Bin Laden Comes Home To Roost

Given that context, a decision was made to provide America’s potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower. That decision is coming home to roost.
© 2001 Michael Moran

Commission Warned Bush
But White House passed on recommendations by a bipartisan, Defense department-ordered commission on domestic terrorism.
By Jake Tapper

WASHINGTON -- They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president "We told you so."

But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. "Frankly, the White House shut it down," Hart says. "The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day."

"We predicted it," Hart says of Tuesday's horrific events. "We said Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999."

On Tuesday, Hart says, as he sat watching TV coverage of the attacks, he experienced not just feelings of shock and horror, but also frustration. "I sat tearing my hair out," says the former two-term senator. "And still am."

Rudman generally agrees with Hart's assessment, but adds: "That's not to say that the administration was obstructing."

"They wanted to try something else, they wanted to put more responsibility with FEMA," Rudman says. "But they didn't get a chance to do very much" before terrorists struck on Tuesday.

The White House referred an inquiry to the National Security Council, which did not return a call for comment.

The bipartisan 14-member panel was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to make sweeping strategic recommendations on how the United States could ensure its security in the 21st century.

In its Jan. 31 report, seven Democrats and seven Republicans unanimously approved 50 recommendations. Many of them addressed the point that, in the words of the commission's executive summary, "the combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack."

"A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century," according to the report.

The commission recommended the formation of a Cabinet-level position to combat terrorism. The proposed National Homeland Security Agency director would have "responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security," according to the commission's executive summary.

Other commission recommendations include having the proposed National Homeland Security Agency assume responsibilities now held by other agencies -- border patrol from the Justice Department, Coast Guard from the Transportation Department, customs from the Treasury Department, the National Domestic Preparedness Office from the FBI, cyber-security from the FBI and the Commerce Department. Additionally, the NHSA would take over FEMA, and let the "National Security Advisor and NSC staff return to their traditional role of coordinating national security activities and resist the temptation to become policymakers or operators."

The commission was supposed to disband after issuing the report Jan. 31, but Hart and the other commission members got a six-month extension to lobby for their recommendations. Hart says he spent 90 minutes with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and an hour with Secretary of State Colin Powell lobbying for the White House to devote more attention to the imminent dangers of terrorism and their specific, detailed recommendations for a major change in the way the federal government approaches terrorism. He and Rudman briefed National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on the commission's findings.

For a time, the commission seemed to be on a roll.

On April 3, before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology, Hart sounded a call of alarm, saying that an "urgent" need existed for a new national security strategy, with an emphasis on intelligence gathering.

"Good intelligence is the key to preventing attacks on the homeland," Hart said, arguing that the commission "urges that homeland security become one of the intelligence community's most important missions." The nation needed to embrace "homeland security as a primary national security mission." The Defense Department, for instance, "has placed its highest priority on preparing for major theater war" where it "should pay far more attention to the homeland security mission." Homeland security would be the main purpose of beefed-up National Guard units throughout the country.

A new strategy, new organizations like the National Homeland Security Agency -- which would pointedly "not be heavily centered in the Washington, D.C. area" -- would be formed to fulfill this mission, as well with the fallout should that mission fail. As the U.S. is now, the Phase III report stated, "its structures and strategies are fragmented and inadequate." Diplomacy was to be refocused on intelligence sharing about terrorist groups. Allies were to have their military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies work more closely with ours. Border security was to be beefed up.

More resources needed to be devoted to the new mission. "The Customs Service, the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard are all on the verge of being overwhelmed by the mismatch between their growing duties and their mostly static resources," the report stated. Intelligence needed to focus not only on electronic surveillance but a renewed emphasis on human surveillance -- informants and spies -- "especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by states." As the threat was imminent, Congress and the president were urged to "start right away on implementing the recommendations put forth here."

Congress seemed interested in enacting many of the commission's recommendations. "We had a very good response from the Hill," Rudman says.

In March, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, introduced the National Homeland Security Agency Act. Other members of Congress -- Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., John Kyl, R-Ariz., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- talked about the issue, and these three and others began drafting legislation to enact some of the recommendations into law.

But in May, Bush announced his plan almost as if the Hart-Rudman Commission never existed, as if it hadn't spent millions of dollars, "consulting with experts, visiting 25 countries worldwide, really deliberating long and hard," as Hart describes it. Bush said in a statement that "numerous federal departments and agencies have programs to deal with the consequences of a potential use of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon in the United States. But to maximize their effectiveness, these efforts need to be seamlessly integrated, harmonious and comprehensive." That, according to the president, should be done through FEMA, headed by Allbaugh, formerly Bush's gubernatorial chief of staff.

