Liberal Repercussion: 02/01/2004

vendredi, février 06, 2004

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1142052,00.html

"...Meanwhile, a far more serious WMD-related failure has come to light, involving a clandestine proliferation network linking North Korea, Iran, and Libya, and whose epicentre is Pakistan. Since the 1980s until, in the case of Libya, as recently as last autumn, the briefly disgraced and now rapidly pardoned Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold or bartered nuclear weapons-related technology for personal gain in defiance of law, common sense and morality.

Recognising the fact that Dr Khan did not act alone is important. So, too, is the fact that the full ramifications of this affair have yet to be explored. Dr Khan's public confession raises, rather than settles, a host of questions about the role of Pakistan's military and civilian leaders and intelligence agencies. Their blanket denials of knowledge or complicity in his activities cannot be taken at face value. It may be that old allegations about illicit Pakistani WMD collaboration with al-Qaida will have to be revisited. It may be that Iran has obtained, courtesy of Dr Khan, the blueprints of a nuclear bomb."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3465069.stm

China nappy business tries to trademark Bush
A Beijing businessman has applied to use the Chinese name of US President George Bush to market his nappies.

"Back in my hometown in Henan Province, the pronunciation of 'Bushi' sounds exactly like 'not wet'," said the man, surnamed Guo, according to local media.

February 04, 2004

THE TORN DOCUMENT....So what's the deal with the George Bush AWOL story? There are a million tedious details, but as near as I can tell here's the nub of the whole thing.

Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 and in May 1972 asked for a transfer to Alabama because he wanted to work on a political campaign there. His transfer was approved and off to Alabama he went. The problem is that he doesn't seem to have actually performed any of his required guard duty either in Alabama or after he returned to Texas. He just blew it off. There are several bits of evidence for this:

*

His chronological service record shows no duty between May 1972 and October 1973.

*

Bush was supposedly in Alabama between May 1972 and November 1972, but the commanding officer of the Alabama unit says he doesn't remember Bush ever showing up. "Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not," he said. "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."

*

In August 1972 Bush was suspended from flying because he never showed up for his required annual physical.

*

Bush supposedly returned to Texas in November 1972, but the annual effectiveness report from his Texas unit that covers his entire period of service from May 1972 through May 1973 says "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report."

Case closed, right? Bush was AWOL. And for normal people at least, this would have been a serious problem, prompting an official investigation and a transfer to active duty, or possibly even a dishonorable discharge.

But wait. Although there are no records showing that he attended drills in Alabama, there is one piece of evidence demonstrating that Bush showed up for drills after he returned to Texas: the infamous "torn document." Here it is:

http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003189.html

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe
Posted Feb. 5, 2004
By Richard Sale
Published: Tuesday, February 17, 2004

The case centers on Valerie Plame, a CIA operative then working for the weapons of mass destruction division, and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who served as ambassador to Gabon and as a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad in the early 1990s. Under President Bill Clinton, he was head of African affairs until he retired in 1998, according to press accounts.

Wilson was sent by the Bush administration in March 2002 to check on an allegation made by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address the previous winter that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from the nation of Niger. Wilson returned with a report that said the claim was "highly doubtful."

On June 12, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus revealed that an unnamed diplomat had "given a negative report" on the claim and then, on July 6, as the Bush administration was widely accused of manipulating intelligence to get American public opinion behind a war with Iraq, Wilson published an op-ed piece in the Post in which he accused the Bush administration of "misrepresenting the facts." His piece also asked, "What else are they lying about?"

According to one administration official, "The White House was really pissed, and began to contact six journalists in order to plant stories to discredit Wilson," according to the New York Times and other accounts.

As Pincus said in a Sept. 29 radio broadcast, "The reason for putting out the story about Wilson's wife working for the CIA was to undermine the credibility of [Wilson's] mission for the agency in Niger. Wilson, as the last top diplomat in Iraq at the time of the Gulf War, had credibility beyond his knowledge of Africa, which was his specialty. So his going to Niger to check the allegation that Iraq had sought uranium there and returning to say he had no confirmation was considered very credible."

Eight days later, columnist Robert Novak wrote a column in which he named Wilson's wife and revealed she was "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Since Plame was working undercover, it exposed her and, in the opinion of some, ruined her usefulness and her career. It also violated a 1982 law that prohibits revealing the identity of U.S. intelligence agents.

On Oct. 7, Bush said that unauthorized disclosure of an undercover CIA officer's identity was "a criminal matter" and the Justice Department had begun its investigation into the source of the leak.

Richard Sale is an intelligence correspondent for UPI, a sister wire service of Insight magazine.

Bush Military Record

Google bomb THIS!

jeudi, février 05, 2004

http://www.gregpalast.com/images/dbtcontract.jpg

This is a link to a confidential document associated with the notorious ChoicePoint purge of Florida's black voters from voter eligibility rolls.

Working for Change has an excerpt from Greg Palast's fine book regarding the theft of the presidency.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=15373&CFID=8740752&CFTOKEN=38458651

Working for Change is a publication of Working Assets. Working Assets is my long distance and cellular provider, and they give GREAT service. I STRONGLY recommend switching to them for as many communications services as you find useful. Your money goes to worthy progressive causes and you get to select where your funds are applied.

http://www.workingassets.com/index.cfm

From Josh Marshall:

There's been plenty of chatter over recent days that some indictments were coming down the pike in the Plame matter. Now UPI's Richard Sale seems to have the goods.

This from a story just out ...

Federal law enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year.

The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby were the two Cheney employees.

"We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law enforcement officer said.

Calls to the vice president's office were not returned. Hannah and Libby did not return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time," as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law enforcement official said.

This is, to put it mildly, awfully big news if it bears out.

We're sitting on some other key developments in the case which we're hoping to post late this afternoon or this evening.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_02_01.html#002529

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/02/05/frist/print.html

Key Frist staffer to resign over leak

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jesse J. Holland

Feb. 5, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- One of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's key staffers will resign Friday because of an investigation into how Republicans gained access to Democratic memos concerning opposition to President Bush's judicial nominees.

Manuel Miranda, who worked for the Tennessee Republican on judicial nominations, has been on leave since late last month because of the investigation into how Democratic memos stored on a computer server shared by Judiciary Committee members ended up in GOP hands.

But Miranda, a former GOP Judiciary staffer who transferred to Frist's leadership office, offered his resignation and will leave Frist's office as of Friday, Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said Thursday.

A message left at Miranda's home was not immediately returned. Miranda told The Knoxville News Sentinel in January that investigators were looking at work he performed for the Judiciary Committee before he joined Frist's office. "There was no stealing," he said. "No systematic surveillance. I never forwarded these memos -- period."

