by twenty to thirty percent after the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) adopted a rate plan written by lobbyists from Time-Warner.

Read at The Nation

Al Gore: The Write-In Front-Runner

A funny thing happened when the Deaniacs were asked to decide who they might want to back for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination

Read at The Nation

White House ‘Eviscerates’ CDC Director’s Senate Testimony On Global Warming

Think Progress
Posted by Amanda October 23, 2007 9:17

CDC officials are now revealing that the White House heavily edited Gerberding’s testimony, which originally was longer and had more “information on health risks“:

“It was eviscerated,” said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.

The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly “heavy-handed,” with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.

Full Post at Think Progress

Naomi Wolf Warns That The End of America Is Near

Posted by Adam Howard at 1:41 PM on October 21, 2007.

Adam Howard: Mussolini created the blueprint,

Hitler followed suit, Stalin studied Hitler and it all leads to Bush.


Read at AlterNet

"For George Bush's Amusement"?

The conservative vision of America, by National Review

Tuesday October 16, 2007 07:51 EST
Glenn Greenwald

Today's National Review Editorial on FISA and eavesdropping describes the modern "conservative" movement's view of America:

A sensible FISA fix would set a low threshold for the executive branch to commence monitoring. There should be no restrictions when targets are non-citizens outside the United States, even if they contact people inside the United States.

So the President and those under his command should be completely free to eavesdrop on every one of the international calls you make to, or receive from, any foreign "target" -- with no oversight or restrictions of any kind. And since the designation of "foreign target" is within the discretion of the executive, National Review is advocating that the President possess virtually absolute and unchecked power to eavesdrop on any international calls made or received by Americans. And that's not all:

Read more at Glenn Greenwald

The vision of America

Spitting On The Troops

by digby @ Hullabaloo 10/14/2007 11:40:00 AM

We've now come full circle. The anger and disdain among political activists toward returning Vets is back with a vengeance. And it's pretty ugly. Sadly No finds one example (regarding this article in today's WaPo about a returning vet with PTSD):


How does one decipher whether a person is truly mentally ill, or is exploiting their battle experiences to their fullest advantage?

How do we know if Troy is the person he is because of the battlefield experiences, or if he is choosing to be this person because others are enabling him? Since we’re not hearing from Troy’s pre-war family and friends it is difficult to really know what he was life prior to his tour in Iraq.

I’m very skeptical of Troy’s “problems” and so should others who read this article.

He is capable of rational thought and he is making choices. He choses to swallow pills and watch TV in the dark- to shut himself in…to refuse medical/psych care and, I really wonder- the required services that would make him a better person.

When we enable some people to be the worst they can be, they take advantage and do just that.


The political activists who metaphorically spit on the troops today are on the right.

This is going to be more common as we come up against the government's responsibility toward our military and the brainwashing these selfish right wing creeps have undergone for the last 20 years. I don't think they've ever contemplated the fact that their patriotic reverence for the troops might conflict with their anti-government philosophy. After all, the military is a government program. And there are going to be veterans who need the government's help for the rest of their lives.

Sadly No documents some of the comments to that post which illustrate the strange new mental terrain these people are entering. This one says it all:



The liberal mindset is what causes PTSD. Boys being raised to men without a strong male role model, and having a false sense of what life is about is causing our young men to go to war and come home freaked out.



That's an excellent diagnosis, no doubt endorsed by the experienced doctor shopping medical expert Rush Limbaugh. But it doesn't really hold water since combat stress has been around since cave days. In WWI they called it shell shock. In WWII they called it battle fatigue. In Vietnam they called it PTSD. Whatever it's called, it's one of the most common war injuries of all.

In fact,in the Ken Burns doc on WWII, I was startled to see this statistic:


One out of four Army men evacuated for medical reasons in Europe and the Pacific suffered from neuro-psychiatric disorders. There were many names for it – “shell shock,” “battle fatigue,” “combat exhaustion.” The office of the U.S. surgeon general sent Dwight D. Eisenhower a study by two soldier-psychiatrists that found “there is no such thing as ‘getting used to combat.’ … Each moment … imposes a strain so great that men will break down in direct relation to the intensity and duration of their exposure. Psychiatric casualties are as inevitable as gunshot and shrapnel wounds.” Army planners determined that the average soldier could withstand no more than 240 days of combat without going mad. By that time, the average soldier was probably dead or wounded.


I don't think all those soldiers in WWII had liberal single mothers who didn't know how to raise proper children, do you?

The keyboard commandos are in grave danger of jumping the patriotic shark at this point. As much as these movie addled children love the glory they think other people dying confers upon them, the horror of war is actually very real. And the reality affects those who fight it directly, not those who sit in judgment between trips to the mall. Many men and women who have been involved in this thing, regardless of their politics, are injured in body, mind and spirit. But these cheerleaders on the right apparently aren't willing to put up with any veteran who doesn't hide all feelings of ambiguity, pain or disagreement. They are already calling them "phony", mentally unstable or malingerers in the right wing noise machine. It's not likely to get any better.

This war has always been a movie to them. And these people like their entertainment to be simple black and white battles between good 'n evul. Soldiers with problems or misgivings about the war are uncomfortable shades of gray, participants with moral authority who actually donned the uniform and threw themselves into danger and yet they behave in ways that can only be understood as "liberal". The enemy. Some will even need help from the government and many will think they deserve it, even as they say they are now against the war they fought. How would a John Wayne cartoon deal with that?

The Iraq War Vets are coming back to a country in which many of the military's most ardent defenders demand they never allow anyone to see what they have been through or speak views that might force armchair generals to face the fact that war is not a game and that the American military is made up of real human beings instead of figments of a Hollywood screenwriter's imagination. They fought for Rush Limbaugh's fantasies. What a terrible thing to do to them.

Watch Thom Hartman on C-Span

C-SPAN (click here)

and Thom talking about "Screwed" on Book TV

Our video of the day...

Felons helped Army meet recruitment goal

Web Posted: 10/12/2007 11:29 PM CDT
Sig Christenson
Express-News

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WASHINGTON — The Army made its recruiting goal last year despite an increasingly unpopular war by turning to people convicted of serious crimes.

Recruiters signed up people who had committed such felonies as arson, burglary, aggravated assault, breaking and entering and driving while intoxicated.

The Army Recruiting Command said "moral" waivers for 1,620 felons were approved in the 2007 federal fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. That was far above the 2006 mark of 1,002.

The Army called giving waivers "the right thing to do" for those who want to serve. But a former Vietnam-era combat commander warned the service has cut a Faustian bargain it has made in the past and came to regret.

"I don't think that they should reduce their standards at all because it's not going to pay off for them," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor, who had the job of improving the quality of recruits in the Northeast after standards fell in the wake of Vietnam.

"It will be a short-term fix in making numbers, but a long-term headache in terms of performance," he predicted, "and I don't know one Army officer — particularly those who went through the Vietnam and post-Vietnam period — who doesn't take that same view."

The Army Recruiting Command's chief, Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, said a relatively small number of the service's 80,000-plus active-duty recruits are granted moral waivers.

