Rahm Emanuel Benefited from Bagman
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Bagman pleads to Hired Truck role

City Hall officials ordered the city's top water boss, Donald Tomczak, to marshal his political army of city workers for Mayor Daley, Congressman Rahm Emanuel and other politicians, according to a federal court document released Monday and other sources.

The latest details to emerge from the federal investigation of the city's Hired Truck Program came as a top aide to Tomczak, Gerald Wesolowski Jr., pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to racketeering conspiracy.

Wesolowski admitted taking nearly $200,000 in bribes from trucking firms and passing the money to Tomczak, who ensured the companies got work in the Hired Truck Program. Wesolowski was Tomczak's top bagman among several, court documents show.

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HIRED TRUCK BY THE NUMBERS

♣ 27 people are charged in the ongoing federal investigation, including 14 former city employees.

♣ 6 have pleaded guilty and await sentencing.

♣ 1 city agency, the Water Department, is charged with racketeering.

♣ 4 companies are bidding to run the latest reformed version of the Hired Truck Program.

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'My behavior was inexcusable'

Wesolowski's plea came three days after federal officials seized documents from the Water Department and the mayor's office of intergovernmental affairs. The office controls political hiring and activity and is run by Robert Sorich.

Wesolowski, 46, is the sixth person to plead guilty in the Hired Truck investigation, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Collins. So far, 27 people are charged.

"I just want to apologize to the citizens, to the government, to everyone," Wesolowski said. "My behavior was inexcusable."

Tomczak may be next

Wesolowski's plea deal with prosecutors calls for him to spend about two years in prison, pay $25,000 to the government and cooperate fully. As part of the deal, Wesolowski gets to keep his Gold Coast condominium, which the government had wanted to seize. Wesolowski made only about $4,000 from taking bribes, according to his plea.

Wesolowski likely won't have to testify against his old friend, Tomczak, who got Wesolowski his job with the Water Department more than 20 years ago.

Tomczak had run the water department since Daley became mayor in 1989 and is expected to plead guilty. He is working on a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, according to a source familiar with the matter. Tomczak, a longtime political operative in the mayor's 11th Ward, could give extremely valuable information to prosecutors.

Tomczak rewarded city workers who did political work with "raises, promotions and overtime," according to Wesolowski's plea. Once his political marching orders came down, Tomczak would allegedly hold meetings during city work hours in city offices with Wesolowski and five to 10 other trusted employees to tell them what campaigns they were supporting and to round up "volunteers," often city employees.

Among the politicians benefitting from Tomczak's political army were Daley, Emanuel and Amy Bertani, a Will County judge who is the estranged wife of Tomczak's son, former Will County State's Attorney Jeff Tomczak.

There is nothing in Wesolowski's plea agreement to indicate that Daley, Emanuel or other politicians knew the possibly corrupt nature of the help they were getting.

Wesolowski admits shaking down hired truck companies for campaign donations to Daley; the 11th Ward Democratic Organization, run by the mayor's brother, Cook County Commissioner John Daley, and Jeff Tomczak.

On Monday, the politicians named in the plea agreement said they knew nothing about Tomczak's alleged misdeeds.

Mayor Daley's spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said: "Clearly, anyone who is doing political work on city time is breaking the law. Mayor Daley has never sanctioned or condoned that.

"If ultimately it turns out that any of the money in his campaign fund was ill-gotten, it will be given to charity."

The Sun-Times reported last year that Mayor Daley received more than $100,000 in hired truck firm campaign contributions, the most of any politician.

The mayor's brother, John Daley, said he knew no reason why Tomczak would have his employees solicit contributions from trucking companies for 11th Ward Democrats.

Emanuel said he did not know Tomczak. "If they ever did any political work on public time, that's wrong," he said.

Wesolowski provided fresh details on Monday on how much trucking firm companies had to pay to play:

For instance, a Tomczak ally and political operative, Michael Harjung, allegedly passed along $60,000 for two trucking firm companies, which received more than $1.6 million in city business. Harjung was a CTA official at the time.

Another man charged in the case, John Cannatello, who allegedly operated a hired truck firm in his wife's name, once slipped $1,000 to Wesolowski and $2,000 in an envelope to Tomczak in late 2003, according to Wesolowski. The Cannatello firm, GNA Trucking, took in $215,743 from the Water Department for Hired Truck work that year.