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, began the investigation in November after Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., protested what they said was the theft of the memos from their servers. The memos, concerning political strategy on blocking confirmation of several of President Bush's judicial nominations, were obtained and reported on by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times.

Conservatives have talked up the memos as proof the Democrats colluded with outside liberal groups in their choices of which Bush appellate nominees to block.

Hatch, the Judiciary chairman, also placed an aide on leave late last year for improperly obtaining data from the computer networks of two Democratic senators. That aide, who has not been identified, has since left government work, officials said.

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has been working with the Secret Service and outside investigators since November to try and determine how the Democratic memos got to Republicans. A report is expected to go to Hatch's Judiciary Committee in about two weeks, officials said.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/036/nation/Bush_s_Guard_service_br_What_the_record_shows+.shtml

Bush's Guard service:
What the record shows

By Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff, 2/5/2004

Michael Moore, the documentary filmmaker, started it, labeling President Bush a military ''deserter'' during an appearance last month with Democratic presidential candidate Wesley K. Clark.

Less incendiary was Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, who charged Sunday that Bush had been AWOL, absent without leave, while a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

False, outrageous, and baseless, said the White House. Terry Holt, the spokesman for Bush's reelection campaign, insisted in an interview yesterday that Democrats are recklessly trying to ''impugn the character of the commander-in-chief.''

As with much of the partisan back and forth in presidential politics, the truth lies elsewhere -- in this case in Bush's military records. Those records contain evidence that a lackadaisical Bush did not report for required Guard duty for a full year during his six-year National Guard enlistment.

A detailed Globe examination of the records in 2000 unearthed official reports by Bush's Guard commanders that they had not seen him for a year. There was also no evidence that Bush had done part of his Guard service in Alabama, as he has claimed. Bush's Guard appointment, made possible by family connections, was cut short when Bush was allowed to leave his Houston Guard unit eight months early to attend Harvard Business School.

Bush received an honorable discharge in 1973. The records contain no indication that Bush's commanding officers, one of them a friend, ever accused him of shirking his duty.

In an interview yesterday, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, asserted that Bush ''fulfilled his military requirements.'' Bartlett acknowledged that Bush's ''irregular civilian work schedule could have put strains on when he served, when he performed his duty.''

Before the Globe report in May 2000, Bush's official biography reported erroneously that he flew fighter-interceptor jets for the Houston Guard unit from 1968 to 1973. In a 1999 interview with a military publication, Bush said that among the values he learned as a pilot included ''the responsibility to show up and do your job.''

Most Democrats consider Moore's accusation of desertion unsupportable.

Still, according to the records and interviews in 2000, Bush's attendance record in the Guard was highly unusual:

Although he was trained as a fighter pilot, Bush ceased flying in April 1972, little more than two years after he finished flight school and two years before his six-year enlistment was to end, when he was allowed to transfer to an Alabama Air Guard unit. The records contain no evidence that Bush performed any military duty in Alabama. His Alabama unit commander, in an interview, said Bush never appeared for duty.

In August 1972, Bush was suspended from flight status for failing to take his annual flight physical.

In May 1973, Bush's two superior officers in Houston wrote that they could not perform his annual evaluation, because he had ''not been observed at this unit'' during the preceding 12 months. The two officers, one of them a friend of Bush and both now dead, wrote that they believed Bush had been fulfilling his commitment at the Alabama unit.

Two other officers, in interviews, offered a similar account of Bush's absence, saying they had assumed Bush completed his service in Alabama.

Bush's official record of service, which is supposed to contain an account of his duty attendance for each year of service, shows no such attendance after May 1972. In unit records, however, there are documents showing that Bush was ordered to a flurry of drills -- over 36 days -- in the late spring and summer of 1973. He was discharged Oct. 1, 1973, eight months before his six-year commitment ended.

Through Bartlett, Bush insisted in 2000 that he had indeed attended military drills while he was in Alabama during 1972 and in 1973 after returning to his Houston base. At the time, Bartlett said Bush did not recall what duties he performed during that period.

Albert Lloyd Jr., a retired colonel who was the personnel officer for the Texas Air National Guard at the time, said in an interview four years ago that the records suggested to him that Bush ''had a bad year. He might have lost interest, since he knew he was getting out.''

Lloyd said he believed that after Bush's long attendance drought, the drills that were crammed into the months before Bush's early release gave him enough ''points'' to satisfy the minimal requirements to earn his discharge. At the time, Lloyd speculated that after the evaluation of Bush could not be done, his superiors told him, `George, you're in a pickle. Get your ass down here and perform some duty.' And he did.''

In the last election, Vice President Al Gore declined to make an issue of Bush's military service, perhaps because Gore's credibility could have been an issue. That includes a claim by Gore that turned out not to be true, that he had been ''under fire'' during his service in Vietnam.

In the current presidential campaign, echoes of the Vietnam War remain. Senator John F. Kerry, who was decorated for gallantry in action and wounded in Vietnam, is now the favorite to become the Democratic nominee.

Kerry has left direct criticisms of Bush's military record to surrogates, such as former US senator Max Cleland of Georgia. Cleland said in an interview yesterday that Bush as president ''has been wrapping himself falsely in the flag.''

But Kerry, at least implicitly, has sought to turn attention to Bush's military record. In an interview Tuesday night on Fox News, Kerry said: ''I've never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, being a conscientious objector, going into the National Guard.''

On that issue, Holt, the Bush spokesman, cried foul. Holt pointed to Kerry's statements in 1992 defending Bill Clinton against criticism that Clinton actively avoided the military draft in the late 1960s. Cleland, who is a triple amputee as a result of the wounds he suffered in Vietnam, said of Clinton: ''Bill Clinton evaded and avoided the draft. We know that.''

Whether the distinction between the decisions that Kerry and Bush made a generation ago will matter with the electorate remains to be seen. Clinton, despite criticism of how he sidestepped military service, defeated Bush's father, who was a Navy torpedo bomber pilot during World War II.

eb. 5, 2004 | In 1972, George W. Bush simply walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas Air National Guard. He skipped required weekend drill sessions for many months, probably for more than a year, and did not take a mandatory annual physical exam, which resulted in his being grounded. Nonetheless, Bush, the son of a well-connected Texas congressman, received an honorable discharge.

If an Air National guardsman today vanished for a year, military attorneys say that guardsman would be transferred to active duty or, more likely, kicked out of the service, probably with a less-than-honorable discharge. They suggest the penalty would be especially swift if the absent-without-leave guardsman were a fully trained pilot, as Bush was.

