Democrats test debt xenophobia as 2006 issue
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

WASHINGTON - Democratic candidates have begun to test market a new theme: America is losing control of its economic destiny due to excessive government borrowing from foreigners.

"The shocking thing is that of the debt we went out and borrowed last year, almost all of it was borrowed from foreign sources," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., at a recent Senate Budget Committee hearing. "And the two biggest sources that we're borrowing from are banks in Japan and China. This is just simply not a good position for us, from a defense posture, to be in."

Nelson is running for re-election next year.

"Foreign governments and individuals are footing the bill for our wasteful spending, and the more of our debt they own, the less control we have," Sen. Evan Bayh, D- Indiana, a likely 2008 presidential contender, said two weeks ago.

Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Bob Casey, Jr. warned that President Bush’s call for private accounts within Social Security "will result in $2 trillion being borrowed from foreign governments."

Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois sounded the same theme in a speech attacking Bush’s Social Security overhaul. "Who is paying for the debt of America today? The No. 1 country in the world is Japan," Durbin told the Senate last month. "Not far down the list we will find China and Korea."

Durbin said "these countries, the mortgage holders of America" were "exporting more goods to America at the same time as they own our debt ... As we lose millions of manufacturing jobs across America, we lose them to countries that are holding and owning America's debt: China, Japan, Korea."

Increased foreign holdings Foreign holders account for a bit more than 50 percent of the U.S. Treasury securities held by the public, up from 36 percent in 2000, and 19 percent in 1992, according to Catherine Mann, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Even a hint that foreign central banks have decided to diversify out of Treasury bonds can cause the dollar’s value to tumble and push Treasury yields up.

Two weeks ago, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi triggered a one-day fright in financial markets when he said, in reference to Japan’s foreign reserves, "I believe diversification is necessary."

To calm the turmoil, Japan’s finance ministry issued a statement saying Koizumi did not advocate diversifying out of dollars.

Indebtedness to foreigners has consequences for Americans from Omaha to Orlando who are trying to get a home mortgage or who have adjustable-rate mortgages. If foreigners diversify out of U.S. Treasury securities, mortgage rates rise.

"Voters are appalled to hear the amount of debt that is held by foreign countries," Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said.

Democratic candidates in 2006 will link voters’ concern about Social Security to the debt "because much of the borrowing that jeopardizes Social Security is also from foreign countries," said Lake.

"Eighty percent of the federal budget deficit is being financed by foreign investors," said Christian Weller, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-affiliated think tank in Washington.

Beholden to a few "It’s a diversification problem: we are dependent on a very small number of buyers" of Treasury bonds, said Weller. "It’s dangerous to be beholden to those few lenders, regardless of who they are."

One difficulty for the Democrats in trying to exploit this issue is that neither party in Congress musters a majority to cut the spending that makes borrowing necessary. Voters can see evidence that neither party has credibility as fiscal conservatives.

Before the Senate left on its Easter break, deficit reduction advocates suffered a telling defeat as 45 Democratic senators, joined by seven Republicans, voted to restore $12 billion in proposed cuts in Medicaid outlays over the next five years.

The majority of Republicans jettisoned fiscal conservatism in 2003 when 44 GOP senators, along with ten Democrats, voted for a new prescription drug entitlement as part of Medicare. This will cost taxpayers nearly $600 billion just in its first ten years of operation, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

GOP pollster sees 'probing' Republican pollster Ed Goeas said he considered Democrats’ rhetoric about foreigners holding Treasury bonds "more of a probing than a specific pathway" to Democratic victory.

Goeas said the findings in the new Battleground Poll which he and Lake released Thursday "have to be extremely discouraging for the Democrats."

The March 7-9 Battleground Poll of 1,000 registered voters found that 53 percent of those interviewed approved of the job Bush is doing as president, even while 53 percent opposed Bush’s idea for personal retirement accounts.

"Here the Democrats think they have been beating up the president on the Social Security issue and he hasn’t lost any ground," Goeas said. "There’s no indication that he is in worse shape today than he was on Election Day, in fact indications are that he is slightly better shape. I think Democrats will continue to probe for ‘how do we get at this guy?’"

Kerala Next ** Democrats test debt xenophobia as 2006 issue

After Dems Stole Wa State, They now want $ 22 per carton cig taxes
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: GOP blasts budget that would raise $500 million from smokes, gambling
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Democrats in the state Senate would raise state taxes by more than $500 million over the next two years to help pay for the $26 billion budget they rolled out Monday.