One trucking firm, Fresno Transportation, allegedly paid $1,800 every two weeks to Wesolowski for Hired Truck business, to pass along to Tomczak, plus $5,000 in cash for Christmas, according to the plea agreement and sources.

Chicago Sun Times ~ Steve Warmbir, Tim Novak and Fran Spielman ** Bagman pleads to Hired Truck role

Two Democrats Took Lobbyist Abramoff Trips
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Jack Abramoff, right, listens to his attorney Abbe Lowell on Capitol Hill in this Sept. 29, 2004 file photo, as Abramoff refused to answer questions before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. >>>>>

Lobbyist Paid for Lawmakers Travel

WASHINGTON - At least two aides to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and two Democratic congressmen received travel expenses initially paid by lobbyist Jack Abramoff on his credit card or by his firm, internal records of the lobbying firm show.

Longtime House ethics rules that applied to the 1996 and 1997 trips to the Northern Mariana Islands have strictly prohibited lawmakers and their staffs from accepting any congressional trips from lobbyists or their firms.

DeLay's office and one of the lawmakers, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said they had no knowledge that Abramoff or his firm paid the expenses. The office of Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., did not return several calls seeking comment.

Abramoff, whose lobbying is under criminal investigation, pressed his clients, the Northern Marianas government, to reimburse him for the travel because of concerns the payments might draw scrutiny from the House committee that investigates lawmakers' conduct, the documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

"I ... expect to receive a call tomorrow or Tuesday from the House ethics committee, asking for an update as to the reimbursement situation and, possibly, our outstanding bill. They are watching the trips very closely," Abramoff wrote a Marianas official in December 1996.

Abramoff and his employer at the time, the Preston Gates law and lobbying firm, represented the Pacific island government. One priority was to persuade Congress to block Clinton administration efforts to regulate alleged "sweatshop" garment factories. The rules never were enacted.

The records state Preston Gates paid hotel and airfare for Thompson and Clyburn for travel to the island in January 1997. The two lawmakers filed reports to Congress saying a private, nonprofit group, not Abramoff's firm, paid the travel.

Clyburn said in an interview he had never heard of Abramoff at the time, and provided a copy of letter showing he was invited by the nonprofit foundation. "That's all I know about it," he said.

The Preston Gates billing documents also included a hotel bill for DeLay's chief of staff in 1996, Ed Buckham, and travel upgrades for Buckham and another DeLay aide at the time, Tony Rudy. DeLay was then majority whip, the third-ranking House Republican.

The documents show Abramoff used his credit card to pay at least some congressional travel to the islands, and then sent urgent e-mails because the territorial government was slow in paying, leaving the travelers possibly in violation of House rules.

"Per instructions from Preston, we have been using Jack Abramoff's credit card for past tickets," a travel agent e-mailed the island government on Dec. 11, 1996, regarding airfare. "I have been asked to contact you regarding direct payment . . . for future tickets."

DeLay spokesman Dan Allen said his office believes the trip expenses for the two aides were paid by the government of the Northern Marianas, not Abramoff.

"The office's understanding is both traveled to CNMI (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) in 1996 at the invitation of the Northern Marianas, a territory of the United States," Allen said.

"Under House ethics rules, House employees may accept travel paid for by a governmental entity with no restrictions on the staff's ability to accept travel by such a governmental entity _ whether in terms of trip duration, accompanying individuals or otherwise."

DeLay's office did not report the trip in House disclosure records. Allen said disclosure wasn't necessary since a U.S. territorial government was paying for the trip.

An Abramoff spokesman, Andrew Blum, said Monday, "The tradition of lobbyists traveling with members of Congress to visit various jurisdictions so that they could learn about issues that impact the Congress and government policy is well known. Mr. Abramoff once again is being singled for actions that are commonplace in Washington, D.C., and are totally proper."

Jan Baran, a Washington lawyer who specializes in ethics rules and campaign finance, said lawmakers and their aides probably would avoid any findings of wrongdoing by demonstrating they had no knowledge of the lobbyist payments.

"If a member generally doesn't know what's going on, it's hard to see how the member would be held to violate ethics rules," he said.