...snip...

http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/article.php?sid=3709

"Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand." -- Mark Twain

http://home.comcast.net/%7Ewizardofwhimsy/

NOTHING can stand up to the arsenal of these funnies.

"SHOP COSTCO. Chairman and CEO donate BIG to defeat Bush"

ISSAQUAH: Costco chairman, CEO give $95,000 each to defeat Bush
Bloomberg News

Costco Wholesale Corp. Chairman Jeffrey Brotman and CEO James Sinegal gave $95,000 each in December to a political fund that aims to defeat President Bush in the November election, records filed with the Internal Revenue Service show.

Brotman and Sinegal were among 25 people who gave a combined $7.9 million to the Joint Victory Campaign 2004 fund, which seeks to "change the course of the country away from the Bush administration's radical agenda" and elect "progressive" candidates, according to the fund's Web site.

The loss of 2 million jobs during the Bush administration, the decision to invade Iraq, and cuts in social programs led him to donate to the fund, said Sinegal of the Issaquah-based discount stores.

http://www.tribnet.com/business/story/4704137p-4655022c.html

Just two days after the White House proposed serious budget cuts and the President said he's "calling upon Congress to be wise with the taxpayer's money," the Bush Administration announced a massive taxpayer-funded television ad campaign to promote its controversial Medicare bill (you can download the ad). Specifically, the White House will use $9.5 million from the Department of Health and Human Services – money that is supposed to be used to implement the law and could go to restore some of the cuts to social services for the poor – on political commercials that "rebut criticism of the new Medicare law." The TV ads will be augmented by $3.1 million in print, radio and Spanish-language ads. The effort represents an "uncommonly aggressive campaign by the administration and congressional Republicans to promote legislation that already has become law" by using scarce taxpayer funds expressly for partisan political purposes at a time when lawmakers are trying to amend the bill. And while the White House claims to be very concerned with the deficits, the new ads – and the past record of opening the spigot of taxpayer money for partisan political purposes – raises questions. First and foremost, does the blatant misuse of taxpayer funds for political purposes violate federal law under 31 USC 1301(a) and 5 USC 7321? Secondly, how much other waste, fraud and abuse is being promoted throughout the government?

THE AD'S DISTORTIONS: The new Medicare ads urge citizens to call 1-800-MEDICARE to hear more about the new law. And in "Big Brother" style, when you call that number you have to actually say out loud "Medicare improvement" in order to get information. The information you then receive is filled with distortions. The hotline claims the new Medicare "is the same Medicare you have always counted on" – failing to disclose that the law includes provisions which try to force more seniors into private HMOs. The hotline claims that seniors will be able to find "immediate savings between 10% to 15% from a new drug discount card program." But the cards, which were written into the bill by one of President Bush's closest business associates, actually do not guarantee any savings at all. The hotline also says the new prescription drug program under Medicare "will provide significant savings for seniors." But as the Center for Economic and Policy Research notes, "seniors in the middle income quintile will pay an average of $1,650 a year in out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs in 2006 - a figure nearly 60% more than they paid in 2000."

HHS FUNDS HAVE BEEN RAIDED BEFORE: HHS is the agency charged with helping low-income citizens find health care and social services, which means its funds have been historically shielded from overt politics. But that changed when, last year, the WP reported "the White House billed HHS's Office of Family Assistance $210,000 to help pay for five trips in which President Bush promoted welfare reform at official events and made separate fundraising appearances for GOP candidates." By tapping agencies such as HHS for part of the costs "the president can stay on the campaign trail without socking all the costs to the Republican Party" – instead forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. When HHS was pressed about how much the White House had siphoned off from programs for low-income families and into bankrolling partisan fundraising trips, "they said they could not provide the total scope of White House billing to all of HHS." Meanwhile, the "White House said they were unable to determine the total scope of billings for White House travel costs to other domestic departments."

TAXPAYER FUNDS FOR POLITICAL MAILING: Shortly after passing the controversial 2001 tax cut, the White House announced it would use more than $30 million to mail a letter to every household touting the legislation. According to the 6/19/01 NYT, the Administration claimed "the letter contains the information that we believe the taxpayer needs" despite the fact that all the letter said was that "President George W. Bush signed into law [a bill], which provides long-term tax relief for all Americans who pay income taxes" and that "you will be receiving a check [so] you need to take no additional steps." When the House voted on bipartisan legislation to cancel the letter and save the $30 million, the Administration opposed it, and only after holding the vote open after the bill had won was the legislation defeated. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI),who supported the effort, chastised the White House for its misuse of taxpayer funds, saying, "I remember when we used to think $30 million was a lot of money."

TAXPAYER FUNDS FOR POLITICAL FUNDRAISING: Just last month, President Bush used a visit to Dr. Martin Luther King's grave as a pretense for forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for a $2,000-a-plate political fundraiser in Atlanta. It was just the latest example of the how the Bush White House deviously "combines the President's political rallies with an official event, to defray even more of the party's cost." And while all Presidents have engaged in the practice to some extent, USA Today noted in 2002 that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are "setting records for publicly subsidized political travel." Even after that story, the disregard for taxpayer money didn't stop. As the WP reported, the President took a two-week political fundraising tour in which "most of the campaign travel was paid for by the government, including the costs of Air Force One" which some estimate to be about $57,000 per hour. As Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) wrote in a letter to the White House, "Spending taxpayer money on political campaigning and fund-raising is the type of frivolous spending I thought President Bush vowed to curb. During a time of war and deepening recession, are these appropriate expenditures to American taxpayers?"

TAXPAYER FUNDS RAIDED FOR POLITICAL CRONIES: In 2002, the LA Times reported that the Bush Administration "reinstated a controversial bonus program under which high-ranking political appointees would be eligible for annual awards of $10,000 or more - a practice banned in 1994 amid concerns of possible abuse." Under the new directive "approximately 2,000 political appointees throughout the administration became eligible for such bonuses" – at the very same time President Bush "cited the war against terrorism as the reason" for refusing to provide an adequate cost-of-living pay increase to non-political federal workers. In 2002 alone, "nearly $1.5 million in bonuses went to the Administration's political appointees."