Bush also directed Cheney -- a man with a full plate, including supervision of the administration's energy plans and its dealings with Congress -- to supervise the development of a national counter-terrorism plan. Bush announced that Cheney and Allbaugh would review the issues and have recommendations for him by Oct. 1. The commission's report was seemingly put on the shelf.

Just last Thursday, Hart spoke with Rice again. "I told her that I and the others on the commission would do whatever we could to work with the vice president to move on this," Hart said. "She said she would pass on the message."

On Tuesday, Hart says he spent much of his time on the phone with the commission's executive director, Gen. Charles G. Boyd. "We agreed the thing we should not do is say, 'We told you so,'" Hart says. "And that's not what I'm trying to do here. Our focus needs to be: What do we do now?"

Of course, as a former senator, Hart well knows what happens to the recommendations of blue-chip panels. But he says he thought that the gravity of the issue -- and the comprehensiveness of the commission's task -- would prevent its reports from being ignored. After all, when then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen signed the charter for the 21st Century National Security Strategy Study, he charged its members to engage in "the most comprehensive security analysis" since the groundbreaking National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of Secretary of Defense, among other organizations.

Neither Hart nor Rudman claim that their recommendations, if enacted, would have necessarily prevented Tuesday's tragedy. "Had they adopted every recommendation we had put forward at that time I don't think it would have changed what happened," Rudman says. "There wasn't enough time to enact everything. But certainly I would hope they pay more attention now."

"Could this have been prevented?" Hart asks. "The answer is, 'We'll never know.' Possibly not." It was a struggle to convince President Clinton of the need for such a commission, Hart says. He urged Clinton to address this problem in '94 and '95, but Clinton didn't act until 1998, prompted by politics. "He saw Gingrich was about to do it, so he moved to collaborate," Hart says. "Seven years had gone by since the end of the Cold War. It could have been much sooner."

Rudman said that he "would not be critical of them [the Bush administration] this early because the bottom line is, a lot has to be done." The commission handed down its recommendations just eight and a half months ago, he said, and they'll take years to fully enact.

"On the other hand," Rudman said, "if two years go by and the same thing happens again, shame on everybody.

"I'm not pointing fingers," Rudman said. "I just want to see some results." He may get his wish. On Wednesday, Thornberry renewed his call for a National Homeland Security Agency. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the assistant majority leader, called for the formation of a federal counter-terrorism czar.

Three days ago, if asked to predict what the first major foreign terrorist attack on America soil would involve, Hart says he would have guessed small nuclear warheads simultaneously unleashed on three American cities. But, he says, "there wasn't doubt in anyone's mind on that commission" that something horrific would happen "probably sooner rather than later. We just didn't know how."

In addition to the Bush administration, Hart has another group that he wishes had paid the commission's suggestions more heed. "The national media didn't pay attention," Hart says. One senior reporter from a well-known publication told one of Hart's fellow commissioners, "This isn't important, none of this is ever going to happen," Hart says. "That's a direct quote."

Hart points out that while the New York Times mentioned the commission in a Wednesday story with the sub-headline "Years of Unheeded Alarms," that story was the first serious mention the Times itself had ever given the commission. The Times did not cover the commission's report in January, nor did it cover Hart's testimony in April, he points out. "We're in an age where we don't want to deal with serious issues, we want to deal with little boys pitching baseballs who might be 14 instead of 12."

Hart says he just shook his head when he saw a former Clinton administration Cabinet official on TV Tuesday calling for the formation of a commission to study the best way to combat terrorism. "If a former Cabinet officer didn't know, how could the average man on the street? I do hope the American people understand that somebody was paying attention."

In his April 3 testimony, Hart noted that "the prospect of mass casualty terrorism on American soil is growing sharply. That is because the will to terrorism and the ways to perpetrate it are proliferating and merging. We believe that, over the next quarter century, this danger will be one of the most difficult national security challenges facing the United States -- and the one we are least prepared to address." He urgently described the need for better human intelligence and not just electronic intelligence, "especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by states."

He's far from happy to have been proven correct. Both Hart and Rudman say with grim confidence that Tuesday's attacks are just the beginning. Maybe now, Rudman says, Congress, the White House, the media and the American people will realize how serious they were about their January report.

"Human nature is prevalent in government as well," Rudman says. "We tend not to do what we ought to do until we get hit between the eyes."
© 2001 Jake Tapper

What about oil supplies? The great fear is that any US retaliation will lead to instability in the Middle East and endanger energy supplies. If this happens, then all bets are off. For the time being, the Opec oil cartel says oil is flowing and it is business as usual.
© 2001 Mark Tran

No Vast Missile Shield Could Have Prevented This

In this tragic moment, Mr. Bush too can seize an opportunity to correct his administration’s course. All Americans should wish him the wisdom to do so.
© 2001 Joe Conason email Joe at: jconason@observer.com.