Sen. Margarita Prentice (D-Seattle), the Senate’s chief budget writer, said the higher taxes are needed to increase college enrollment and make a partial payment toward state and public school workers’ retirement plans.

"We can’t keep putting off our problems and pretending they’re not there," she said.

Colleges expect that 22,500 additional students will want to attend state colleges by 2010.

The Senate Democrats’ budget would add 8,100 enrollment slots over two years, which is 1,500 more than Gov. Christine Gregoire’s budget would fund.

Republicans scoffed at the spending plan put forth by Democrats, who wrote the budget because they outnumber their GOP colleagues 26-23 in the Senate.

"This budget is unsustainable, irresponsible and unstable," said Sen. Joe Zarelli of Ridgefield, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. "It completely abandons the idea of prioritizing government services and goes straight for the taxpayers’ pockets."

The level of tax hikes sought by Senate Democrats is more than double those proposed last week by Gregoire because they found more sins to tax.

Not only would they go after smokers, as Gregoire did with her proposal for an $8-a-carton increase in the state cigarette tax, they also would levy higher taxes on drinkers and gambling houses.

Their budget includes a $1-a-liter surcharge on liquor and a 5 percent tax on nontribal minicasinos.

It also continues the 42-cent liquor surcharge that was supposed to expire in July.

Prentice was almost apologetic for relying so heavily on sin taxes to balance her budget.

Before she was put in charge of writing the state’s 2005-07 budget, she had consistently argued that state programs should be paid for by all taxpayers through sales, business and property taxes.

But with Senate leaders promising no general tax increase, those three were off-limits.

"These are the kinds of taxes I used to rail against," Prentice said. But "this is what we’ve got available."

That tax on cigarettes would rise by $6 a carton this year and another $2 next year. That would boost the total state cigarette tax to $22.25 a carton. A carton contains 200 cigarettes.

Gregoire’s proposal is for a $2 hike this year and another $6 in 2008.

"We’re getting there quicker," Prentice said.

The cigarette, liquor and gambling taxes would raise a combined $262 million over two years.

The remainder of the $526 million in new taxes would come from bringing back part of the so-called death tax on estates valued at $1.5 million or more, collecting sales tax on extended warranties for such appliances as refrigerators and stoves, and reinstating a higher tax on businesses that sell canned meat products.

State colleges and universities also would be allowed to raise tuition between 5 and 7 percent in each of the next two years.

Half of that money would be used to give financial aid to an additional 68,000 students whose families earn less than $46,600 a year.

The Senate budget also would dismantle two programs that former Gov. Gary Locke and first lady Mona Locke considered part of their legacy: the Washington Reading Corps of volunteer tutors and the Promise Scholarship program.

The scholarship program gave money to students in the top 15 percent of their graduating high school class as long as their family income was under $90,000 for a family of four.

The Senate budget follows Gregoire’s lead in giving pay raises to state agency workers, teachers and home-care workers.

Meanwhile, the Senate capital budget proposal does not include $13 million for the University of Washington Tacoma to build an assembly hall, buy more land and clean up contaminated soil on the campus. Gregoire’s budget does.

Instead, the Senate budget would spend $31.6 million on a new nursing building on the Washington State University branch in Spokane and nearly $23 million on a student services center and other buildings at WSU’s Vancouver campus.

Neither of those items were in the governor’s budget.

"Vancouver is the most underserved, so that’s why we’re putting emphasis there," said Sen. Karen Fraser (D-Olympia), vice chairwoman of the Ways and Means Committee.

On the other hand, the operating budget would allow the UWT to enroll an additional 200 students in each of the next two years, twice the number funded by Gregoire’s budget.

Senate Democrats’ state budget

Total general fund budget: $26 billion

Tax increases: $526 million Left in reserve: $214 million

Highlights of the Senate Democrats’ proposed 2005-07 budget:

• Lets the University of Washington and Washington State University raise tuition 7 percent for 2005-06 and 7 percent for 2006-07. Other four-year universities could raise tuition 6 percent each year and two-year colleges could go up 5 percent each year.

• Gives state workers a 3.2 percent raise this year and a 1.6 percent raise next year.