Most moral waivers, he said, were for misdemeanors — "small-time things" like joyriding and teen drinking. He said he or his deputy approved waivers for all serious offenses.

The Army grants waivers for reasons ranging from medical conditions to aptitude scores.

The number of all waivers issued also rose significantly in 2007 over the previous year —18.5 percent of all recruits. The Recruiting Command said 22,186 waivers were granted, more than half of them for "moral character" issues.

Another 38.9 percent were medical waivers, with the remaining 6.7 percent for drug and alcohol problems.

In all, 8,330 moral waivers were issued in the 2006 fiscal year. Of those, 1,002 were for offenses the Army classified as felonies, Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith said. Recruits allowed into boot camp, he added, received a reduced charge in many cases but still were classified as felons.

Those convicted of sexually violent offenses and drug dealing aren't allowed into the Army. Federal gun control law forbids people convicted of certain domestic violence crimes from serving. Those involved in school violence were barred after the Columbine shootings, the Army said, as are people in jail, on parole or facing felony charges.

The Army conducts an extensive investigation into the background of each person only after a court renders judgment.

University of Maryland military sociologist David Segal called the numbers striking. The Army couldn't say if they were a record, but one Pentagon official, Dr. David Chu, told reporters this week that while waivers in 2007 were within historical norm, they were "at the high end" of the range.

The Army's increasing reliance on people with questionable backgrounds comes amid a war that Segal and the recruiting command's Bostick agree has hurt recruiting.

"When you have a war that's not supported by the American people, you're not going to get the right people to join the American Army," said Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs during the Reagan administration, now a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress in Washington.

The Army, though, said the waiver program allows patriotic young people to serve their country. In a fact sheet on the subject, the Army notes just three in 10 Americans between 17 and 24 years old are fully qualified to serve. The Army, it adds, reflects American society and, as a result, is taking more overweight youths and people with asthma, along with those convicted of serious crimes.

Bostick conceded Iraq is the deal-breaker for people. Recruiters, he said, are struggling to win the hearts and minds of "influencers," parents and other authority figures who help guide young people.

The raw numbers underscore the Army's dilemma in the fifth year of the Iraq war. It signed up fewer high school graduates — just 79.07 percent in 2007, down slightly from the previous year. It's taking in more overweight recruits and a greater number of people who post the lowest scores on the military's aptitude test.

Those who have been members of gangs, though, aren't automatically excluded from service.

"It's the criminal behavior that would be cause for exclusion," said Smith of the recruiting command. Anyone seeking a moral waiver is closely scrutinized by both recruiters and their chain of command, he said.

He could not say how many on waivers make it through basic training or commit crimes — including felonies — once they are in uniform.

Some soldiers famed for their heroism in combat, however, had checkered pasts.

At 16, Louis Richard Rocco was about to be sentenced for grand theft auto and armed robbery when he visited an Army recruiter. After a heart-to-heart talk, the recruiter went with him to court, where a judge said he could join the Army at 17 if he stayed in school, obeyed a curfew and stopped hanging out with gang-member friends.

Rocco, who died at his San Antonio home in 2002 at 63, received the Medal of Honor after his helicopter was hit by enemy fire and crashed. He retired as a chief warrant officer in 1978, four years after receiving the medal from President Ford, and re-enlisted during the first Gulf War.

Rocco, an Albuquerque, N.M., native, recruited medical personnel at Fort Sam Houston and later became a motivational speaker in the Alamo City.

Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said the number of moral waivers for 2007 were "quite acceptable," and noted that rates for desertion and going AWOL "continue to be at historically low levels."

The Army could not say how many soldiers who came in on moral waivers last year were accused of committing offenses requiring court-martials or non-judicial punishment. It added that an examination of records in 2003 showed no "significant" problem.

But Trainor, co-author of "Cobra II," a critical look at the Iraq war, said it took seven years for the Marines to recover from their decision to lower recruiting standards. The corps fixed the problem, he said, by taking a "zero-tolerance" approach to those responsible for recruiting and training new Marines.

"Is there room for the renegade and the rogue in the enlisted ranks?" Trainor asked. "Yes, there is. You don't want to close it off because there's a guy there who is going to do a hell of a good job, but you have to be careful. I'm saying you have to be careful about the people you accept and invest in."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on JOTC may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.

Income inequality worst since 1920s, according to IRS data

Nick Juliano
Published: Friday October 12, 2007

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Half of US senators are millionaires
The superrich are gobbling up an ever larger piece of the economic pie, and the poor are seeing their share of earnings shrink: new IRS data shows the top 1 percent of Americans are claiming a larger share of national income than at any time since before the Great Depression.

The top percentile of wealthy Americans earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent in 2004, according to new Internal Revenue Service data published in the Wall Street Journal Friday.

Americans in the bottom 50 percent of wage earners saw their share of income shrink to 12.8 percent in 2005, down from 13.4 percent.

"Scholars attribute rising inequality to several factors," the Journal reports, "including technological change that favors those with more skills, and globalization and advances in communications that enlarge the rewards available to 'superstar' performers whether in business, sports or entertainment."

The data could cause problems to President Bush and Republican presidential candidates, who have played up low unemployment and a strong economy since 2003, crediting Bush's tax cuts for contributing to both. In an interview with the Journal, Bush downplayed the significance of the income gap, saying more education is the answer to narrowing it.

"First of all, our society has had income inequality for a long time. Secondly, skills gaps yield income gaps," Bush told the Journal. "And what needs to be done about the inequality of income is to make sure people have got good education, starting with young kids. That's why No Child Left Behind is such an important component of making sure that America is competitive in the 21st century."

The Journal notes that many Americans fear the economy is entering a recession, and the IRS data show income for the median earner fell 2 percent between 2000 and 2005 to $30,881. Earnings for the top 1 percent grew to $364,657 -- a 3 percent uptick.

Scholarly research suggests that top earners did not have such a large share of total income since the 1920s, the Journal reported.

The Journal reports that a recent stock boom likely contributed to higher earnings among those in the top income bracket, with hedge fund managers and Wall Street attorneys seeing their incomes skyrocket in recent years.

Another prominent pool or wealthy Americans gathers regularly on Capitol Hill to write the nation's laws. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending and politicians' wealth, says more than a third of Congress members are millionaires, with at least half the Senate falling into the millionaires club.

Forbes reported that last year's incoming class of new Senators did "little to shake the Senate's image as a millionaires club," with half of the newly elected members having seven- eight- or nine-figure personal fortunes.

Freshman Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) is worth between $64 million and $236 million, and newly elected Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D-MO) fortune is between $13 million and $29 million. R

Roll Call estimates Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is the chamber's richest member with an estimated net worth of $750 million; another Democrat, Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl, is among the chamber's richest with between $220 million and $234 million in personal assets.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on JOTC may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.

Justice Dept. Accused of Partisan Voter-Roll Purge

Legal Affairs
by Pam Fessler

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Voting-rights advocates say that under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Justice Department pursued a partisan effort to limit the number of voters, while ignoring measures designed to get more voters on the rolls. Agency officials deny this is the case and point to recent efforts in their defense.