FORCING TAXPAYERS TO FOOT PERSONAL BILLS: During the energy crisis in 2001, the Bush Administration blocked efforts to establish temporary price caps to prevent companies like Enron from exploiting the situation. Instead, the NYT reported "the White House cited the large and unpredictable energy bills of the vice president's official residence in urging Congress to relieve him of using any of his official budget to pay for electricity." Specifically, the White House wanted the U.S. Navy (aka. the taxpayers) to pay the $186,000 in increased costs. When critics in Congress tried to block the plan, the Administration opposed them, and their legislation was voted down

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 47 > Sec. 1030. Prev | Next

Sec. 1030. - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers

(a)

Whoever -

(1)

having knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and by means of such conduct having obtained information that has been determined by the United States Government pursuant to an Executive order or statute to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national defense or foreign relations, or any restricted data, as defined in paragraph y. of section 11 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation willfully communicates, delivers, transmits, or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it;

(2)

intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains -

(3)

intentionally, without authorization to access any nonpublic computer of a department or agency of the United States, accesses such a computer of that department or agency that is exclusively for the use of the Government of the United States or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, is used by or for the Government of the United States and such conduct affects that use by or for the Government of the United States;

(4)

(ii)

intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage; or

(iii)

intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage; and

(B)

by conduct described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of subparagraph (A), caused (or, in the case of an attempted offense, would, if completed, have caused) -

(v)

damage affecting a computer system used by or for a government entity in furtherance of the administration of justice, national defense, or national security;

(6)

knowingly and with intent to defraud traffics (as defined in section 1029) in any password or similar information through which a computer may be accessed without authorization, if -

(B)

such computer is used by or for the Government of the United States; [1] ''or''.

(7)

with intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to cause damage to a protected computer;

shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section.

(b)

Whoever attempts to commit an offense under subsection (a) of this section shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section.

(c)

(6)

the term ''exceeds authorized access'' means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter;

(7)

the term ''department of the United States'' means the legislative or judicial branch of the Government or one of the executive departments enumerated in section 101 of title 5;

(8)

the term ''damage'' means any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information;

(9)

the term ''government entity'' includes the Government of the United States, any State or political subdivision of the United States, any foreign country, and any state, province, municipality, or other political subdivision of a foreign country;

(10)

the term ''conviction'' shall include a conviction under the law of any State for a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than 1 year, an element of which is unauthorized access, or exceeding authorized access, to a computer;

(11)

the term ''loss'' means any reasonable cost to any victim, including the cost of responding to an offense, conducting a damage assessment, and restoring the data, program, system, or information to its condition prior to the offense, and any revenue lost, cost incurred, or other consequential damages incurred because of interruption of service; and

(12)

the term ''person'' means any individual, firm, corporation, educational institution, financial institution, governmental entity, or legal or other entity.

(f)

This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States.

(g)

Any person who suffers damage or loss by reason of a violation of this section may maintain a civil action against the violator to obtain compensatory damages and injunctive relief or other equitable relief. A civil action for a violation of this section may be brought only if the conduct involves 1 of the factors set forth in clause (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), or (v) of subsection (a)(5)(B). Damages for a violation involving only conduct described in subsection (a)(5)(B)(i) are limited to economic damages. No action may be brought under this subsection unless such action is begun within 2 years of the date of the act complained of or the date of the discovery of the damage. No action may be brought under this subsection for the negligent design or manufacture of computer hardware, computer software, or firmware.

(h)
The Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury shall report to the Congress annually, during the first 3 years following the date of the enactment of this subsection, concerning investigations and prosecutions under subsection (a)(5)

Cyber Snoop
Somebody infiltrated Democratic electronic correspondence -- and let the world know about it. Now the case could turn into a full-blown e-gate.
Farai Chideya

When I was young and stupid -- say, three years ago -- I dated a guy heretofore known as The Control Freak. One day I noticed he'd left his e-mail account open. I felt a powerful urge to see if he'd treated his ex-girlfriend the way he treated me. I found out that he had.

Three things happened. One, I confessed. (I'm Catholic. I can't help it.) Two, I never read his e-mail again. And finally, despite my apologies, he lorded my indiscretion over me until we mercifully broke up. I can't say I blame him. Like many people who grew up in the computer era, I consider private e-mail a sacrosanct space, more like a diary than a daykeeper. Invading someone's e-mail is like sitting on that person's bed and flipping through his or her journals.

Which brings us to the curious case of Republicans infiltrating Democratic e-correspondence. Private, or supposedly private, Democratic memos were leaked to conservative media outlets The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and possibly radio and television host Sean Hannity. At issue is a computer system that allowed Republican staffers to read Democratic memos and correspondence without a password. Some of these staffers argued that they told the Democrats about the security breach in the summer of 2002. Others believe mum was the word before November 2003. In any case, the Republicans had more than a year of unfettered access to Democratic documents before this scandal became public.

And what a year it was. At issue is a series of Democratic strategy memos on controversial judicial appointments. A year ago, columnist Bob Novak detailed Democratic strategy for blocking conservative nominees to the federal bench. The descriptions in his column, including the Democratic characterization of blocked nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" who was "especially dangerous, because … he is a Latino" were straight from the pilfered electronic files. In some accounts of the case, the content of the memos has become as much of an issue as the spying itself.

In a press conference, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch admitted that an investigation by federal prosecutors "revealed at least one current member of the Judiciary Committee staff had improperly accessed at least some of the documents referenced in the media reports and which have been posted on the Internet."

The staffer, Manuel Miranda, is on paid administrative leave. Reached by The Boston Globe, which broke the story, Miranda said, "There appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule. Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to a government document. … These documents are not covered under the Senate disclosure rule because they are not official business and, to the extent they were disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff."

Nice try. Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes, "Each time the Republicans accessed the Democrats' files without authorization, they at a minimum violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 USC Sec.1030(a)(2)." That statute includes anyone who "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains … information from any department or agency of the United States."

Tien also rejects the reports that focus on the content of Democratic memos versus their theft. In describing this crime, he says, "It's pretty sleazy to blame the victim when you're the one exploiting the weakness in the first place. Good computer security is hard. Poor computer security is extremely common. … I don't believe in double standards, so maybe we should think of all the companies and governments who have been hacked in the past few years because of poor security."

And what about the disputed Republican argument that they told Democrats about the problem a year ago? "It's as if they're saying `I told you the lock on your back door was broken -- if you didn't fix it, I should be able to walk right into your house and take what I want,'" says computer-privacy expert Mike Godwin, senior technology counsel at Public Knowledge.

It's been hard for this story to get much play in a time filled with talk of weapons of mass destruction (or the lack thereof), Democratic primaries, and presidential budget recommendations. But the continuing investigation could turn this case of file spying into a full-on electronic Watergate.