Questions also have been raised about whether DeLay's airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 was charged to an Abramoff credit card, and whether other expenses on the same trip were billed to a credit card used by Buckham, who had become a lobbyist by that time.

The Preston Gates firm was shown the documents revealing that Abramoff or the firm laid out the travel expenses on the Northern Marianas trip. The company issued a statement saying, "We're looking into it. Some things we're learning about just now."

The documents show that the following payments were made for the trip involving the DeLay aides in December 1996 and the travel by Clyburn and Thompson a month later:

♠ $2,028 in hotel expenses for Buckham, then DeLay's chief of staff.

♠ A $52 travel upgrade for Buckham and another $52 for Rudy, then a DeLay aide and now an executive in Buckham's firm.

♠ Airfare of $5,013 for Thompson and a hotel bill of $227.

♠ Airfare totaling $4,596 for Clyburn, and a hotel bill of $227.

The lawmakers were invited to the Marianas by a nonprofit organization, the National Security Caucus Foundation. Clyburn said he understood the foundation would be paying the expenses.

But Gregg Hilton, who ran the now-defunct foundation, said the group never paid for the trip. He said the lawmakers weren't told the foundation that invited them never put up the money. Both Clyburn and Thompson filed House disclosure reports showing the group paid for the travel, and Clyburn provided the invitation letter.

Hilton, who was on the trip himself, said the National Security Caucus Foundation was a project of the American Security Council Foundation, an organization he ran and now serves as a director. The foundations promoted a strong national defense, democracy and human rights.

Hilton said he arranged the trip with the island government and was led to believe by Preston Gates officials that the territory would pay the expenses and be reimbursed by the private sector.

He said he was not aware that Abramoff or Preston Gates paid for the trip until AP showed him the documents.

Hilton said that after his initial arrangements with island officials, he was contacted by Abramoff and other Preston Gates officials. The officials "said that because of time restrictions, the CNMI government would have to initially pay for the trip, but I was promised that private sector funding would later be located. ... This did not happen."

Several Abramoff memos to the island government seeking reimbursement had a sense of urgency.

For instance, Abramoff wrote that his firm "is hammering me on the $150,000+ in travel costs we have to pay today for the high number of members (which could be as many as 10) and staff (which could be as many as 30) which are going to be traveling in the next few months."

On the Net:
Documents noting expenses for DeLay aides Rudy and Buckham to the Marianas are available at:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/delay/050502abramoff.pdf

Washington Post ~ Associated Press - Larry Margasak and Sharon Theimer ** Lobbyist Paid for Lawmakers Travel

Buffalo Firefighter Awakens From Brain-Damaged State
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Odd Stuff

Buffalo, NY - In what family members are calling a miracle, a Buffalo firefighter is talking again after nearly a decade in a brain-damaged state.

Donald Herbert suffered severe injuries when a roof collapsed on him while he was fighting a fire in December 1995. The injury left him brain damaged and unable to speak.

Herbert has been at the Father Baker Covalence Home for the past several years, but relatives say over the weekend he started talking again and his memory has returned.

Friends and former colleagues say he talked with his family and with former co-workers. Stay tuned to WBEN for more information.

WBEN News / Talk 930 AM - Buffalo, NY ~ Paul Szeglowski, Associated Press ** Buffalo Firefighter Awakens From Brain-Damaged State

NY Times Ignores Mass Graves
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

New York Times Highlights Abu Ghraib, Car Bombings Ignores Mass Grave Discovery

Nope, no bias at the New York Times. Read today's paper and you'll hear about car bombings and the obstacles faced by the new government (which the NYT didn't think would be formed to begin with), as well as a vicious screed by ultra lefty Bob Herbert which basically accuses US soldiers of being sadistic racists. (Note that Herbert's source is a "conscientious objector" who grew up in the Middle East and was disturbed by the "absence of any real understanding of Arab or Muslim culture". Also not noted is whether any of the sources claims led to prosecutions.

But noticeably absent from any coverage in the NYT of the discovery of 19 more mass graves in which thousands of Iraqis were buried courtesy of Saddam Hussein. But hey, what the hell is a few thousand dead people to the Times. After all, it doesn't support their opposition to the war or their ideology. You know - "Saddam Bad-U.S. Worse".