• Gives public school employees a 1.2 percent raise this year and 1.7 percent next year.

• Gives home-care workers a 49-cent hourly pay increase.

• Raises cigarette tax by 60 cents a pack (20 cigarettes) this year and another 20 cents next year.

• Raises liquor taxes by $1 a liter.

• Levies a 5 percent tax on nontribal minicasinos to pay for public defenders, breast cancer screening for poor women, methamphetamine prevention and treatment programs, and state arts commission funding.

• Imposes an inheritance tax on estates valued at $1.5 million and higher. The threshold would rise to $2 million next year.

• Allots 8,120 additional college enrollment slots, including 400 at the UW Tacoma.

• Eliminates the Washington Reading Corps, saving $7.4 million.

• Maintains enrollment in the state-subsidized Basic Health Plan at 100,000.

• Adds 25,000 children to Medicaid by requiring less paperwork.

• Sets a $3 co-pay for prescriptions for people receiving medical assistance, starting Jan. 1, 2006.

• Limits enrollment in the home-care program to 23,450, which puts 500 people on a waiting list.

• Reduces the $6.50-a-day nursing home bed tax by 30 percent.

• Allocates $179 million to build a prison in Eastern Washington for 1,300 inmates.

• Pays half the salaries of district and municipal court judges, starting in 2007.

Washington News Tribune ** Sin taxes key to Democrats’ plan

'Anti-gay' students must keep quiet
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Lawsuit filed against district's 'diversity training'

In its mandatory "diversity training" classes, a school district has instructed students who believe homosexual behavior is wrong to keep their opinions to themselves, prompting a federal lawsuit.

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund filed a motion for preliminary injunction [PDF file] yesterday to immediately prohibit the Boyd County, Kentucky, Board of Education from restricting the free-speech rights of its students.

"We are filing this motion because students are being forbidden from expressing their own viewpoint on this matter," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Kevin Theriot. "That's unconstitutional, and it must stop."

The motion was filed in a Feb. 15 lawsuit brought by Timothy Allen Morrison and other students and their parents against the education board.

The training itself began as a result of the settlement of another lawsuit filed against the board by the Boyd County High School Gay-Straight Alliance, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The school district is attempting to change the beliefs of students without their parents' consent," Theriot said. "The provisions of any settlement arrangement must respect the constitutional rights of students."

All middle and high school students in Boyd County schools are required to attend the special training.

School policies and practice do not permit parents to opt their children out of the training, even if it violates their personal beliefs and morality, ADF said.

WorldNetDaily ** 'Anti-gay' students must keep quiet

Ted Kennedy's son wants to be RI Senator
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: R.I. race: Chafee vs. Kennedy?
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

The nation's smallest state is bracing for a major showdown between two of the nation's political dynasties.

Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy is weighing a run against Sen. Lincoln Chafee in a bid to unseat Rhode Island's only major Republican elected official.

"It would be a great race. The two are very evenly matched," said Brown University Prof. Darrell West, author of a biography of Kennedy, 37, a six-term congressman.

"Chafee is a sitting senator and people like him, but he has an 'R' next to his name in a 'D' state."

The dynastic matchup between Kennedy, son of Democratic icon Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Chafee, son of the late John Chafee, a revered Rhode Island senator and governor, would thrust the super-blue state into the national political spotlight as the beleaguered Democrats try to win back a seat in the Senate.

The younger Kennedy will say only that he has "been asked by people I respect and admire," including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), "to consider running for the United States Senate."

Kennedy is taking a look at the race now that his House colleague, Rep. Jim Langevin, has opted out of the race.

Chafee, 52, who was appointed to the seat in 2000 after the death of his father vacated the seat, is considered vulnerable and has little support from his party since he is a liberal Republican, an all but extinct species.

But if Kennedy enters the race, Chafee may find himself flooded with help.

"If Kennedy runs, every group that hates the Kennedys will try to influence the Senate race," West said.

NY Daily News ** R.I. race: Chafee vs. Kennedy?

Selective Restraint; Liberals cheered when Janet Reno defied the courts to seize Elian Gonzalez
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts over someone who couldn't speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez.

In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted the federal government to intervene in Elian Gonzalez's case went all the way, supporting a predawn armed federal raid on the morning before Easter to seize the 6-year-old boy despite a federal appeals court's refusal to order his surrender.