Senate Sergeant at Arms William Pickle is now turning over backup tapes of the Judiciary Committee computer to the Capitol police. This prompted a group of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, including Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, to complain that the investigation could compromise their own e-privacy. "We strongly object to allowing anyone to read backup tapes or other electronic media from the Judiciary Committee server, the Exchange server or otherwise breach the privacy of our electronic files and communications," they wrote in a letter to Pickle. So far, their concerns have taken a back seat to the needs of the investigation.

In the end, Republican gains from scanning the memos may be far outweighed by disclosures from the spying case. After all, those who live by the sword -- or the mouse click -- can die by it as well.

Farai Chideya is the author of the forthcoming Trust: Reaching the 100 Million Missing Voters.

Halliburton is all over the news this week. Naughty, naughty little monkeys. Their greed is legendary. These fines are little more than an annoyance, though, and I doubt will deter Halliburton from continuing to bilk U.S. taxpayers.

When do corrupt business dealings finally arise to the level of public concern, under this administration? Not yet, apparently. (ENRON has yet to get any serious attention, even.)

Appears Halliburton was billing the Pentagon on that legendary no-limit, no-bid logistics contract based on numbers they pulled out of their ass, rather than numbers based on the actual services being provided. No problem, I guess. They just unbill a few million, a teensy oversight.

Never mind that Halliburton's fees actually are calculated from the cost of the services provided; the more they bill the US, they more they are paid. So billing on a SWAG means more money to Halliburton. Is THIS the economic recovery that asswipe in the Oval Office keeps referring to? Sheesh.

Halliburton in Pentagon payback
Halliburton, the giant US energy group once run by Vice-President Dick Cheney, has agreed to pay back $27.4m (£15m) to the Pentagon, US defence officials say.

The refund covers possible overcharging on a contract to supply meals to the US military in Iraq and Kuwait.

Halliburton has temporarily stopped charging the US military for meals until they agree on a better method.

UK defence officials said on Tuesday that Halliburton had won a £12m deal to ship military supplies to Iraq.

Fine-tuning

The potential overcharging had emerged during "routine evaluation of contract costs submitted for payment" by the Halliburton group's Kellogg Brown and Root subsidiary, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Rose-Ann Lynch.

"We are pleased KBR is willing to step forward to offer reimbursement in advance of any findings," Reuters news agency cited another Pentagon official as saying.

On Monday, Halliburton said KBR was working with the Pentagon auditors to "improve the counting method" for meals served to troops in the Middle East.

Halliburton said that "this is not any sort of admission" of wrongdoing.

It explained that meal bills for the US military had been drawn up on the basis of estimates, rather than actual meals served, and that this system was now being fine-tuned.

Halliburton has agreed to repay $16m of payments received for meals at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and $11.4m for meals at other camps in the region.

Under fire

Halliburton's activities in Iraq have attracted intense scrutiny from critics of the Iraq war on the look out for any signs of corporate favouritism from the Bush Administration. Vice President Dick Cheney headed Halliburton for five years, until 2000.

Halliburton has admitted to errors, sacking two KBR employees in Iraq last month for taking bribes worth up to $6m (£3.3m) from a Kuwaiti firm.

Pentagon officials from the Defense Contracting Audit Agency are checking allegations that KBR overcharged the US military for fuel deliveries to Iraq.

A spokeswoman for the UK's Ministry of Defence said KBR had won a logistics contract on the grounds of "performance, responsiveness and overall value for money", adding that the contract was subject to regular performance checks.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/3458249.stm

This is not the same overbilling issue as this OTHER incident where they managed to skate by, on the word of a Lieutenant General who affirms that KBR is innocent and blameless like a little lamb. *snort*

Halliburton 'off overcharging hook'
A senior US army officer has cleared the American engineering company Halliburton of any wrongdoing in relation to a contract to deliver fuel from Kuwait to Iraq, according to a newspaper report.

The Wall Street Journal says that the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, Lieutenant General Robert Flowers, has exonerated the company's subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root after Defense Department officials complained that the government had been overcharged by $100m.

The newspaper reports that more junior officers told General Flowers that the company had provided data to show that fuel was delivered at a fair and reasonable price.

Political interest in the US in the allegations of overcharging was heightened by the fact that Halliburton used to be run by the Vice President, Richard Cheney.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1141411,00.html

Halliburton faces bribes inquiry

David Teather in New York
Thursday February 5, 2004
The Guardian

Criminal investigators in the US have opened an inquiry into allegations that Halliburton was involved in $180m in bribes paid to Nigerian officials during the late 1990s, when Vice-president Dick Cheney was company chief.

The financial regulator, the securities and exchange commission, has also launched an inquiry.

The investigations add to the pressure on Halliburton after months of scrutiny over its links to the White House and the way it has won contracts in Iraq, as well as allegations of overcharging the US army for work carried out.

But unlike recent controversy that has dogged Halliburton, the Nigerian allegations stem from a period when Mr Cheney was chairman.

Halliburton disclosed the investigations into the Nigerian allegations in a financial filing. It said: "The US department of justice and the SEC have asked Halliburton for a report on these matters and are reviewing the allegations in light of the US foreign corrupt practices act."

The inquiries are parallel to a French investigation into the payments, which allegedly secured a contract to build a natural gas plant. A consortium of four companies called TSKJ, including the Halliburton division Kellogg Brown & Root, built the plant.

Halliburton said it was cooperating with the various inquiries and had engaged its own outside legal counsel to conduct an investigation.

The French inquiry was sparked when an official of one of the four companies, Technip, was charged with embezzlement. He said the consortium maintained a $180m slush fund for bribes.

Halliburton has been awarded more than $9bn in contracts to help rebuild Iraq and provide logistical support for US troops. Democrats, pointing to Mr Cheney's leadership of the business, have accused the Bush administration of cronyism.

The Pentagon is widening its own investigations into Halliburton. The company this week agreed to repay more than $27m for overcharging the US army for meal services provided at four camps. Last month, it reimbursed the army $6.3m after disclosing that one or two of its employees may have taken kickbacks.

In early 2001, TSKJ successfully won the Project Specification for the NLNGPlus Project in an international competitive tender process. This work was completed in November 2001.

NLNG shareholders are Nigerian National Petroleum Company (49%) and subsidiaries of Royal Dutch/Shell (25.6%), TotalFinaElf (15%) and Agip (10.4%).