Quotable Quote

"The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
The Constitution of the United States

Leaders In The Breach

Bush said the attack was a "test" for the country. It was also one for him. He flunked. But he says he believes in education and he has three years to take a makeup exam in leadership.
© 2001 Mary McGrory
editors note. Regular readers know I have never had anything nice to say about the mayor but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due or giving the Devil his due! .

Karen Hughes perhaps?
© 2001 The Daily Brew

More Than 12 Hijackers Identified
By Karen Gullo

Federal agents fan out in search of conspirators in the hijackings and deadly terrorist attacks in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and New York.

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities have identified more than a dozen hijackers of Middle Eastern descent in Tuesday's terrorist attacks and gathered evidence linking them to Osama bin Laden and other terror networks, officials said Wednesday.

The investigation stretched from the Canadian border, where officials suspect that some hijackers entered the country, to Florida, where some are believed to have learned how to fly commercial jets. Sites in Massachusetts and Florida were searched for evidence.

"The four planes were hijacked by between three and six individuals per plane, using knives and box-cutters, and in some cases making bomb threats," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. "A number of the suspected hijackers were trained as pilots in the United States."

At least one hijacker on each of the four planes was trained at a U.S. flight school, Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said. The flight schools were in Florida and at least one other state.

The pilot-training information would go a long way toward explaining how the hijackers not only took over the aircraft but successfully guided three of them to oblivion at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The fourth jet crashed southeast of Pittsburgh.

The names of two suspects emerged in Florida. There, the FBI interviewed a family that gave them temporary shelter a year ago.

The officials said that multiple terrorist cells participated in the attacks and that hijackers may have had ties to countries that included Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

"This could have been the result of several terrorist kingpins working together. We're investigating that possibility," one law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity.

More than a dozen of the men who hijacked four planes with knives and bomb threats have been identified, the officials said. Several hijackers had pilots' licenses, they said.

Authorities detained at least a half-dozen people in Massachusetts and Florida on unrelated local warrants and immigration charges and were questioning them about possible ties to the hijackers. No charges related to the attacks had been filed.

Federal agents also want to talk to the former leader of Arlington's largest mosque.

Danny A. Defenbaugh, special agent in charge of Dallas FBI office, said that Moataz al-Hallak might have information that would help the investigation, but he would not elaborate.

Al-Hallak testified before a grand jury in the case against Arlington resident Wadih el Hage and three others who were convicted in May of conspiring with bin Laden in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Al-Hallak received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against el Hage, once a close associate. Al-Hallak was once the imam at the Islamic Society of Arlington, but his contract was not renewed in January 2000 because of a split in the congregation.

Search warrants were executed Wednesday in Florida, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Sealed warrants went out in several other states, officials said.

"We're attempting to re-create the travels of each of the hijackers on the planes - either the hijackers themselves or their associates," FBI Director Robert Mueller said.

For some of the people suspected of being accomplices, "we have information as to involvement with individual terrorist groups," Mueller said. He declined to say which groups or whether they were connected to bin Laden.

Officials said authorities were gathering evidence that the terrorist cells may have been involved in earlier plots against the United States and may have been involved with bin Laden. The previous plots include the USS Cole bombing in Yemen and the foiled attack on U.S. soil during New Years 2000 celebrations.

In South Florida, investigators focused on Mohamed Atta, 33, who was on the passenger list of one of the two flights that took off from Boston's Logan International Airport and slammed into the World Trade Center. Records show that he once had a driver's license in Egypt.

The FBI in Miami is also looking for two cars. Florida Division of Motor Vehicle records show that one of them, a 1989 red Pontiac, was registered to Atta.

From July to November 2000, Atta and another man trained at Huffman Aviation, a pilot school that operates out of the airport in Venice, on Florida's west coast.

Charlie Voss, a former Huffman employee, said the men told him they had just arrived from Germany and wanted to take flight training at the school.

A Venice couple told FBI agents Wednesday morning that they leased a bedroom in their home to Atta and a second man, Marwan Alshehhi, for about a week in July 2000.

Investigators got passport information on the two men from Huffman's records.

FBI agents and local police officers searched the Coral Springs, Fla., apartment that Atta had been renting but apparently found little.