Joe Rich, a former head of the Civil Rights Division's voting section, recalls a 2004 meeting that he and other Justice Department officials had with two voter-advocacy groups, ProjectVote and Demos. The advocates had evidence that one section of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) — or motor-voter law — wasn't being enforced. That section requires states to make voter registration available at social-service agencies to encourage voter registration among low-income and disadvantaged Americans.

"Demos brought us a very detailed report that they had done, which showed a significant problem," says Rich, a longtime Justice Department employee who has since gone to work for the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights under Law, a voting-rights group.

After the meeting, Rich thought the groups' concerns should be investigated, but higher-ups at the Justice Department felt otherwise.

"I was told by Mr. Hans Von Spakovsky, who was then the primary supervisor of the voting section — he was a political appointee — that he really didn't think there was any merit to this, and he brushed it off without any action at all," Rich says.

Rich says that a few months later, Von Spakovsky directed the office to push another part of the motor-voter law — an effort that focused more on taking names off the lists, rather than putting them on.

Aggressive Cleanup Campaign

In 2005, the Justice Department began an aggressive campaign to enforce a requirement that states clean up their voter registration rolls by deleting any duplications and the names of those who have left the state or died. The department filed suit against four states and questioned several others.

Von Spakovsky, now a nominee for the Federal Election Commission, defended the effort at his Senate confirmation hearing in June.

"NVRA — this is, again, Congress telling the states — says that you have to engage in regular list maintenance in order to take off people who are ineligible, such as voters who die," Von Spakovsky said. He denied that the department's effort was political, saying that it targeted both Democratic- and Republican-run states, and that it also targeted the improper removal of legitimate voters.

But the effort was controversial. Todd Graves, the U.S. attorney for the Western district of Missouri who was later fired, refused to sign on to the department's lawsuit against the state of Missouri. Other states were taken aback by letters from the Justice Department questioning the accuracy of their rolls.

North Carolina Election Director Gary Bartlett received two letters, one in 2005 and another earlier this year.

"The first one, I would have said it was threatening. The second one was more of a nuisance," Bartlett says, adding that the department's numbers were off-base.

As with other states, Justice Department officials had compared North Carolina's registration lists with Census figures and found more people registered in some areas than there were voting-age residents. On the surface, it was a legitimate concern. But Bartlett says the figures were old, and didn't take into account areas — such as college towns — where students can vote, but might not be counted in the Census. There were also inactive voters who, by law, must be kept on the rolls for several years before they can be removed.

"We want a clean list, but we do not want to be so overzealous that we administratively make some type of error that might impact an eligible registered voter to be disenfranchised," Bartlett says.

Maintaining Voter Confidence

That's the concern for advocacy groups, who worry that, in an effort to respond to the Justice Department, states might overreact. In Kentucky last year, several hundred voters were mistakenly removed from the rolls as part of a larger purge.

"The people who tend to get removed from rolls on these kinds of purges tend to be the lower-income, more-mobile people, the minorities," says Brian Mellor, senior counsel for ProjectVote. He says these people are often Democratic voters.

Mellor finds it curious that the Justice Department was so eager to enforce the purging requirements, while doing little to make sure states provided registration opportunities at social service agencies. ProjectVote has taken it upon itself to push states to comply, threatening at least two with lawsuits.

"We've got to go out and do the job of the Justice Department," Mellor says.

Justice Department officials, however, deny this is the case. They say they are concerned that new numbers show some states aren't doing enough to get new voters on the rolls. The department recently sent letters to 18 states asking them to explain what appear to be problems with their registration programs.

Asheesh Agarwal, deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, says the agency's enforcement is balanced.

He says, "Ultimately, what we want is for all the states to comply with both the registration provisions of motor voter — so that it's easy for eligible voters to register to vote — and we want them to comply with the list-maintenance provisions, so that voters can have confidence that only eligible voters are voting.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on JOTC may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.

Religious request raises red flag on Hill

By Johanna Neuman
Los Angeles Times

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WASHINGTON — The latest controversy over the separation of church and state began innocently enough. In August, Andrew Larochelle, 17, wrote his congressman requesting a flag be flown over the U.S. Capitol to honor his grandfather and his "love of God, country and family."

But the Capitol architect, whose employees run the Stars and Stripes up and down three flagpoles hundreds of times each day, balked at the religious dedication. His decision has provoked a hot debate over the place of religion in U.S. political institutions, becoming the most recent touchstone in the nation's culture wars.

Larochelle's request was one of more than 100,000 that flood Congress each year from constituents. Members of Congress often include a sample request letter on their Web sites because the flags are so popular.

When Stephen Ayers, the acting architect, received the request to honor Marcel Larochelle, an Army veteran, "and his dedication and love of God, country and family," he declined to provide the dedication.

Ayers cited the rules issued by the Architect of the Capitol's office for ordering flags, which includes this stipulation: "Personalized dedications are permitted but ... political and/or religious expressions are not permitted on the flag certificate."

When the Larochelles received the flag certificate, it contained no mention of God. It only indicated the date and time it had flown over the Capitol.

Paul Larochelle, Andrew's father and a Roman Catholic, called his congressman's office. "I thought it was a typographical error," said the elder Larochelle, a computer-program manager in Dayton, Ohio.

Notified of the "error," Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, issued a certificate of his own, with the requested language.

Then, a week ago, he wrote a "Dear Colleague" letter criticizing the architect for putting "at risk our religious freedoms and heritage" and requesting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., overturn the decision.

Since then, more than 160 members of Congress signed on, including five Democrats. Cable-television shows went on the offensive, as members of Congress leaped on the issue as the latest example of political correctness stripping God from U.S. institutions.

"This is a case of political correctness run amok," wrote Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas. "The government is not imposing 'God' on flag certificates. Rather, it is the request of the taxpayer who wants to mark a special occasion with the honor of a flag flown over the world's symbol of democracy."

Andrew Larochelle has been overwhelmed with media requests, his father said. "He's getting a lesson not only in our country's politics but in our country's media," he said.



Pelosi weighed in this week, noting Congress, which begins its day with a prayer and meets in a chamber with the word "God " engraved overhead, is not against religion.

"People were asking for statements that not only were religious, beyond using the word God, but political as well," she said. "It's not about being anti-religion; it is just about what the architect thought was appropriate for him to proclaim in a certificate."

Pelosi appears likely to propose the architect merely issue a statement of the time and date that the flag flew, leaving it to members of Congress to issue detailed certificates.

It's not clear that will quiet the controversy that Turner spokesman Andy Bloom described as "a brush fire that became a forest fire."

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Spokane boys ranch records to be released to sex abuse victims

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Associated Press Writer

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SPOKANE, Wash. — The state Supreme Court has declined to review an order that the Morning Star Boys Ranch release the personal files of more than 1,000 past residents to lawyers for sex-abuse victims who have sued the home for orphans and troubled boys.

In seeking a high court review, Morning Star officials contended that the order by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke was unreasonable and should be immediately reviewed by a higher court.

In a decision released Tuesday, Supreme Court Commissioner Steven Goff denied the review, saying Morning Star did not show that the request for information violated privacy laws.

The records will be released to lawyers for the victims, not to the general public.