Both cases were marked with hypocrisy and political posturing galore. Both times some conservative Republicans talked about issuing subpoenas to compel the person at the center of the case to appear before Congress; they swiftly backed down when public opinion failed to support their stunt. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that by opposing Elian's return to his father in communist Cuba, conservatives were abandoning the principle that "the state should not supersede the parents' wishes." In the case of Terri Schiavo, many conservatives who normally support spousal rights decided that Michael Schiavo's decision to abandon his marital vows while at the same time refusing to divorce his wife rendered him unfit to override the wishes of his wife's parents to have her cared for.

But liberals have gotten off easy for some of the somersaulting arguments they have made on behalf of judicial independence and states' rights to justify their position that Terri Schiavo should not be saved. Many made the opposite arguments in the Elian Gonzalez case.

Elian was plucked from the ocean off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving Day 1999. after his mother died in an ill-fated attempt to bring him to freedom. Before he became a political football and Fidel Castro demanded his return, the Immigration and Naturalization Service granted him immigration "parole," which gave him the right to live in the U.S. for one year until his status was determined. Because Elian was underage, his fate would therefore be decided by local family courts. On Dec. 1, the INS issued a statement saying, "Although the INS has no role in the family custody decision process, we have discussed the case with the State of Florida officials who have confirmed that the issue of legal custody must be decided by its state court."

Then the Clinton administration reversed course after protests from the Castro regime reached a fever pitch. On Dec. 9, the INS declared its previous position "a mistake" and said that state courts would not have jurisdiction in Elian's case. They claimed that because Elain was taken directly to a hospital he was therefore never formally paroled into the U.S.--even though he was then turned over to his Miami relatives rather than the INS. "Technically, he was not paroled in the usual sense," said a Justice Department spokesman. But she could come up with no previous case in which a Cuban refugee had had his parole revoked and then had the INS move to return him to Cuba.

But it quickly became clear that was the INS's intent. Over the Christmas holidays the agency dispatched agents to Cuba to interview Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. After the interview, Mr. Gonzalez told reporters the agents and an accompanying U.S. diplomat had assured him Elian would be returned. The Clinton administration disputed those statements, although one of the government officials later privately acknowledged they had been made. Nonetheless, INS bureaucrats in Washington quickly determined that a man who had abandoned Elian and his mom for another woman was a "fit parent" who could "properly care for the child in Cuba." No public consideration was given to the fact that his father, a member of the Communist Party, might have been coerced.

If a state court had been allowed to hear the custody case, INS officials would not have been able to testify as to what Mr. Gonzalez told them to support his claim because it would have been hearsay. He would have had to come to the U.S. to testify on his own, subject to cross-examination. Even if the state court had granted him custody, it would have had to decide whether it was in the child's best interest to be returned to Cuba.

That's what Judge Rosa Rodriguez of Florida Family Court, complying with the original INS ruling, tried to do when she ruled in early January 2000 that her court had jurisdiction over the boy and gave Elian's great-uncle legal authority to represent him. Her order contravened an INS ruling that only Elian's father could speak for the boy and that he should be immediately returned to Cuba. Attorney General Janet Reno than promptly declared that Judge Rodriguez's ruling had "no force or effect." At the same time, INS officials assured reporters that under no circumstances did they intend to seize Elian by force.

The stalemate continued for another three months. On Thursday, April 20, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--the same court that rejected the pleas of Terri Schiavo's parents last week--turned down the Justice Department's request to order Elian removed from the home of his Miami relatives. Moreover, the court expressed serious doubts about the Justice Department's reading of both the law and its own regulations, adding that Elian had made a "substantial case on the merits" of his claim. It further established a record that Elain, "although a young child, has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba."

The Reno Justice Department acted the next day to short-circuit a legal process that was clearly going against it. On Good Friday evening, after all courts had closed for the day, the department obtained a "search" warrant from a night-duty magistrate who was not familiar with the case, submitting a supporting affidavit that seriously distorted the facts. Armed with that dubious warrant, the INS's helmeted officers, assault rifles at the ready, burst into the home of Elian's relatives and snatched the screaming boy from a bedroom closet.

Many local bystanders were tear-gassed even though they did nothing to block the raid. Elian was quickly returned to Cuba; because he was never able to meet with his lawyers a scheduled May 11 asylum hearing on his case in Atlanta became moot.