With a workforce of about 18,000 and annual revenues of about 5 billion euros, TECHNIP-COFLEXIP ranks among the top five in the field of oil and petrochemical engineering, construction and services. Headquartered in Paris, the Group is listed in New York and in Paris (EURONEXT: 13170). The main engineering and business centers of Technip-Coflexip are located in France, Italy, Germany, the UK, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, the United States, Brazil, Abu-Dhabi, China, India, Malaysia and Australia. The Group has high-quality industrial and construction facilities in France, Brazil, the UK, the USA, and Finland as well as a world class fleet of offshore construction vessels. Technip-Coflexip's web-site is accessible at: http://www.technip-coflexip.com .

Snamprogetti, a company of the ENI Group, is an international technology- orientated engineering and main contracting company, active in the fields of oil and gas processing production, refining, natural gas treatment and monetization, fertilizer and petrochemical plants, onshore and offshore pipeline systems, infrastructure, power and environment plants. Based in San Donato Milanese, Milan, Snamprogetti has major subsidiaries in Italy and in the United Kingdom as well as several offices worldwide. Staffed by 3,300 employees, the company has had an average turnover of over 1,500 million US dollar in the last five years. Snamprogetti's website can be accessed at http://www.snamprogetti.it/ .

KBR and Partners Awarded EPC Contract for Further Expansion of Nigerian Plant; NLNG Plus Will Add Two Trains to Bonny Island Operation.

PR Newswire, March 22, 2002

BONNY ISLAND, Rivers State, Nigeria -- Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) has awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the realization of the trains 4 and 5 expansion project, or "NLNGPlus Project" (EPC), at its existing $3.8 billion liquefied natural gas facility to a joint venture team, which includes KBR, the wholly owned engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton . The partners of the equal joint venture team, known as TSKJ, include Technip-Coflexip , Snamprogetti, KBR and JGC Corporation. The EPC contract to TSKJ is valued at over $(US) 1.7 billion.

Dave Lesar, CEO of Halliburton, said: "The TSKJ joint venture is pleased and honored to have been selected once again by NLNG for this important and strategic project for Nigeria. With this win and the recent award of the Union Fenosa LNG project in Egypt, KBR continues to dominate as the leading engineering, procurement and construction company in LNG projects. We are committed to being a leader in the LNG industry."

Jack Stanley, chairman of KBR, added: "This project will bring environmental benefits to the area through reduced gas flaring and it will contribute to the economic development of Nigeria and its vast gas reserves."

When the NLNGPlus project is completed in November 2005, the plant will have an overall production capacity of 16.8 million tons per year of LNG and two million tonnes per year of liquefied petroleum gas. It will also utilize about 2,800 million standard cubic feet per day of gas.

Each of the two new trains and associated facilities will be able to process 4.0 million tonnes per year of LNG. Also, the expansion is intended to increase the capability of the complex to process associated gas feedstock, enabling a major reduction in gas flaring in Nigeria. In addition to the environmental benefits, the NLNGPlus expansion project is expected to significantly increase export earnings for Nigeria and further establish NLNG as one of the major players in the global natural gas industry.

TSKJ has provided NLNG with an option price for an additional duplicate LNG train (Train 6), which will further expand the LNG capacity to 20.8 million tons per year.

TSKJ was awarded the EPC contract for Trains 1 and 2 and the necessary site infrastructure in December 1995. Trains 1 and 2 started up in August 1999 and February 2000. Train 3 with LPG recovery facilities was awarded to TSKJ in March 1999. Construction of Train 3 is well under way and is expected to start up on schedule in 2002.

In early 2001, TSKJ successfully won the Project Specification for the NLNGPlus Project in an international competitive tender process. This work was completed in November 2001.

NLNG shareholders are Nigerian National Petroleum Company (49%) and subsidiaries of Royal Dutch/Shell (25.6%), TotalFinaElf (15%) and Agip(10.4%).

With a workforce of about 18,000 and annual revenues of about 5 billion euros, TECHNIP-COFLEXIP ranks among the top five in the field of oil and petrochemical engineering, construction and services. Headquartered in Paris, the Group is listed in New York and in Paris (EURONEXT: 13170). The main engineering and business centers of Technip-Coflexip are located in France, Italy, Germany, the UK, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, the United States, Brazil, Abu-Dhabi, China, India, Malaysia and Australia. The Group has high- quality industrial and construction facilities in France, Brazil, the UK, the USA, and Finland as well as a world class fleet of offshore construction vessels. TECHNIP-COFLEXIP's website is accessible at: http://www.technip-/ coflexip.com .

Snamprogetti, a company of the ENI Group, is an international engineering and construction company, operating as a main contractor in the fields of oil and gas production, refining, natural gas treatment and monetization, chemical and fertilizer plants, field upstream facilities and pipelines, infrastructure, power and environment plants. Based in San Donato Milanese, Milan, Snamprogetti has major subsidiaries in Italy and in the United Kingdom as well as several offices worldwide. Staffed by 3,300 employees, the company has had an average turnover of over 1,500 million US dollar in the last five years. Snamprogetti's website can be accessed at http://www.snamprogetti.it/ .

KBR, a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton, is an international, technology-based engineering and construction company which provides a full spectrum of industry-leading services for governments, public infrastructure and to the hydrocarbon, chemical, energy, and forest products industries. Halliburton, founded in 1919, is the one of the world's largest providers of products and services to the petroleum and energy industries. The company's World Wide Web site can be accessed at http://www.halliburton.com/ .

JGC is an international engineering and construction company based in Yokohama, Japan, having multiple operating centers and executing large scale projects world-wide. JGC is currently executing projects in Nigeria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Australia, Venezuela and other countries. Established in 1928, JGC has a strong background in lump sum turnkey operations of both hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon related projects with annual sales turnover of approximately $3 billion. JGC's website can be accessed at http://www.jgc.co.jp/ .

MAKE YOUR OPINION COUNT - Click Here

http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X36746073

Contact: Zelma Branch, zelma.branch@halliburton.com , or Wendy Hall, both of Halliburton, +1-713-676-4371

Website: http://www.jgc.co.jp/ http://www.snamprogetti.it/ http://www.technip-coflexip.com/ http://www.halliburton.com/

Solar Energy - The time is NOW

Jeff Perlman is a renewable energy consultant and musician living in Brooklyn, NY. He researches, writes about, facilitates and advocates cleaner, more sustainable ways of living, primarily solar energy and green buildings. Recently he worked on a
paper entitled "The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Buildings" - showing the cost-effectiveness as well as environmental sensibility of building green buildings. (See http://www.cap-e.com, http://www.usgbc.org.) For Capital E (http://www.cap-e.com), he has done
several projects to evaluate and fund new solar technology companies. He is currently starting up BASIC - the Big Apple Solar Installation Commitment (http://www.basicsolar.org) - a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the adoption and usage of solar energy in NYC.