Thirteen people have filed abuse lawsuits against the ranch, claiming they were sexually abused in the 1970s and '80s. Six of the victims accuse the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, former director of the ranch, of abuse. Weitensteiner, 74, resigned last year. He has denied committing sexual abuse.

Morning Star was founded in 1956 by former Catholic Bishop Bernard J. Topel, but is a separate entity from the Catholic Diocese of Spokane.

Timothy Kosnoff, of Seattle, attorney for some of the victims, said releasing the files will allow the plaintiffs to locate and interview hundreds of former residents.

"In this way, a fuller picture of daily horrors at the ranch will emerge," Kosnoff said.

The plaintiffs believe the files will show that complaints of child abuse were made and recorded in personal files, but not disclosed on public daily logs at the ranch, Kosnoff said.

"We believe there was a concerted effort to suppress the existence of abuse information from the public and from child welfare authorities," Kosnoff said.

Officials for Morning Star said in a news release that they will turn over the records.

"We appealed Judge Clarke's decision because we felt it necessary to go to great lengths to protect the privacy and confidentiality of all our residents," acting director Dan Kuhlman said.

A 2006 protective order prevents information from the files being released to the public, the ranch said.

The ranch on Spokane's South Hill has served some 1,300 orphaned or troubled boys since it opened five decades ago.

In 2005, The Spokesman-Review newspaper reported there had been repeated sexual and physical abuse of boys at the ranch, based on records from the state Department of Social and Health Services, court documents and interviews with former counselors and residents.

It was another jolt for area Catholics, who were also dealing with allegations of past sexual abuse by priests of the Spokane Diocese, which filed for bankruptcy protection because of the claims.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

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State Dept. May Phase Out Blackwater

Oct 11, 3:29 AM EDT
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department may phase out or limit the use of private security guards in Iraq, which could mean canceling Blackwater USA's contract or awarding it to another company in line with an Iraqi government demand, The Associated Press has learned.

Such steps would be difficult given U.S. reliance on Blackwater and other contractors, but they are among options being studied during a comprehensive review of security in Iraq, two senior officials said.

The review was ordered after a Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards protecting a U.S. Embassy convoy in Baghdad are accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians.

The shooting has enraged the Iraqi government, which is demanding millions in compensation for the victims and removal of Blackwater in six months. It also has focused attention on the nebulous rules governing private guards and added to the Bush administration's problems in managing the war in Iraq.

And it prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to order the top-to-bottom review from a commission headed by Patrick Kennedy, one of the State Department's most experienced management officials.

Kennedy has been told to concentrate on several key issues, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the review is still under way. Among them:

-Changes to the rules of engagement under which State Department security contractors operate, particularly for approaching suspicious vehicles, which is at the crux of the Sept. 16 incident. Blackwater insists its guards were fired upon, although Iraqi witnesses and the Iraqi government maintain the guards opened fire with no provocation when a vehicle got too close.

-Whether Blackwater's secretive corporate culture, reputed to have encouraged a "cowboy-like mentality," has led to its employees being more likely to violate or stretch the existing rules than those of the two other private security firms, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, the State Department uses in Iraq.

-Whether it's feasible to eliminate or drastically curtail the use of private foreign contractors to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq. And, if so, how to replace them.

The officials cautioned that no decisions have been made on what the review panel will recommend. They also said that each recommendation involves complex variables that could depend on interpretations of Iraqi and U.S. laws, as well as U.S. government regulations for vendors.

But they said Rice is eager for changes and has already accepted and implemented initial steps Kennedy urged in a preliminary report last week. They included improving government oversight of Blackwater by having federal agents accompany convoys and installing video cameras in their vehicles.

Officials in the tight-knit world of security operatives in Baghdad said Blackwater was preparing a reorganization and possible downsizing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity. The company, based in Moyock, N.C., does not speak publicly about its operations or plans. Calls and e-mail messages left with Blackwater on Wednesday were not returned.

A top aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the AP that Washington was considering the findings of the Iraqi government's report into the incident and calls for reform.

"But so far there has been no concrete answer from the U.S. Embassy showing it was definitely going to drop Blackwater," the aide said.

The aide said the al-Maliki government told the U.S. Embassy, "We will draft and pass laws that would lift the immunity on these security companies to stop their reckless behavior."

Kennedy has been in Iraq for nearly two weeks with one of three outside experts Rice named to the commission, Eric Boswell, a former diplomat and intelligence official. The other two, retired Army Gen. George Joulwan and former Ambassador Stapleton Roy, were being briefed on the mission at the State Department on Wednesday before heading to Baghdad.

"They are going to take the time that they need with the understanding that the secretary wants to make sure that this is done with some dispatch," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The officials said Kennedy's team was not expected to recommend eliminating all private contractors because it would have a profound impact on how U.S. diplomats work in Iraq. The State Department's own Bureau of Diplomatic Security lacks both the manpower and equipment, notably helicopters, to do the job, they said.

The State Department has operated its own "air wing" with U.S. helicopters and planes for counternarcotics work in Latin America but has had to rely on contract pilots from Dyncorp to fly them.

Blackwater is now the biggest of the three firms working for the department in Iraq with about 1,000 employees and handles protection in and around Baghdad, the most dangerous areas of the country. It has been paid as much as $1 billion for its work in Iraq.

Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, which work in the north and south, are far smaller and face resource constraints.

Under the terms of the department's Worldwide Personal Protective Security contract, which covers privately contracted guards for diplomats in Iraq, Blackwater, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy are the only three companies eligible to bid on specific task orders there.

If Blackwater goes, the slack would almost certainly have to be picked up by one or more other companies, which may require certifying other firms to bid, including non-U.S. ones, the officials said.

Of interest to the department is the possibility of forming Iraqi companies with Iraqi employees to protect U.S. diplomats as local guards do for embassy staff in other countries, they said. That would bring the guards fully under the jurisdiction of Iraqi law but is not a short-term option given inadequate training facilities.

The Pentagon has been reluctant to provide security for diplomats but another alternative might be joint State-Defense department patrols. Yet another would be hiring Blackwater and other private guards as temporary U.S. government employees, the officials said

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U.N. wants security guards in Iraq to face law

Reuters
Thu Oct 11, 2007 5:15 PM ET
By David Clarke

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United Nations wants probes to determine whether private security contractors in Iraq have committed war crimes and for governments to ensure that the rule of law is applied, U.N. officials said on Thursday.

The killing of 17 Iraqis in a shooting involving U.S. security firm Blackwater last month has created tensions between Baghdad and Washington and sparked calls for tighter controls on private contractors, who are immune from prosecution in Iraq.

Ivana Vuco, the U.N.'s senior human rights officer in Iraq, told a news conference that private security contractors were still subject to international humanitarian law.

"Investigations as to whether or not crimes against humanity, war crimes, are being committed and obviously the consequences of that is something that we will be paying attention to and advocating for," she told a news conference.

Iraq says there are more than 180 mainly U.S. and European security companies in the country, with estimates of the number of private contractors ranging from 25,000 to 48,000.

The U.N. urged governments to make sure private security contractors were accountable for any unjustified killings.