Of course, there are differences between the Gonzalez and Schiavo cases. But clearly many of the people who approved of dramatic federal intervention to return Elian to Cuba took a completely different tack when it came to the argument over saving Terri Schiavo. Rep. Frank makes a compelling argument that Congress took an extraordinary step when it met in special session to create a procedure whereby the federal courts could decide whether Ms. Schiavo's rights were being violated. He may have a point when he accuses Republicans of "trying to command judicial activism and dictate outcomes when they don't like" rulings.

But where were Mr. Frank and other liberals when the Clinton administration decided to sidestep a federal appeals court and order an armed raid against Elian Gonzalez? While Mr. Frank allowed that the use of assault rifles in the Elian raid was "excessive" and "frightening," he also defended the Justice Department's view that "of course [agents] had to use force."

According to some reports, Gov. Jeb Bush considered seizing Mrs. Schiavo, a la Elian, and taking her to a hospital so she could be fed. But he did not do so. "I've consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are, and I'm not going to do it," the governor says. Janet Reno and the Clinton administration showed no such restraint when it came to Elian Gonzalez.

Opinion Journal ~ John Fund ** Selective Restraint

How a Lone Diplomat Compromised the Hunt for Bin Laden
Mood:  irritated
Topic: News

WASHINGTON - A lone U.S. ambassador compromised America's hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan for more than two years, The New York Sun has learned.

Ambassador Nancy Powell, America's representative in Pakistan, refused to allow the distribution in Pakistan of wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items advertising America's $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

Instead, thousands of matchbooks, posters, and other material - printed at taxpayer expense and translated into Urdu, Pashto, and other local languages - remained "impounded" on American Embassy grounds from 2002 to 2004, according to Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois.

While the American government was engaged in a number of "black" or covert intelligence activities to locate Al Qaeda leaders, Mr. Kirk said, the "white" or public efforts - which have succeeded in the past in leading to the capture of wanted terrorists - were effectively shut down in the months following the September 11 attacks.

Mr. Kirk discovered Ms. Powell's unusual order in January 2004 and, over the past year, launched a series of behind-the-scenes moves that culminated in a blunt conversation with President Bush aboard Air Force One, the removal of the ambassador, and congressional approval for reinvigorating the hunt for Mr. bin Laden.

The full effect of Ms. Powell's impoundment order is difficult to measure. Pakistan is a key theater in the war on terror. Virtually every Al Qaeda leader captured to date has been apprehended in Pakistan, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the planner of the September 11 attacks. More than 600 Al Qaeda fighters have been killed or captured in Pakistan since 2001.

Mr. Kirk accidentally learned of Ms. Powell's impoundment policy as part of an official congressional delegation visiting Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in January 2004.

During the course of his visit, Mr. Kirk met with several intelligence officers to discuss the hunt for Mr. bin Laden. Mr. Kirk, a moderate Republican from the North Shore of Chicago, also serves as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves.

Citing his experience in intelligence matters, Mr. Kirk asked embassy intelligence officials about the distribution of matchbooks in local languages. A single matchbook helped lead to the capture of Mir Amal Kansi, who gunned down several CIA employees at the front gates of the agency's Langley, Va., headquarters in 1993. Kansi was arrested in Pakistan in 1995 when a local fingered him for the $5 million reward. Mr. Kirk pointed out the similarities between the Kansi and bin Laden cases. "Both are cases gone cold in Pakistan," he said.

Embassy intelligence officials agreed with his assessment, Mr. Kirk said, but surprised the lawmaker by saying that the ambassador had ended the distribution of printed materials advertising the $25 million price on Mr. bin Laden's head.

Security personal were unhappy with the decision, according to the congressman. "There was a lot of discord among the staff," he said.

Mr. Kirk said that he raised the issue directly with the ambassador. According to the congressman, she replied that she had "six top priorities" and finding Mr. bin Laden was only one of them. She listed other priorities: securing supply lines for American and allied forces in Afghanistan, shutting down the network of nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan, preventing a nuclear war between Pakistan and India, and forestalling a radical Islamic takeover of the government of Pakistan, a key American ally.

Ms. Powell, now serving at the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters in Washington D.C., declined to comment directly.

A senior State Department official confirmed that the meeting between Mr. Kirk and Ms. Powell did occur and that the ambassador did review the embassy's top six priorities, but the official said that "counterterrorism was the no. 1 priority."