Ankle Biting Pundits ** New York Times Highlights Abu Ghraib, Car Bombings Ignores Mass Grave Discovery

NEA's memo contradicts its bullshit lawsuit intended to undermine the children
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

The National Education Association's chief lawyer two years ago wrote a memo that said the No Child Left Behind Act was voluntary and not an unfunded mandate, a position that contradicts claims in a lawsuit the union has filed against Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

Robert H. Chanin, the union's general counsel, told NEA state affiliate leaders and employees in a May 2003 memo that the federal No Child Left Behind Act is a mandate only if states accepted federal education funds.

In the confidential communication, obtained by the Elk Grove, Calif.-based Education Intelligence Agency (EIA), a teacher union watchdog group, Mr. Chanin said any state, school district or public school can walk away from the No Child Left Behind Act's learning achievement accountability requirements simply by not accepting federal dollars that trigger them.

The NEA's federal district court challenge in Michigan, the school district of the city of Pontiac v. Margaret Spellings, claims that insufficient federal money has been appropriated to implement requirements that children in public schools be able to read and do mathematics at grade-level from year to year.

The NEA declined to comment on the memo.

"The NEA does not comment on confidential memorandums to its state affiliate officials and employees," union spokeswoman Denise Cardinal said.

Mr. Chanin's memo concerns a requirement in the law for local school districts to notify parents if their child's teacher does not meet the law's definition of "highly qualified."

"Neither the parental notification requirement -- nor, indeed, any of the other requirements in NCLB -- are 'imposed' on the states in a legal sense," Mr. Chanin wrote.

"NCLB has been enacted on the basis of Congress' spending power, and states can avoid this and other statutory requirements simply by declining to accept federal Title I funds. If the states decide to accept such funds, however, then they must also accept the conditions that Congress has attached to them," he wrote in the memo.

It also lists seven federal court decisions in which states had challenged conditions tied to various federal grant programs. In each case, the courts ruled that federal conditions are not coercive but accepted voluntarily by states when they take money offered by Washington.

"NEA is taking an unusual stance for a left-of-center labor organization" by claiming public schools do not have to fulfill NCLB requirements unless they receive federal funds to do so, EIA Director Michael Antonucci said in his weekly newsletter, "Communique."

The American Federation of Teachers, the NEA's chief union rival, declined to join the lawsuit against NCLB. It chose instead to lobby Congress for more funding, he noted.

"Perhaps AFT was taken aback by the NEA argument [in] the lawsuit that the NCLB teacher qualification requirement was costing states money because it was driving up teacher salaries," Mr. Antonucci said.

Washington Times ~ George Archibald ** NEA's memo contradicts its lawsuit

Parents can't sit in on new sex-ed classes with homosexual agenda
Mood:  loud
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Montgomery County Public Schools have barred parents from sitting in on classes in which a new sex-education curriculum will be taught, despite an official schools policy that encourages parents to visit their children's classrooms.

The policy states that parents are welcome to visit their child's classroom with permission from school administrators. The policy says, "Classroom visits and conferences by parents and other persons in the school community are encouraged."

Not this time.

Brian Edwards, a county schools spokesman, said the parents' presence at the sex-ed classes would have a "chilling effect on the educational process."

"If you're in a classroom and you want to have a frank discussion among your peers, with whom you've developed trust, and you're going to have Johnny Smith's mother sitting in the corner, you're not going to be as honest," he said.

Parents who are concerned about the new curriculum because they think it favors a homosexual agenda and encourages promiscuity said keeping them out of the classroom when the new sex-ed curriculum is being taught is "a big mistake."

"There isn't anything in the school curriculum that parents should not be able to go and hear for themselves," said Michelle Turner, president of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC). "If the school feels that parents shouldn't be in the classroom, then that's a red flag for parents."

Russ Henke, the county's health education coordinator, said parents are usually shut out of classrooms.

"There are particular times of the year, during National Education Week, that we invite the parents in, but it's not something we have as far as a general open classroom," he said.

In November, the county school board voted unanimously to approve a tryout of the new curriculum in three high schools and three middle schools.

The curriculum, which was slightly revised last month, defines one's sexual identity as including gender identity, which is "a person's internal sense of knowing whether he or she is male or female." The instruction also includes the statement that "most experts in the field have concluded that sexual orientation is not a choice."