Many Iraqis see security companies as little more than private armies which act with impunity. Iraqi authorities have accused Blackwater of "deliberately killing" the 17 Iraqis in last month's shooting, but the security firm says its guards responded lawfully to a threat against a convoy it was guarding.

A wounded survivor and relatives of three Iraqis killed in the Blackwater incident sued the firm in U.S. court on Thursday.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group, said it filed the suit charging that Blackwater and its affiliates violated U.S. law in committing "extrajudicial killings and war crimes."

The suit seeks unspecified compensatory damages for death, physical, mental and economic injuries, and punitive damages.

A government source has said Baghdad wants Blackwater to pay $8 million in compensation to each victim's family.

Launching the latest U.N. human rights report, which covers the period April through June, officials also stressed that the crisis caused by the displacement of Iraqis was getting worse and the human rights situation in general was "very grim".

A car bomb in the northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday wounded the traffic police chief, killed at least seven and wounded 49 others, police said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has vowed to attack Iraqi police and Sunni Arab tribal leaders working with U.S. forces. There has been a spate of attacks on law enforcement officers and tribal leaders in northern Iraq this week.

"I heard a loud sound and I fell on the ground," said a 50-year-old Kurdish woman. "When I stood up I saw smoke, people screaming, and people on the ground either killed or wounded, people running."

U.S. BASE ATTACKED

Insurgents also launched a rare attack on a sprawling U.S. base in Baghdad late on Wednesday, firing nine mortar bombs or rockets into the compound. The attack killed two soldiers and wounded 38, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

The number of casualties is the highest in months from an attack on Victory, which houses the U.S. military's headquarters near Baghdad airport.

The U.S. military gave no details on the nationalities of any of the victims. Besides U.S. troops, small numbers of soldiers from other countries are based at Camp Victory.

This week two women were shot dead when their vehicle ventured too close to an armed convoy. The Australian-owned, Dubai-based security firm Unity Resources Group said the vehicle had ignored warnings to stop and its guards then opened fire.

"Definitely we will keep driving that point home time and again so different groups do not feel above the law in treating the populace," said Said Arikat, U.N. mission spokesman in Iraq. (Additional reporting by Dean Yates, Aseel Kami, Ross Colvin and Paul Tait)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

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"Why Not Single Payer?" A Response to Paul Krugman and the Leading Democratic Presidential Contenders. Part 1.

On Huffingotn Post
Miles Mogulescu
Posted October 10, 2007 | 03:10 AM (EST)

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Faster than you can say the word "Sicko" and turn around 3 times, the Democrats' promise of health care for all has gone from "Universal Medicare For All" to "Individual Insurance Mandate". In Monday's New York Times, Paul Krugman defends that reversal in an article entitled "Why Not Single Payer?"

The possibility, after the 2008 elections, of a Democratic-controlled Congress which could pass Medicare For All (a/k/a Universal Single Payer Health Insurance) and a Democratic President who would sign it, could bring about the best chance to enact Medicare For All since Harry Truman first proposed it in 1948.

Yet without firing a shot and with no debate, the leading Democratic Presidential Contenders--Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama--as well as a good part of the Washington progressive infrastructure of think tanks and lobbying groups--have given up the fight for Medicare For All. Instead they propose variations of an Individual Mandate plan developed over the past 15 years by the "moderate" corporate wing of the Republican Party, a version of which Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts and which Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing in California as an alternative to the single payer plan which the Democratic California legislature passed last year that he vetoed.

The thing is, I can't quite figure out why the Democrats are in such rapid retreat from Medicare For All before the first battle has even been joined. Is it another example of the political cowardice by which the only Iraq resolutions that can pass the Democratic controlled Senate are a Republican-driven bill condemning MoveOn.Org. and praising Gen. Petraeus and another declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization? Is it because the Democratic candidates are afraid of being accused by Republicans of supporting socialized medicine? (If so, it won't help because Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney--whose Massachusetts plan Hillary largely imitates--all quickly claimed that Hillarycare 2.0 is socialized medicine, anyway.) Is it because they've been bought off by insurance companies and drug companies or fear that too many other Congress and Senate members have?

Or is it because they think that the insurance companies and drug companies are just too politically powerful to take on: Therefore the only way to insure most Americans is to make a deal with the devil that requires profit-making insurance companies to waive pre-existing conditions and charge everyone similar premiums regardless of age or health, in exchange for Congress delivering them 50 million guaranteed new profit-making customers, partly subsidized by the government?

Paul Krugman's NY Times column is one of the first direct attempts by a liberal former supporter of single payer to try to make the case for adopting the Individual Mandate approach instead. According to Krugman, "basically it looks like something that could actually happen in the next administration, while enacting a single-payer plan...excellent as those plans are, might take a very long time."

First, Krugman argues than an Individual Mandate would not require a big tax increase, although he admits (thus defeating his own argument) that taxes which most people would pay for single payer would most likely be lower than premiums that an Individual Mandate would require them to pay out of their pockets to buy insurance. Second, he argues than an Individual Mandate won't make people feel that they're "being forced into a government plan". But the essence of an Individual Mandate plan is that the federal government forces the uninsured to buy health insurance. It involves even more government coercion than Medicare For All.

Finally, he argues that the Democrats' proposals generally include a Medicare-like public insurance alternative which individuals may buy into and which "would evolve into single-payer over time." Krugman never quite explains how this piece of alchemy will occur. Moreover, he admits that this is the part of the Democrats' plan that the insurance industry will fight "tooth and nail". If the Democrats have already surrendered on Medicare For All without firing a shot, isn't it likely that the public alternative (the "socialized medicine" part) will be the first part of the plan to be compromised away when the legislative battles start in Congress and the insurance lobby starts exercising its muscle with its hundreds of lobbyists and tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions?

In short, I find Krugman's notion that an Individual Mandate is somehow more politically pragmatic than Medicare For All unconvincing and I don't buy his argument that it's a backdoor way to eventually get there. I even wonder how strongly he believes his own arguments. Only last January, in critiquing Schwarzeneggers's Individual Mandate plan for California as a complicated "Rube Goldberg" device, Krugman argued that "the plan requires a much more intrusive government role than a single-payer system. Instead of reducing paperwork, the plan adds three new bureaucracies: one to police individuals to make sure they buy insurance, one to determine if they're poor enough to receive aid, and one to police insurers to make sure they don't discriminate against the unwell." If you then add a public Medicare-like alternative that individuals can buy into, you need a fourth bureaucracy to administer that system.

Thus, when Hillary Clinton claims that her plan requires no new government bureaucracy, she's not being candid with the voters. That lack of candor will quickly be exploited by the Republicans and the insurance and drug lobbies. While Republicans are wrong that her plan amounts to "socialized medicine", such charges will still ring true since, in fact, her plan will require intrusive government regulation of the private insurance industry and coercive action to be sure that all citizens are obeying the individual mandate to buy health insurance. That's one of the big reasons why, once the debate really starts, an Individual Mandate will not necessarily be a popular plan with the voters--Using the political pragmatism test, it stands a better chance of being rejected by the public and meeting the same fate as Hillarycare 1.0 than does Medicare For All, for which the political arguments are simple and clean.