The senior State Department official denied that Ms. Powell had restricted the distribution of materials touting the reward for Mr. bin Laden and other "high value targets." That program - known as Rewards for Justice - was discontinued in Pakistan prior to Ms. Powell's 2002 arrival because it was "ineffective," the senior official said. At the time, the Rewards for Justice program was widely used by other American embassies farther from the center of America's operations to kill or capture key Al Qaeda leaders.

A career State Department functionary, Ms. Powell was sworn in as American ambassador to Pakistan on August 9, 2002. A fluent Urdu speaker, she had previously served in posts on the subcontinent and across sub-Saharan Africa. She joined the State Department in 1977, following a six-year stint teaching high-school social studies in Dayton, Iowa.

Returning to Washington, D.C., Mr. Kirk began working to overturn Ms. Powell's order. As member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the State Department, he was a force with which to be reckoned. He worked methodically, far from the public eye. He met with key congressional chairmen and then, gathering support, met with the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. In February 2004, he met with then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Then, he began raising the issue with a growing array of White House officials.

When Mr. Bush asked the congressman to join him aboard Air Force One for a campaign stop in Mr. Kirk's suburban Chicago district in July 2004, the lawmaker saw his chance. He told the president about his ambassador impounding materials that could lead to the capture of Mr. bin Laden. "Bush was very cautious," Mr. Kirk recalled. The president did not betray an immediate response. "When one of his people is concerned, he likes to take his time and investigate."

Ms. Powell left her post as American ambassador in November 2004.

State Department spokesman Noel Clay declined to comment on the timing of ambassadorial rotations.

A senior State Department official disputed the notion that Ms. Powell was removed by the White House, adding, "if the president really wants an ambassador gone, the department can move a lot faster than three months."

The former schoolteacher was replaced by veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker in November 2004. The mood at the American Embassy lifted almost immediately. "He is a take-charge guy," said one official who knows the embassy's intelligence staff, "far more aggressive in pursuing the bin Laden account."

The American Embassy in Islamabad now boasts a 24-hour call center to receive tips. The center is manned by two locals, both of whom speak the three major languages of Pakistan, and supervised by a Diplomatic Security officer. Embassy staff recently launched a 12-week radio and television campaign alerting residents that, in the words of one 30-second Urdu-language radio spot, they "may be eligible for a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to the arrest of known international terrorists." About 25 calls were received in February 2005, the center's first full month of operation.

Congress recently passed legislation raising the reward for information on Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda members to $50 million and revamping the Rewards for Justice Program. More than $57 million has been paid to 43 people who provided credible information about the whereabouts of known terrorists since the program's founding in 1984. But little has been paid since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Under legislation co-sponsored by Mr. Kirk and signed by Mr. Bush in December 2004, the top reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden has been raised to $50 million from $25 million. The Rewards for Justice program has also been extensively retuned. Embassies are now required to conduct focus groups of locals to discover precisely which radio stations they tune in to and which newspapers they read. Based on those reports, the American Embassy in Pakistan is now broadcasting advertisements on the radio programs most closely followed by the residents of Waziristan, a mountainous region of Pakistan that is believed to be a haven for Al Qaeda.

The American Embassy in Islamabad's Rewards for Justice program is now in high gear. Yet, if Mr. Kirk and some intelligence officials are correct, valuable time was lost.

NY Sun ** How a Lone Diplomat Compromised the Hunt for Bin Laden

U.N. Admits to Phone Fraud in Eritrea
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: UN staff stole and distributed pin codes to make 'free' calls
Topic: News

United Nations peacekeeping staff in Eritrea have rung up more than $500,000 of unpaid international calls. The fraud was discovered last year when auditors noticed huge billing discrepancies in 2003, the UN said.

Schemes such as stealing pin codes and abusing a one-minute grace period before being charged for a connection accounted for the "irregularities".

The countries of those caught swindling their phone bills have been charged, but so far only $14,000 has been paid.

The UN Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee) said the process of unravelling the fraud was "painstaking and complex, involving the manual verification of 1.4m lines of computer billing data".

UN staff are affiliated to peacekeeping missions from their country's team at the UN headquarters in New York.

To avoid absorbing the cost itself, Unmee has forwarded $364,000 of confirmed bills to New York.