Also, households with same-sex parents are identified as one type of nine families. Next to that listing, a new phrase has been inserted as instruction to teachers -- not students. It reads in parentheses: "This should not be interpreted as same-sex marriage."

An explicit warning to teachers also has been added in a section that discusses sexual identity and orientation.

"No additional information, interpretation or examples are to be provided by the teacher," the warning states.

Mrs. Turner said she was in favor of parents sitting in on class sessions that their children don't attend.

"A child might not feel comfortable, particularly in discussion, if their parent is sitting right there," she said. "They don't necessarily need to be in their child's classroom."

Christine Grewell, co-founder of TeachtheFacts.org (TTF), which is in favor of the new sex-ed instruction, disagreed.

"It's a controversial subject, you've got a lot of parents who are very vocal on either side, and maybe [the schools are] just trying to maintain calm," she said.

The pilot classes will begin Thursday. After the pilot classes conclude later this month, a citizens advisory committee will collect feedback from students, teachers and parents and issue final recommendations to the county school board.

The school board will vote on countywide implementation in the summer or fall.

Under pressure from the CRC, the schools last month removed a sentence in the curriculum that stated: "Sex play with friends of the same gender is not uncommon during early adolescence."

The schools also removed a statement that said that students would "discuss how you develop your sexual identity."

At information meetings last week, parents said they were told by teachers and principals that they would be able to sit in on the classes.

Mrs. Turner, who has attended each of the parent information nights along with other CRC members, said the parent nights have been helpful, but not sufficient.

Teachers are "not providing the resource materials for parents to review," she said. In addition, parents were not allowed to take curriculum copies home.

"Some of the providers of the resource materials are groups that advocate sexual practices and lifestyles that some parents may not want their children to take part in a discussion over," Mrs. Turner said.

Washington Times ~ Jon Ward ** Parents can't sit in on sex-ed classes

A left-wing's witch-hunt on campus for a lone conservative
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Columns

A left-wing witch-hunt on campus

The notion of left-wing political bias in the universities is widely pooh-poohed on the left as so much right-wing propaganda -- a smokescreen for an attempt to push a conservative agenda on college campuses. Sure, conservative professors may be a rare breed; but that, we are told, is only because the academy is all about intellectual openness, tolerance of disagreement, robust and untrammeled debate, and all those other intrinsically liberal values that conservatives presumably just don't get.

For a rather dramatic test of this proposition, one need look no further than Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, which is currently in the grip of a witch-hunt that would do the late Joe McCarthy proud -- except that it's directed by a leftist mob.

The victim of this left-wing McCarthyism, history professor Jonathan Bean, identifies himself as a libertarian but is widely regarded as a conservative on the campus; he serves as an adviser to the Republican and Libertarian student groups at the university. (There are reportedly no Republicans among more than 30 faculty members in his department.) A prize-winning author, he was recently named the College of Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year.

On April 11, six of Bean's colleagues published a letter in the college paper, the Daily Egyptian, denouncing him for handing out ''racist propaganda" in his American history course. The offending document, which Bean had distributed as optional reading for a class that dealt with the civil rights movement and racial tensions in that era, was an article from the conservative publication FrontPageMagazine.com about ''the Zebra Killings" -- a series of racially motivated murders of whites in the San Francisco Bay area in 1972-74 by several black extremists linked to the Nation of Islam. The article, by one James Lubinskas, argued that black-on-white hate crimes deserve more recognition.

Bean's critics charged that the article contained ''falsehood and innuendo" and that, in printing it out for the handout, Bean deliberately abridged it in a way that disguised its racist context -- specifically, a link to a racist and anti-Semitic website.

In fact, Bean did omit a paragraph containing a link to the European American Issues Foundation, which has held vigils commemorating the Zebra victims and which is indeed racist and anti-Semitic (its website features a petition for congressional hearings on excessive Jewish influence in American public life). He has told the student newspaper that he was simply trying to fit the article on one two-sided page.

By the time the letter from the outraged professors appeared, Bean had already canceled the assignment in response to criticism and sent an apology to his colleagues and graduate students. His letter of apology ran in the Daily Egyptian on April 12. On the same day, College of Liberal Arts Dean Shirley Clay Scott canceled his discussion sections for the week and informed his teaching assistants that they did not have to continue with their duties. Two of the three teaching assistants resigned, leaving the course in a shambles.