Whatever Clinton might claim, Hillarycare 2.0 in fact requires a highly intrusive government presence in the lives of both businesses and individuals. As with Hillarycare 1.0, this is likely to be the biggest club that Republicans and their insurance company allies will use to defeat her or another Democrat as they did in 1994, unless so many compromises are made to water down the plan that insurance and drug companies decide it's in their interest to accept the 50 million new mandatory government subsidized customers to pad their bottom lines. (Remember that with private insurance, approximately 30% of the healthcare dollar goes to administration, executive salaries and profits, compared to 2%-3% for Medicare; when all the political deals are finally cut, the private insurance and drug industries might find a new government subsidy for their bottom line an attractive deal.) If an Individual Mandate plan is more politically expedient than Medicare For All, it's not for any of the reasons which Krugman cites and not because it's likely to be more politically popular with the voters. The real reason is that with a few backroom political compromises, it could become a that plan the insurance and drug industries could learn to love.

END OF PART 1

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

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Bono speaks out against torture - and gets censored

The Smirking Chimp
By Mary Shaw
Created Sep 30 2007

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On September 27th, here in Philadelphia, the Liberty Medal for 2007 was awarded to Bono [1] and his organization DATA [2] (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), for their work in fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa. Each year, the National Constitution Center awards the Liberty Medal to a person or persons for outstanding work in advancing the cause of liberty around the world.

While Bono's entire acceptance speech was quite good, I was particularly moved when he spoke out against the use of torture. He said, "You do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster."

Indeed. Very well put.

And I wrote those words down right after I heard them, because I was so impressed and wanted to share the wisdom.

However, two days after the event, I downloaded the official video of Bono's speech at www.libertymedal.org [3]. And I discovered that the official video had been edited so that it no longer contains the references to torture, or other portions of the speech that apparently were not acceptable to The Powers That Be. Furthermore, the edited version seems to over-emphasize the few gratuitous positive comments that Bono made regarding the current Bush administration. (By the way, George Bush Sr. presented the award.)

Not being a conspiracy theorist, I began to question whether I had heard it all correctly the first time.

Fortunately, I discovered that Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News heard the same speech that I heard, and he wrote about it in his blog at www.attytood.com [4]. Bunch's blog entry about Bono's speech fills in some of the gaps that are missing from the official video, including the context surrounding Bono's "monster" comment.

So, thanks to Will Bunch, here is what Bono had to say about torture:


Today I read in the Economist an article reporting that over 38 percent of Americans support some type of torture in exceptional circumstances. My country? No. Your country? Tell me no. Today, when I receive this great honor, I ask you, I implore you as an Irishman who has seen some of these things close up, I ask you to remember, you do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster. Your America’s better than that.

Yes, that is exactly what I heard.

But, in the official video, all is missing except the last two sentences.

Yes, this is America, land of the free. Or so it once appeared to be.

Let's face it: When you feel you must censor the acceptance speech of a Liberty Medal recipient, something is seriously wrong.

_______



About author Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on JOTC may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.

GAO study reveals boot camp 'nightmare'

By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY

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WASHINGTON — The first federal inquiry into boot camps and wilderness programs for troubled teens cataloged 1,619 incidents of abuse in 33 states in 2005, a congressional investigation out today reveals.
The study, by the Government Accountability Office, also looked at a sample of 10 deaths since 1990 and found untrained staff, inadequate food or reckless operations were factors. In half of those cases, the teens died of dehydration or heat exhaustion, the GAO says.


NEGLECT: Teens suffered fatal health problems
There are no federal rules governing residential facilities for children, and some states do not license such programs.

The findings are scheduled to be presented at a hearing of the House Committee on Education and Labor, whose chairman, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., requested the investigation.

"This nightmare has remained an open secret for years," Miller said in a statement. "Congress must act, and it must act swiftly." He has sponsored a bill designed to encourage states to enact regulations.

Investigators counted "thousands" of abuse allegations against the facilities using lawsuits and websites. But there is no central clearinghouse. States submit incidents to the federal database on a voluntary basis.

Five of the 10 programs where teenagers died under questionable circumstances are operating — sometimes under a new name or in a different location.

The cases highlighted in the GAO report did not include names, but some were identifiable through news reports:

•Roberto Reyes, 15, died of complications from a spider bite in November 2004 at Thayer Learning Center in Missouri, which describes itself as "a military based, Christian boarding school." A state investigation concluded that the staff "did not provide adequate treatment," the GAO said, but the state does not license such programs, and no criminal charges have been filed.

The staff tied a 20-pound sandbag around his neck when he was too sick to exercise, the GAO said. The family settled a civil lawsuit against Thayer for about $1 million. The facility's owners denied wrongdoing. Messages left at the school and with its lawyer were not returned.

•At the American Buffalo Soldiers boot camp in Arizona where Anthony Haynes, 14, died in 2001, children were fed an apple for breakfast, a carrot for lunch and a bowl of beans for dinner, the GAO said.

Haynes became dehydrated in 113-degree heat and vomited up dirt, according to witnesses. The program closed, and the director, Charles Long, was sentenced in 2005 to six years in prison for manslaughter.

Tim Briceland-Betts of the Child Welfare League of America says abuses "typically occur in places that are not regulated. I'm glad to hear that they are working on this."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

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Scandal Brewing at Oral Roberts U.

By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS / AP

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TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."

Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."

At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him: "We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."

San Antonio televangelist John Hagee, a member of the ORU board of regents, said the university's executive board "is conducting a full and thorough investigation."

Colleagues fear for the reputation of the university and the future of the Roberts' ministry, which grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.

Oral Roberts is 89 and lives in California. He holds the title of chancellor, but the university describes him as semi-retired, and his son presides over day-to-day operations on the campus, which had a modern, space-age design when it was built in the early 1960s but now looks dated, like Disney's Tomorrowland.

Cornell Cross II, a senior from Burlington, Vt., said he is looking to transfer to another school because the scandal has "severely devalued and hurt the reputation of my degree."

"We have asked and asked and asked to see the finances of our school and what they're doing with our money, and we've been told no," said, Cross who is majoring in government. "Now we know why. As a student, I'm not going to stand for it any longer."

The allegations are contained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by three former professors. They sued ORU and Roberts, alleging they were wrongfully dismissed after reporting the school's involvement in a local political race.

Richard Roberts, according to the suit, asked a professor in 2005 to use his students and university resources to aid a county commissioner's bid for Tulsa mayor. Such involvement would violate state and federal law because of the university's nonprofit status. Up to 50 students are alleged to have worked on the campaign.

The professors also said their dismissals came after they turned over to the board of regents a copy of a report documenting moral and ethical lapses on the part of Roberts and his family. The internal document was prepared by Stephanie Cantese, Richard Roberts' sister-in-law, according to the lawsuit.

An ORU student repairing Cantese's laptop discovered the document and later provided a copy to one of the professors.

It details dozens of alleged instances of misconduct. Among them:

_ A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.

_ Mrs. Roberts — who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site — frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university expense."