State-owned television in Abu Dhabi reported Wednesday that two suspects connected to Boston's Logan airport hijacking were Wa'el Mohammad al-Shihri and Ahmad Ibrahim Ali al-Hazzouni. The network said the pair carried Saudi passports with UAE-issued international driver's licenses.

Officials said some hijackers may have crossed the border from Canada en route to Boston. Authorities in Maine and Nova Scotia searched vehicles for ties to the suspects. A third car was searched at the airport in Boston, where one flight was hijacked, and an Arabic-language flight manual was discovered, officials said.

Law enforcement officials said the FBI searched two hotel rooms Wednesday in the Boston area that the hijackers were believed to have used. The officials found information linked to a name on the manifest of one of the hijacked flights. They declined to identify the man.

Agents also served search warrants on major Internet service providers to get information about an e-mail address that may be connected to the attacks.
© 2001 Karen Gullo

Bin Laden 'Under House Arrest'
The Guardian

Terror suspect Osama bin Laden has been placed under house arrest by Afghanistan's Taliban regime, it was claimed today.

A spokesman for the Taliban embassy in Pakistan confirmed earlier reports today in Pakistani newspapers that Bin Laden is under house arrest, according to United Press International.

However, previous reports today carried quotes from "Taliban sources" claiming America's most wanted fugitive, who many believe masterminded the US terror attacks, was not under arrest.

The reports in the Pakistani newspapers said he was under house arrest in Kandahar in the south west of Afghanistan. A Taliban spokesman from the Afghan embassy in Pakistan said: "We have placed him under control after the attacks," according to the United Press International news agency.

Afghanistan is under huge pressure from the US to hand over Bin Laden, who they have been sheltering since 1996, when he fled Sudan after US cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan. Observers believe the US may be planning a massive strike on Afghanistan and the US president, George Bush, has already said he draws no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbour them.

American investigators have yet to officially name Bin Laden as the prime suspect but sources close to the hunt for the hijackers' accomplices and backers have described his involvement as "all but 100% certain".

The extremist Taliban regime, which is not recognised by any Western countries and has only three embassies, had earlier said it had "severed" communications between Bin Laden and the outside world.

The claim that Bin Laden is under house arrest came as Pakistan, one of the three countries to have diplomatic relations with the Taliban, prepared to send senior military officials to Kandahar for talks with the regime's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar.

The president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, has promised the US "unstinted co-operation in the fight against terrorism," following the attacks in New York and Washington.

It has been speculated that Pakistan officials will tell Mr Omar that he should expel Bin Laden from Afghanistan, a move which would make his arrest or killing by America much easier.

Pakistan's senior diplomats in Kabul, the Afghan capital, have already delivered that message to leaders there but were told that only Mr Omar was able to make such a decision, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Pakistan had officially described the talks in Kabul as "inconclusive" but the Los Angeles Times reported that diplomatic observers were sceptical about the Taliban's motives. It is thought they may be acting to avoid criticism and possible reprisals for harbouring Bin Laden.

Last month there were reports that Bin Laden had been named the supreme commander of its military forces by the regime.

Diplomatic sources told the Los Angeles Times that only a complete and unconditional surrender of Bin Laden and his aides would satisfy the US, where he is already wanted for his alleged part in bombing American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

However, the FBI's most-wanted suspect has reportedly denied his involvement in the attacks, despite also reportedly praising the people who carried out the hijackings.

The chairman of the Afghan Defence Council, Mullah Sami Al Haq, claims the Saudi millionaire would not kill innocent people. Mr Al Haq also claims Bin Laden's arms have been taken by the Taliban, who are thought to be hiding him.

Al Haq told the BBC: "He is a real Muslim and I don't think, therefore, that he could kill innocent people because it is un-Islamic. "It's no secret that he doesn't like America, because America has made him a target. But he could never do something like this.

"His weapons have been taken by the Taliban and he doesn't want to make things worse for them by doing something like this and he doesn't want to give his hosts any more trouble."

Tension was also mounting in Afghanistan after the United Nations pulled out every one of its aid workers, taking with them computer equipment and key documents and paying off local staff.

The move is unprecedented, as at other times when the UN has pulled back from the war-torn country it has left behind computer equipment and continued to pay local staff.

The FBI has had Bin Laden at the top of its 10 most-wanted list since the 1996 bombings in Africa and some of his followers have been successfully prosecuted.

One was due to be sentenced on yesterday in Manhattan for his part in the attack on the American embassy in Tanzania, in a court less than half a mile from the World Trade Centre.
© 2001 The Guardian

2 Spy Projects May Now Get Go-ahead

As the United States wrestles with how to combat terrorism, two controversial and secrecy-shrouded electronic eavesdropping projects are certain to move to the forefront in the government's efforts to prevent new attacks and find those responsible for Tuesday's events.