Jeff also moonlights as a musician - playing mostly klezmer (Eastern European Jewish folk/dance music) on his clarinet. (This is how he met Jim back in the summer of 1998 at KlezKamp West in Petaluma, CA.) Jeff's bands include the Village Klezmer Quintet, Klez Que C'est? and the nascent gypsy music collective Romashka.

Buy a sword
http://1934929.898.net

TENET EXPOSES BUSH'S MISLEADING ON WMD

In a stunning blow to the president's credibility, CIA Director George Tenet said this morning that intelligence "analysts never said there was an imminent threat" from Iraq before the war. His comments are consistent with various warnings sent to the White House from the intelligence community that specifically told the president his claims that Iraq definitely had chemical/biological and nuclear weapons were unsubstantiated. Tenet's comments call into question whether the Bush Administration was knowingly ignoring intelligence and misleading the country by claiming definitively that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was therefore an "imminent," "immediate," "urgent" and "mortal" threat to the American people.

Though the White House has claimed it never said Iraq was an imminent threat, the record proves otherwise. When White House communications director Dan Bartlett was asked before the war whether Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, he responded, "Of course he is." When White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked why NATO (and thus the United States) should support Turkey's request for defensive troops, he responded, "This is about an imminent threat." When White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether the invasion of Iraq was because Iraq was an imminent threat,
he responded, "Absolutely."

The president also used other language aimed at misleading Americans into thinking that U.S. intelligence definitively knew Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that threatened America - even though the intelligence community told the president it had no such evidence. The president said before the war that Iraq was an "urgent threat" and a "grave threat" to "any American."

In his speech informing Americans that the invasion had started, the President said Iraq "threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."

These comments were echoed by other top Administration officials. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on September 19, 2002 that "no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people
and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."

And Vice President Cheney called Iraq a "mortal threat," and said "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction...to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." And Secretary of State Colin Powell, in pressing for U.N. support, said definitively that Iraq possessed "deadly weapons programs" that "are real and present dangers to the region and to the world."

mercredi, février 04, 2004

Mark your calendars! February 29, 2004 is Pizza Party, USA! Get yer pies together, and meet your neighbors.

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/opinions/pizza_party_usa.php

Be sure to have a few voter registration cards on hand.

More on Frist. My MOM (hjaybeeee - renowned monkeybasher) believes that they are going to pull Cheney out of the reelection lineup and put in Frist as the VP candidate. Or possibly newbie Senator John Cornyn (R. -- Evil, TX) if they are not successful in clearing Frist's name with regard to his unethical incursion into the Democrats' computers.

Remember Watergate? Republicans breaking and entering Democrat headquarters to rifle through their stuff at election time. Frist and his freaking attorney Miranda just DID IT AGAIN. But this time, no one cares. Granted, these crimes are petty in comparison to the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of the War Aginst Terra. Still...

So, in short. The "ricin" terror or rat poison or whatever it was, (must not be too scary, only took them a day to "fix" the problem) is a complete fabrication. It was designed to:

1) Provide Terror Equity. People were starting to notice that only Dems get poisoned in D.C.

2) Garner sympathy for Frist; and

3) Allow unfettered access for someone to go in and eliminate all traces of Frist/Miranda's stroll through Senate Democrat directories, which was unethical as a whole and after the first unreported incursion, illegal as well.

FEH.

Republicans are the party of CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR. When are honest people going to realize the Republican party has been overrun by genuine, serious crooks? These mf-ers make Tricky Dick look like an Eagle Scout in comparison.

It is just my opinion, but I think the ricin scare is complete horseshit, a plant or fabricated crisis. It was whomped up so that a Republican crew of "plumbers" could go in and eradicate the evidence linking Frist's office to the cyber-burgalary of the Democrat offices. (See Manuel Miranda, below.)

Just a hunch, so I'll record it here and call it a theory. Let time prove me right or wrong.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,110243,00.html

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

WASHINGTON — Three Senate buildings will be closed Tuesday following "several confirmations" that a white, powdery substance found Monday in the Dirksen Senate Office Building (search) is the deadly poison ricin, Capitol Police said.

The powder was found by a Senate postal worker shortly after 3 p.m. Monday near the office of Sen. Bill Frist (search), R-Tenn. Initial tests resulted in one positive and one negative for ricin (search). The substance was then transported by the Capitol Police Hazardous Device Unit to a laboratory, where two out of three tests came out positive for ricin.

"There are several confirmations the substance is ricin," U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terry Gainer said in a press conference late Monday night.

According to a government official, the substance has been taken to Fort Detrick in Maryland for more definitive testing. Gainer, who would not confirm the testing location, said results of the tests would be announced Tuesday morning.

Also speaking at the late-night press conference was majority leader Frist, who urged calm.

"Nobody is sick, we don't expect anybody to get sick," he said. A surgeon before his election to the Senate, he explained that if symptoms of ricin poisoning have not surfaced in about eight hours, contamination is unlikely.

But, he later added, "The mailroom was in my office .... This is a terrorist activity."

The Homeland Security Department (search) had earlier said that it was monitoring the situation, and an FBI official said the bureau was awaiting the result of tests at the Fort Detrick laboratory before deciding whether to get more fully involved in the case.

Gainer said it was not clear what letter or package the substance had come from.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/7860185.htm

Capitol Police evacuated the fourth floor of the Senate Office building and shut down its air circulation units after the hazardous team was alerted, Gainer said.

"Nobody has been hurt and everybody is fine," said Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist, Tenn., who is also a surgeon. The symptoms of exposure include shortness of breath, chest tightening and coughing.

During the testing, senators and their staffs continued to consider legislation in the Senate Finance Committee room, also located in that building. The decision not to evacuate them is likely to be scrutinized in the coming days.

Should final test results confirm that the powder is ricin, it would be the third bioterrorism attack on Congress. In 2001, terrorists targeted two U.S. senators with deadly anthrax, a deadly biological agent. The anthrax-laden letters, addressed to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., shut down a Senate building for months, forced thousands of congressional aides and postal employees onto medication and killed at least two postal workers who likely handled the envelopes.

It is unclear how the powder came into the building.

____________

But the next day....

Senate Routine Returns After Ricin Scare
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3709508,00.html

Wednesday February 4, 2004 10:16 PM

By ALAN FRAM

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate rattled by a ricin attack began returning to normalcy Wednesday, and the lack of any reported illnesses prompted leaders to plan to reopen shuttered office buildings.