_ The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed to the ministry as an "evangelistic function of the president."

_ Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico's clothing store alone in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She also repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off." The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage on TV.

_ Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by ministry donors.

_ University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts' home to do the daughters' homework.

_ The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by the Roberts' children.

_ The Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.

Tim Brooker, one of the professors who sued, said he fears for the university's survival if certain changes aren't made.

"All over that campus, there are signs up that say, `And God said, build me a university, build it on my authority, and build it on the Holy Spirit,'" Brooker said. "Unfortunately, ownership has shifted."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

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Canadian firms offer Cuban healthcare to U.S. Canadian patients

Two Canadian companies are offering to send U.S. and Canadian patients to get healthcare in Cuba for reduced prices.

BY JOHN DORSCHNER
jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com

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of Choice Medical Services

In the burgeoning business of traveling overseas for medical treatment, two Canadian companies hope to make an imprint by offering healthcare to Canadian and U.S. residents in socialist Cuba.
''We looked throughout Latin America or the Caribbean for a cheap source of medical services,'' says Daren Jorgenson, owner of Choice Medical Services in Winnipeg. ``Cuba is well known for high standards of healthcare.''

Some experts dispute the reference to high standards, but no one disputes the prices. Hip replacement, which can cost up to $38,000 in the United States, can be done in Cuba for $7,600, Jorgenson says. A tummy tuck can be had for $2,800, compared with $5,200 in the United States.

Soaring costs in the United States and a growing number of uninsured have emboldened patients to look overseas for healthcare. The Florida-based Medical Tourism Association estimates that several hundred thousand Americans now travel for health services each year.

Many countries -- from India to Mexico -- have become popular destinations for patients, and many entrepreneurs in the United States and elsewhere have set up companies to facilitate the process.

Cuba is a special case, because the U.S. embargo makes it illegal for Americans to spend money there for treatment.

Three South Florida experts on Cuban healthcare say foreigners with dollars receive much better care than Cubans, but still there could be problems getting treatment in Cuba. And a Miami ophthalmologist disputes the claims of another Canadian company, which says Cuba's doctors are able to prevent a type of blindness that Canadian and U.S. doctors can't.

Still, Milica Z. Bookman, co-author of Medical Tourism in Developing Countries, says Cuba has ''the infrastructure and a well-trained workforce. They're poised to take off'' as a major healthcare destination for Americans if or when the embargo ends.

''Cuba already is a destination for Spaniards and Italians and many others,'' says Bookman, who with U.S. government permission plans to travel to Cuba next month to study its healthcare system. ``. . . They're pushing this -- it's big and it's going to be much bigger.''

Leaders of both Canadian firms acknowledge the irony of Canadians, who have a government healthcare system in which everyone is guaranteed treatment, going to Cuba for surgery.

''It's a political scandal here,'' says Alexandre ''Sandy'' Rhéaume, of Health Services International in Frampton, Quebec. ``People are waiting 12 to 18 months for certain kinds of surgery.''

Rhéaume and Jorgenson say Michael Moore's movie Sicko did a fine job of describing Cuba's healthcare but was flat wrong about no waits for care in Canada. ''Moore is out to lunch'' in ''the stuff he says about Canada,'' Jorgenson says.

For Americans without health insurance, Cuba's lower prices are the lure. A Georgia carpenter says he was delighted to get Cuban care. ``I've been hurting, and I was looking outside the United States for something I could afford.''

The carpenter, who refused to reveal his name because he was violating U.S. law by breaking the embargo, talked with The Miami Herald in a phone interview set up by Choice Medical.

The man, in his early 60s, suffered from a torn rotator cuff that made working impossible. Without insurance, shoulder surgery could have cost him $14,000 to $20,000 in the United States.

After researching on the Internet, he found that Choice Medical could arrange for the same surgery for $4,000 at Clínica Cira Central García in Havana. The price didn't include airfare but did cover nine days in the country, a personal tour guide and some sightseeing while recovering.

Later, the man talked with The Miami Herald from Havana. ''It came out real good,'' he said of the surgery. The hospital was ``better than I expected. All the people are so friendly.''

MANY AMERICANS

Asked if he was given special treatment because it was rare for them to see a U.S. citizen, he said, ``No, there are a lot of Americans down here.''

Experts say the Georgia man clearly received the best care Cuba had to offer -- and far better than most Cubans get. ''There are three tiers,'' says Jaime Suchlicki, head of Cuban studies at the University of Miami. ''There's foreigners paying in dollars. The second is for the [Communist] party and the military, and then there's the common people,'' who often have to wait for treatment and have a hard time getting needed prescriptions.

But ''Cuba has a good foreign medical operation,'' which it has been promoting for years, Suchlicki says. ``Probably the doctors are as good as any doctors. The facilities are fairly good by Canadian or European standards. I wouldn't have a heart operation in Cuba. But a face-lift? Sure.''

Jesús Monzon, an obstetrician-gynecologist who left Cuba in 1995, says that while diagnostic tests were difficult for Cubans to get in Pinar del Río, where he practiced, they were readily available for foreigners treated in Havana. Regular doctors had no access to the latest clinical developments, but those dealing with foreigners did.

René Rodriguez, a Cuban-born physician now living in Miami, thinks Cuba would be a ''lousy place'' to have surgery. ``If anything happens to them there, what are they going to do? The doctors there are not responsible. We have a legal system that makes doctors responsible.''

In fact, legal recourse and follow-up care after surgery are issues for foreigners receiving care in many countries.

Both Canadian companies just started this year. Jorgenson, owner of Choice Medical, is a major pharmacist-entrepreneur in Winnipeg with investments in clinics, a hotel, a salon and a spa.

Jorgenson said he was exploring healthcare business opportunities in India when he realized how large medical tourism had grown there. He started to look at Western Hemisphere options.

''There are all sorts of rogue operations in Mexico along the U.S. border,'' Jorgenson says. ``. . . Cuba was clearly the safest place to deal with. . . . We've had Canadians go down and observe surgeries and stuff. They might say the equipment is not the latest and greatest, but the procedures and techniques are sound.''

''We are not taking high-risk patients,'' Jorgenson says. But surgeries for hip, knee, shoulder -- all elective procedures that Canadians have to wait for -- can be done in Cuba. Jorgenson called Cuba's healthcare system ''almost like Fidel's oil,'' because it attracts so many who have hard currency.

The people who run the other Canadian company, HSI, are considerably less known than Jorgenson. Its founder, Lucie Vermette, has described herself as a Quebec businesswoman who says she became interested in Cuba after waiting for six months to see a specialist.

Rhéaume, the company's vice president, says HSI is a nonprofit dedicated to getting people good, cheap care. Unlike Choice Medical, which attempts to get the entire medical bill paid upfront, HSI charges a $250 filing fee to set up the paperwork for a patient to go to Cuba. The patient pays the medical bill in Cuba, and HSI gets 10 percent of that as its fee, Rhéaume says.

The company promises a lot. An HSI press release says two of its clients were told by Canadian doctors that they would go blind because Canada had no treatment for their degenerative disease, retinitis pigmentosa. But after the two patients went to Cuba, the company boasted that ''these two clients of HSI will not go blind!!!'' The press release gave the full names of the two patients, but Rhéaume said they were not available for interviews.