One may argue that Bean showed poor judgment in selecting the article for a reading given the offensive link it contained. But imagine reversing the politics of this case. Suppose a left-wing professor had assigned a reading which turned out to contain a link to the website of the Communist Party USA, or to a group that supported Palestinian terrorism in Israel. Imagine the outcry if the administration penalized this professor for such guilt by association.

Anita Levy, associate secretary in the Department of Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, says that making one's own decisions about the course curriculum as long as the material is relevant to the course is ''a part of academic freedom" and that it's clearly inappropriate to penalize a professor for such decisions -- especially without any due process. (While FrontPageMag.com has criticized the AAUP for remaining silent on the case, Levy says that the organization had not heard about it before and has not been contacted by Bean, whom I have been unable to reach for comment.)

A number of SIUC professors who do not share Bean's politics have rallied to his defense. Jane Adams, an anthropologist who was a civil rights activist in the 1960s, told the Daily Egyptian that the persecution of Bean ''puts an axe at the root of academic freedom and the freedom of inquiry." She added, ''For anybody who is a conservative, this has got to be a chilling case." Indeed, if this case is any indication, conservatives on many campuses are not just a rare breed but an endangered species.

Boston Globe ~ Cathy Young ** A left-wing witch-hunt on campus

Lurch Heinz Kerry said he had recently reread the New Testament, ready to barnstorm in defense of Democratic values
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Kerry visit rallies party

He displayed the same bright smile and wore a sharply tailored suit.

And when he took the microphone, the crowd erupted into cheers of "Kerry! Kerry!"

But it wasn't exactly clear last night whether Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was yesterday's news or tomorrow's candidate.

In town for a Democratic fund-raiser to help pay some of the roughly $2 million in costs the party has incurred in its legal fight over Christine Gregoire's election as governor, Kerry joked about his loss last fall, which came when Ohio's electoral votes swung to President Bush.

"I'm going to take you home with me," he said to the party faithful at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Discovery Park. "Actually, I'm going to take you to Ohio."

Later in his speech, Kerry noted that he had recently reread the New Testament, and he seemed ready to barnstorm in defense of Democratic values.

"I look forward to a debate on values all across the nation," he said.

Kerry also credited the state party for organizing on Gregoire's behalf and said the ideals of his failed candidacy still reverberate.

"You can do it because you did it right here in the state of Washington," he said.

Kerry's visit brought in $30,000 to $40,000, said Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt. The party has spent about $2 million on the election fight and reported last month that it was about $500,000 in debt to its law firm.

While last night's fund-raiser amounted to a tiny percentage of the total legal bill, Berendt said the high-profile event alerted supporters to the dire financial straits of the party.

"An event like this fires up the grass roots so the word gets out that we have a problem," he said.

Kerry was preceded by Gregoire and U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma.

Gregoire made few references to the court case challenging her election, which is being heard in Chelan County Superior Court in Wenatchee.

Noting that Kerry had already given Washington state Democrats $250,000 for the fight in December, Gregoire said: "When they are trying to bankrupt us from having a legitimate governor, Senator Kerry is here again."

While reeling off a list of accomplishments in her first legislative session, Gregoire said she experienced "one major failure": the gay-rights bill that died by one vote in the state Senate.

"I'm disappointed we couldn't step up and say we will have no discrimination against gays and lesbians," she said. "It's heartbreaking, but we will be back next year."

A handful of supporters of Republican gubernatorial challenger Dino Rossi stood across the parking lot of Daybreak Star, one holding a sign that read: "Living non-felons for Rossi," a reference to the upcoming court fight about how many felons cast illegal votes in the November election.

While GOP officials may not have agreed with the Democrats' message, they concurred with the method.

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said he also is struggling to pay off legal bills — the party reported a debt of $370,839 last month — and he hopes to stage similar fund-raisers with big-name speakers. No plans have been announced.

Seattle Times ~ Alex Fryer ** Kerry visit rallies party

Commanders To Seek Preemptive Nuke Strikes
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: News

Draft U.S. paper allows commanders to seek preemptive nuke strikes

The U.S. military plans to allow regional combatant commanders to request the president for approval to carry out preemptive nuclear strikes against possible attacks on the United States or its allies with weapons of mass destruction, according to a draft new nuclear operations paper.