Since 2000, a 3,000-strong Unmee peacekeeping force has patrolled Eritrea's tense border with Ethiopia.

The two Horn of Africa countries fought a war between 1998 and 2000 that is thought to have killed more than 70,000 people.

BBC News ** UN admits phone fraud in Eritrea

(D) Mayor of Orlando arrested, ousted; new election in the works
Mood:  d'oh
Now Playing: Orlando approves special election
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

The decision to hold a vote May 3 to replace suspended Mayor Dyer draws dissent.

Facing an almost certain legal challenge, a fractured Orlando City Council decided Monday to call a special election six weeks from now to pick a replacement for ousted Mayor Buddy Dyer.

The council split 4-2 over the politically charged question of whether it had to hold a special election or could leave city commissioner and interim Mayor Ernest Page at the helm until the criminal charges that prompted Dyer's suspension are resolved.

The whirlwind election will be May 3, at a cost of about $100,000. If no candidate wins a majority in the nonpartisan race, a runoff would be May 24.

But at least one attorney said there would be an immediate court challenge of the election's validity -- as soon as today.

"We'll ask the court to fast-track it," attorney Steven Mason, who represents the Orange County Democratic Party, said Monday. "What bigger issue has been before the city in recent years?"

The council's decision is the latest of many twists in Orlando politics since Dyer, a Democrat, was suspended by Gov. Jeb Bush 11 days ago.

Dyer was arrested March 11 after a grand jury indicted him on charges stemming from his successful 2004 re-election campaign. He is charged with violating a state election law that bars paying someone to collect absentee ballots. Also charged were absentee ballot consultant Ezzie Thomas; Dyer's campaign manager, Patti Sharp; and Circuit Judge Alan Apte, who also had hired Thomas for his 2002 judicial campaign.

Page, chairing his first meeting as interim mayor, recognized the upheaval, but tried to assure Orlando residents that the city's business will go on.

"The city of Orlando is in good hands with this council and the staff we have now," Page said. "All our projects are still ongoing and doing just fine."

As the City Council -- minus Dyer -- debated the city's political future Monday, the audience was packed with a slew of attorneys, two court reporters transcribing the discussions for use in later legal challenges, six TV news cameras, political consultants and more than one would-be mayor.

City Attorney Dykes Everett told the council that the Florida Constitution, state law and the City Charter together require the council to hold the election. If Dyer is acquitted, he will get the mayor's office back, but if he is convicted, the city would hold a second special election to find a permanent replacement.

"We find ourselves in extraordinary times here in the city of Orlando," Everett said, whose interpretation was backed up by a former city attorney and a former county attorney.

Four of the council's six remaining members backed a special election, including Page and Commissioners Daisy Lynum, Betty Wyman and Vicki Vargo.

"Yes, Mayor Buddy Dyer is innocent until proven guilty. And our legal system is fair and just," Vargo said. "However, until his criminal case is resolved - which could easily take up to one year - the citizens of Orlando deserve the right to exercise their right to vote."

At least a dozen attorneys and citizens showed up to offer differing legal interpretations but were not allowed to speak.

Commissioners Phil Diamond and Patty Sheehan voted against the special election, arguing that the city should allow public comment on the matter and seek a definitive legal opinion from the court or the state attorney general.

"I am very concerned about this matter moving forward so quickly without hearing any public opinion," Sheehan said. "It is not a public process if they don't get a chance to speak."

Mason, the attorney for the local Democratic Party, didn't get a chance to argue his position that the law allows Page - a Republican - to remain in charge until Dyer's future is known.

Ken Mulvaney, the runner-up in the 2004 election, said he also may challenge the validity of the special election. Mulvaney filed a lawsuit soon after last year's election accusing Dyer's campaign of absentee-ballot fraud, and a judge is expected to rule on his request for a runoff in the coming days.

Mulvaney, a Republican, said he has not decided whether to run in the special election.

Bill Frederick, the city's mayor from 1980 to 1992, wasted no time in following through on his promise to seek the office once again. Not long after the council adjourned, the Republican became the first candidate to file his election papers.

Others who have said they will definitely run include retired Orlando police Capt. Sam Ings, a Democrat who finished third in 2004, and perennial candidate Alex Lamour, an independent who finished fifth.

Bill Sublette, a former state representative who lost to Dyer in 2003, said Monday that he will run for mayor in the future but plans to support Frederick in the special election.