As lawmakers awaited the results of tests measuring the potency of the powdery poison, officials said none of the several dozen workers who were potentially exposed seemed ill. Senators voted - for the first time this week - on a judgeship nomination, and at least three Senate committees held hearings, though they borrowed rooms in House office buildings to do so.

``Everybody's doing great,'' Frist told reporters. ``We're outside the window where you'd expect to see symptoms at all, and it seems well contained.''

Bowing to growing complaints, Senate leaders were even letting senators and aides briefly re-enter their offices to remove needed documents and equipment. That included the very fourth-floor corridor in the Dirksen Senate office building where the deadly toxin was discovered Monday in the mailroom of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

``It's completely normal in there,'' said Laurie Schultz Heim, an aide to Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., who said she spent less than 10 minutes removing items from his offices, which are next to Frist's.

She said she had worn no protective clothes and noticed nothing unusual other than two machines in the hallway that seemed to be filtering air.

Among those expressing irritation was Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

He said he is ``livid'' about how ``one terrorist spreading rat poison can bring the government to half mast.''

(Carol's note: Arlen, is this another one of your coded messages? Are they using ricin to poison rats these days? Do you mean us Democrat "RATS"? Or is this a hoax. Arlen always tells us what he thinks, in code. Ask me about that magic bullet theory sometime, or his "Not Proven" vote on impeachment.)

Yet with the entire Capitol complex subject to continuous air sampling and all congressional mail being collected and examined, no one was willing to say the threat was over.

``You never know in the next hour what you will find,'' Frist said.

Although ricin inhaled or injected can kill quickly, the incident - so far - seemed to be causing less tension than the anthrax letters sent to Capitol Hill in October 2001. Lawmakers and aides said that was because being targeted by a biochemical substance is no longer novel for Congress, and because initial indications were t hat the ricin hadn't spread into the air.

``There isn't quite the same sense of anxiety,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., whose office was hit by the first anthrax attack.

The FBI and 100 Marines from the corps' Chemical Biological Incident Response Force were investigating.

Among other things, investigators were seeking a link Wednesday between the ricin in Frist's office and ricin-laden letters found last fall in mail facilities serving the White House and the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina.

So far, they said, they had found no such connection. They also said they had yet to find precisely how the ricin had made it to Frist's mailroom, said U.S. Capitol police chief Terrance Gainer.

``There's been no smoking letter information that helps tie this thing together,'' Gainer told reporters.

Frist announced that barring new problems, the Senate's two other office buildings, on either side of Dirksen, would reopen this week. The Russell building was to reopen Thursday and the Hart building on Friday.

Dirksen itself was to reopen Monday morning, Frist said.

"I believe my spiritual awakening started well before the price of oil went to $9 per bbl." - George W. Bush, putative leader of the free-ish world

Donald Ensenat is the guy with all the answers as to Bush's AWOL status and cocaine abuse.
http://www2.aya.yale.edu/classes/yc1968/members.htm
Ensenat, a New Orleans lawyer and fraternity brother of Mr. Bush's at Yale was appointed the administration's protocol chief.

"I don't remember any kind of heaviness ruining my time at Yale." -- George W. Bush

Donald Ensenat, a roommate of Bush's in Houston, told a reporter that in those days weighty matters were low on their list of priorities. "I think we were worried about who our dates were," he said.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/1999/jun/wild.1.php

http://www.dke.org/bushpost722.html

Bush joined the National Guard. He insisted later that he did it because it was the only place he could "fly jets," not because it was better than landing in Southeast Asia.

Then, two years later, no longer on active duty, he indulged in his version of the counterculture. Bush moved with a friend to a bachelor pad in Houston and lived through what he calls his "nomadic years." Nine to five he worked at an uninspiring job at an agricultural company, then spent his evenings at bars, daiquiri parties, volleyball games, always with dates but never with serious ones.

"Houston in 1971 was not the same as Berkeley," recalls his Houston roommate, Don Ensenat. "It's not like we were living in a commune and smoking dope all day long. But I guess we were living the '60s life in our own way, drifting through life, doing what we felt like doing, thinking only about where we were going to have our fun next. It was the '60s destructive attitude even if not exactly in the '60s style."

So Bush wound up infected by the decade after all, drifting in his own way until he was accepted at Harvard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072899.htm

George W. promptly took a one-bedroom apartment at one of the most attractive complexes in Houston at the time, the Chateaux Dijon. A popular spot for singles, it offered fancy street lamps and striped awnings and six pools filled with ambitious secretaries, students and young businessmen. Bush relished his bachelor life there. He played hard, plunging into all-day water volleyball games, but left frequently for 24-hour flight duty in the alert shack at Ellington Field.

"He did some night-flying as I recall," said Don Ensenat, a Yale classmate who lived with him in Houston.

(Carol's note: I'll BET.)

He had a couple of girls that were more than one date, but nothing that looked like a serious romance," Ensenat said. "Dates and the opposite sex were always high on the agenda. He was always enjoyable to be around. But we didn't do anything anybody else in their twenties didn't do."

Ensenat said he never saw Bush use illegal drugs.

That fall, as his father raced Bentsen for the Senate seat, both Bush and Ensenat, who had already entered law school at the University of Houston, applied for admission to the University of Texas law school. Both were rejected, though Ensenat later became a lawyer.

Nice photo here.

http://www.pologreatmeadow.com/index.cfm?action=players

Ambassador Ensenat was born and raised in New Orleans. He studied at Yale and Tulane Universities, and served in the U. S. Army Reserve. In addition to an active international and maritime law practice in New Orleans since 1974, he has served in the government six times. Recently, President George W. Bush, nominated, and the Senate confirmed him as Chief of Protocol of the United States, with rank of Ambassador, where he presently serves. Mr. Ensenat has also been active in his community and served as Chair of President George W. Bush's presidential election campaign in Louisiana. Ambassador Ensenat and his wife Taylor have two children, a daughter, Farish who is a graduate of Cornell University, and a son, Will, who is a high school senior. Ambassador and Mrs. Ensenat reside in New Orleans.

Mr. Ensenat probably doesn't live here anymore, but I certainly encourage you real reporters out there to check and see if Mr. Ensenat has any fond memories of the Blowmonkey during his "lost years".

Donald Ensenat
1233 Harmony St.
New Orleans, LA 70115
(504) 895-1644

Guess he already had years of experience in mopping up after the Dubster.

He's got his work cut out for him as Chief of Protocol. I wouldn't wish that job on my ex-boss Jackie, even.

Liberal Repercussion

vendredi, février 06, 2004

jeudi, février 05, 2004

mercredi, février 04, 2004

Qui suis-je

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