The paper, drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces, also revealed that submarines which make port calls in Yokosuka, Sasebo and Okinawa in Japan are prepared for reloading nuclear warheads if necessary to deal with a crisis.

The March 15 draft paper, a copy of which was made available, is titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" providing "guidelines for the joint employment of forces in nuclear operations...for the employment of U.S. nuclear forces, command and control relationships, and weapons effect considerations."

"There are numerous nonstate organizations (terrorist, criminal) and about 30 nations with WMD programs, including many regional states," the paper says in allowing combatant commanders in the Pacific and other theaters to maintain an option of preemptive strikes against "rogue" states and terrorists and "request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons" under set conditions.

The paper identifies nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as requiring preemptive strikes to prevent their use.

But allowing preemptive nuclear strikes against possible biological and chemical attacks effectively contradicts a "negative security assurance" policy declared by the U.S. administration of President Bill Clinton 10 years ago on the occasion of an international conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Creating a treaty on negative security assurances to commit nuclear powers not to use nuclear weapons against countries without nuclear weapons remains one of the most contentious issues for the 35-year-old NPT regime.

A JCS official said the paper "is still a draft which has to be finalized," but indicated that it is aimed at guiding "cross-spectrum" combatant commanders how to jointly carry out operations based on the Nuclear Posture Review report adopted three years ago by the administration of President George W. Bush.

Citing North Korea, Iran and some other countries as threats, the report set out contingencies for which U.S. nuclear strikes must be prepared and called for developing earth-penetrating nuclear bombs to destroy hidden underground military facilities, including those for storing WMD and ballistic missiles.

"The nature (of the paper) is to explain not details but cross spectrum for how to conduct operations," the official said, noting that it "means for all services, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine."

In 1991 after the end of the Cold War, the United States removed its ground-based nuclear weapons in Asia and Europe as well as strategic nuclear warheads on warships and submarines.

But the paper says the United States is prepared to revive those sea-based nuclear arms.

"Nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, removed from ships and submarines under the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiative, are secured in central areas where they remain available, if necessary for a crisis," the paper says.

The paper also underlined that the United States retains a contingency scenario of limited nuclear wars in East Asia and the Middle East.

"Geographic combatant commanders may request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons for a variety of conditions," the paper says.

The paper lists eight conditions such as "an adversary using or intending to use WMD against U.S. multinational or alliance forces or civilian populations" and "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."

The conditions also include "attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons" and countering "potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces."

Yahoo Asia ~ Kyodo News ** Draft U.S. paper allows commanders to seek preemptive nuke strikes

Hillary Blames Bush for North Korea Nukes
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is blaming President Bush for the fact that North Korea can now hit the U.S. with nuclear missiles - after a top intelligence official told her Thursday that Kim Jong Il's ICBMs can now reach the Northwestern U.S.

"They couldn't do that when George Bush became president, and now they can," Mrs. Clinton complained to the New York Times.

She called the nuke revelation - offered by Defense Intelligence Agency chief Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee - "The first confirmation, publicly, by the administration that the North Koreans have the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device that can reach the United States."

The top Democrat pointed her finger at the Bush administration despite a 1999 congressional finding that North Korea first obtained the capacity to develop nuclear weapons under her husband's administration, which actually gave Kim Jong Il nuclear technology in exchange for the promise that he would not make weapons.

A report compiled at the time by the House North Korea Advisory Group warned: "If the [Clinton administration's] 1994 Agreed Framework is implemented and two [U.S. Light Water Reactors] are eventually built and operated in North Korea, the reactors could produce close to 500 kilograms of plutonium in spent reactor fuel each year; enough for nearly 100 bombs annually if North Korea decides to break its obligations and reprocess the material."

The advisory group also blasted the Clinton administration for making North Korea "the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the Asia-Pacific region."

"In an astonishing reversal of nine previous U.S. administrations," the report said, "the Clinton-Gore administration, in 1994, committed not only to provide foreign aid for North Korea, but to earmark that aid primarily for the construction of nuclear reactors worth up to $6 billion."

The advisory group also warned that North Korea would soon be able to hit the U.S. with ICBMs - and blamed the Clinton administration for facilitating Pyongyang's progress.

NewsMax.com ~ Carl Limbacher ** Hillary Blames Bush for North Korea Nukes