"I think he is the best person for the city right now," Sublette, a Republican, said.

Republican attorney Tico Perez, who also mounted an unsuccessful campaign in 2003, said he won't decide whether to put his name on the ballot until the Democrats' expected legal challenge is decided.

"I've got to sit down and think about what makes sense for me and what makes sense for the city," Perez said.

Orlando Sun-Sentinel ** Orlando approves special election

Iraq's insurgents ?seek exit strategy'
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: News

Many of Iraq's predominantly Sunni Arab insurgents would lay down their arms and join the political process in exchange for guarantees of their safety and that of their co-religionists, according to a prominent Sunni politician.

Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein, who heads Iraq's main monarchist movement and is in contact with guerrilla leaders, said many insurgents including former officials of the ruling Ba'ath party, army officers, and Islamists have been searching for a way to end their campaign against US troops and Iraqi government forces since the January 30 election.

"Firstly, they want to ensure their own security," says Sharif Ali, who last week hosted a pan-Sunni conference attended by tribal sheikhs and other local leaders speaking on behalf of the insurgents.

Insurgent leaders fear coming out into the open to talk for fear of being targeted by US military or Iraqi security forces' raids, he said.

Sharif Ali distinguishes many Sunni insurgents, whom he says took up arms in reaction to the invasive raids in search of Ba'athist leaders and other "humiliations" soon after the 2003 war, from the radical jihadist branch associated with Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Unlike Mr Zarqawi's followers, who are thought to be responsible for the big suicide bomb attacks on Iraqi civilian targets, the other Sunni insurgents are more likely to plant bombs and carry out ambushes against security forces and US troops active near their homes.

Sharif Ali said the success of Iraq's elections dealt the insurgents a demoralising blow, prompting them to consider the need to enter the political process.

Financial Times ** Iraq's insurgents ‘seek exit strategy'

'Fox Blocker' Aims to Block Channel
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

It's not that Sam Kimery objects to the views expressed on Fox News. The creator of the "Fox Blocker" contends the channel is not news at all.

Kimery figures he's sold about 100 of the little silver bits of metal that screw into the back of most televisions, allowing people to filter Fox News from their sets, since its August debut.

The Tulsa, Okla., resident also has received thousands of e-mails, both angry and complimentary ? as well as a few death threats.

"Apparently the making of terroristic threats against those who don't share your views is a high art form among a certain core audience," said Kimery, 45.

Formerly a registered Republican, even a precinct captain, Kimery became an independent in the 1990s when he said the state party stopped taking input from its everyday members.

Kimery now contends Fox News' top-level management dictates a conservative journalistic bias, that inaccuracies are never retracted, and what winds up on the air is more opinion than news. "I might as well be reading tabloids out of the grocery store," he says. "Anything to get a rise out of the viewer and to reinforce certain retrograde notions."

A Fox spokeswoman at the station's New York headquarters said the channel's ratings speak for themselves. For the first three months of this year, Fox has been averaging 1.62 million viewers in prime-time, compared with CNN's 805,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Kimery's motives go deeper than preventing people from watching the channel, which he acknowledges can be done without the Blocker. But he likens his device to burning a draft card, a tangible example of disagreement.

And he's taking this message to the network's advertisers. After buying the $8.95 device online, would-be blockers are shown a letter that they can send to advertisers via the Fox Blocker site.

"The point is not to block the channel or block free speech but to raise awareness," said Kimery, who works in the tech industry.

Kimery doesn't use the device himself; his remote is programmed to only a half-dozen channels. Plus he occasionally feels the need to tune into Fox News for something "especially heinous."

Business could pick up since the blocker was alluded to in a recent episode of the ABC drama "Boston Legal." The show's original script mentioned Fox News, but ABC had the references removed.

The boisterous conversations on Fox News may be why the station is so popular, said Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media watchdog group. And despite a perception that Fox leans to the right, Felling said, that doesn't mean people who lean left should tune out.

"It's tough to engage in an argument when you're not participating in it," Felling said. "It's just one more layer in the wall that the right and the left are building in between each other."

On the Net: Fox Blocker / Fox News

Seattle Times ~ Associated Press ** Device lets you out-Fox your TV

Yahoo News ~ Associated Press ** 'Fox Blocker' Aims to Block Channel