SKEPTICAL OF CLAIMS

Doctors in Cuba have been treating retinitis pigmentosa for years, but U.S. experts are skeptical about HSI's claims of Cuba's prowess.

Nina Berrocal of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami says she recently examined a patient in Puerto Rico who had gone to Cuba for treatment of the disease. He said his vision might have stabilized for a while, but then he went blind. ''Basically, the cells die, and nobody can stop that,'' Berrocal says.

Bill Doran, chief executive of Choice Medical Services, says the company thought that most of its customers would be Canadians. ``But almost 50 percent of the inquiries were from the United States. . . . We wouldn't be doing this if people didn't need the services.''

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on JOTC may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.

Science teacher's brush with police ends in heart attack

BY JOHN MARZULLI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, October 8th 2007, 4:00 AM

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A mild-mannered Brooklyn high school teacher says he was nearly scared to death by NYPD cops who mistook him for a perp.

When the violent encounter was over, Lester Jacob, 50, suffered a heart attack and was left on his own in the street by cops, who accused him of "acting."

In July he underwent open-heart surgery.

Jacob had the misfortune to be driving home through Brownsville, Brooklyn, on June 22 around the same time cops were on the lookout for a hit-and-run driver. Jacob, an earth science teacher at James Madison High School in Midwood, heard a siren, looked in his rear-view mirror and dutifully pulled over for the radio car behind him.

He wasn't prepared for what happened next. Two officers rushed up to Jacob's vehicle and pointed their guns at his head, according to a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Cursing at him, they ordered Jacobs out of the car and roughly cuffed him.

"One officer crushed his knee into Mr. Jacob's back," the complaint states. "They then repeatedly slammed his head onto the car and then pressed his head against the car for some time."

Additional officers arrived on the scene with a witness to the earlier accident. The witness told them Jacob was the wrong guy.

"'I told you it was a white Maxima,'" the witness reportedly said, according to the complaint. Jacob drives a white Infiniti.

Jacob told the cops he was experiencing chest pains and began coughing uncontrollably.

A female cop said, "Nice acting," according to Jacob, and then drove off. Jacob said he struggled to drive home, stopping to vomit on the side of the road.

His wife rushed him to the hospital, where doctors determined he had suffered a heart attack.

"I was scared to death," Jacob said of his brush with the NYPD. "I was feeling terror."

His attorney John Lambros said there was no reason for the cops to handcuff or use excessive force against the 150-pound teacher while they were waiting for the witness to show up.

The cops were not identified, but their radio car number has been turned over to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. A spokeswoman for the city Law Department said the complaint is being reviewed.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

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Do Taxes 'Hurt'? Is Government Bad?

Dave Johnson
Posted October 7, 2007 | 01:43 PM (EST)

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As I read my Monday morning (Oct. 1, 2007) San Jose Mercury News a headline jumped out at me: "Cigarette tax would hurt poor".

How often do we hear that taxes "hurt" or "punish" one group or another? How often do we hear that taxes are a "burden on the economy" or "cost jobs?" How many politicians talk about providing "tax relief?"

George Lakoff, of the Rockridge Institute writes that this language "frames" taxes as an affliction:

For there to be "relief" there must be an affliction, an afflicted party harmed by the affliction, and a reliever who takes the affliction away and is therefore a hero. And if anybody tries to stop the reliever, he's a villain wanting the suffering to go on. Add "tax" to the mix and you have a metaphorical frame: Taxation as an affliction, the taxpayer as the afflicted party, the president as the hero, and [people who believe in government] as the villains.
This anti-tax rhetoric results from an anti-government worldview that is pushed by conservatives, in which they portray our government as some kind of enemy of the public. Ronald Reagan is famous for sayings like, "Government is the problem, not the solution" and, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' " The constant use of negative framing like this to describe government and taxes leads regular people to think about their government as a negative, malevolent force. We have been hearing this drumbeat for so long, and with so little pushback to counter these ideas, that many people just accept that this is the way it is.

But are taxes really an affliction? Is government really a negative force in society? Let's step back from the affliction frame for a second and take a different look at the idea of taxes and government.

Let's start with the basics. Who is the government? The Constitutions of the United States of America and of the state of California both begin with the words, "We the people." So "we, the people" are the government. The government is US -- you and me! When you think about it this way, it makes the things Ronald Reagan said sound contradictory. How can we, the people be the problem? How can it be scary that we, the people are here to help each other?

What does our government do? Again, back to the basics, our government builds the roads, hires teachers and police and firefighters and judges, and, in the bigger picture, sets up the rules for the society we want. We build roads and the roads allow us to get to the schools, businesses, stores and parks where we work, shop, study and relax. And because we have our schools and jobs and stores and parks, and the rules for the society we want, in theory we are able to live a little better every year. When the government is functioning as it should, these rules enable all of us to pursue happiness and our businesses and people to prosper. And these rules are decided by us through our elections.

In other words, WE decide what our government does and how our money is used to our mutual benefit.

So how can government and taxes be bad if the government is us? Looking at things this way, doesn't this all mean that taxes are like a savings and investment account where we get back so much more than we put in? And, building on that, since we use the taxes to our mutual benefit aren't we all better off if there are more taxes rather than less? Doesn't that just make us all stronger?

What about all the "government bureaucracy" that conservatives complain about? Well, looked at in this new way, the government's money is our money, so of course we want to be able to account for how it is being spent. That means it has to be tracked every step of the way. We want to know that it is spent honestly and efficiently, and the necessary transparency and the oversight that accomplishes this does require people and procedures.

Conservatives also say government is "inefficient." But anyone who has worked in a corporation has experienced the alternative. In many corporations a few people at the top decide how things are going to be, and they pass commands down from the top. Anyone who disagrees has the choice to do what they are told or leave. It's great for the people who are at the very top - but sometimes not so great if you are not.

The processes involved when lots of people get together to decide how to utilize our shared resources can get somewhat cumbersome. Anyone who has ever been in a homeowners association understands this. But in our system of government everyone is involved in making the decisions. This can take longer than it can take in a business, but it also lets all of us have a say.

This is how democracy works. This is the price we pay for letting everyone have a say in how our society is set up. Together we mutually decide how best to build and manage our society, and this can take some time and effort. We decide the best ways to spend our money and we want systems in place so that we know that the money is being used properly.

So we all have a choice. If we want firefighters and police to be there for us when we need them, and if we want good schools and teachers so all of our children have an opportunity to succeed, then we have to pay the necessary taxes to pay for those things. And if we want to continue to have a say in how our government works and what it does, we have to put up with the decision-making process. It's a part of growing up and taking on the responsibilities.

Or, we go a different way. We can hand those choices and responsibilities over to the "private sector" - the corporations - and let others decide how things are going to be done and how our money and common resources will be used. Thinking about Enron and Katrina and Iraq and our current privatized health care system, I wonder how we can expect that will work out for us?

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Just-Off-The-Cuff has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Just-Off-The-Cuff endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on JOTC may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.