Civil libertarians and privacy groups have opposed both projects, but intelligence experts expect a vengeance-minded Congress to authorize expansions of the FBI's Carnivore Internet-surveillance system and the National Security Agency's global Project Echelon.

But will we know about it?

The secret technological capabilities of the two projects have only been described in general terms and both are so sensitive that the congressional subcommittees overseeing them do so behind closed doors.

The FBI and NSA are tight-lipped on just how they have used electronic surveillance systems in the wake of the attacks or why they suspect Osama bin Laden.

But U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who was briefed by U.S. intelligence officials Tuesday night, may have provided a clue.

"They have an intercept of some information that included people associated with bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit," Hatch said. Similar telephone calls intercepted by intelligence agents have linked bin Laden supporters to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

However useful electronic eavesdropping technology may have proven after past terrorist attacks, it didn't help prevent Tuesday's massacres. That's why many expect to see new calls for expanded use of electronic surveillance and interception both globally and at home.

"In areas of the world where the government doesn't have human operatives to gather intelligence, electronic intercepts are often the next best option," said Jeffrey Richelson, a researcher with the National Security Archives in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit group that analyzes declassified national security documents. "The technology is quite sophisticated."

David Hunt, a retired Army colonel and president of D.A.R., Inc., a consulting firm specializing in antiterrorism initiatives, is worried about a knee-jerk reaction.

"Do you want them on your cell phone and in your computer? That's what we face if we let emotion rule the day," Hunt said in a telephone interview. "The CIA, the NSA, the FBI and all the military intelligence services have unbelievable capabilities. They're already listening to the world. Believe me, they're listening to every whisper on every device. But they're prohibited from doing that domestically and if anyone suggests they now should be able to, it is not a good idea at all."

One of the first projects Congress can be expected to examine is Echelon, run by the United States but also made up of intelligence agents from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Echelon is to be the target of a protest scheduled Oct. 21 by privacy advocates. It is believed to use a series of high-tech intercept sites all around the world to monitor huge amounts of satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic communications traffic.

The FBI's Carnivore technology, renamed because of adverse publicity to a less aggressive-sounding DCS1000, is contained in a secret black box installed on an Internet Service Provider's mail server to intercept e-mail of people targeted for criminal investigations.

Just as law enforcement needs a court order to wiretap a phone, the FBI needs legal permission to install the device.

Although Echelon remains cloaked in secrecy, a committee of the European Parliament issued a lengthy report on the project July 11. After noting that "it is only natural that secret services do not disclose details of their work," the committee concluded that Echelon exists and is capable of intercepting virtually any telephone, fax, Internet or e-mail message sent by any person anywhere in the world.

It is illegal, under U.S. law, for the NSA to spy on residents of the U.S. "Laws can be changed," Richelson said.

Echelon is believed to use powerful computers to scan the communications it routinely intercepts, looking for key words that terrorists are believed to use frequently.

Privacy advocates have compiled a long list of such words and are urging Net activists to "jam Echelon" on Oct. 21 by sending e-mails containing as many of those words as possible.

Also worrying about electronic eavesdropping is the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The same technological advances that have brought enormous benefits to humankind also make us more vulnerable than ever before to unwarranted government snooping," said the ACLU's asasistant director, Barry Steinhardt, in April, announcing an ACLU campaign against Echelon and Carnivore.© 2001 Mike Wendland

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." ... Edmund Burke

LAUGH OF THE CENTURY .....

http://www.orgop.org/OR2001-WesternLdrshpRegist.pdf

The Republican Leadership Conference has scheduled Katherine Harris, secretary of State, FL as a guest speaker on Friday October 5th.

The "subjest" is VOTER FRAUD!! There is a registration form at the link above if anyone wants to attend & I assume, learn how to commit voter fraud! Did you Florida voters know that there is a special provision in the new Florida "Reform" to allow military to vote by FAX and WITHOUT BEING REGISTERED TO VOTE?!!

FOR FLORIDA VOTERS WHO ARE TIRED OF PAYING FOR KATHERINE HARRIS'S LUXURY TRIPS.....this is the info given on the hotel. There are 160 luxury guest rooms at The Resort at the Mountain. Several other lodging places are mentioned but:

Do you have any doubts as to where Katherine Harris will be staying? I would think that this is the time to write to the unhonorable Sec. of State and tell her to pay her own damn bills. She was born with more money than God and we should not have to pay for the flozzie to take luxury trips with Jebbie, Dubya, etc.

Something's rotten in Florida? Are we going to just sit idly by and do nothing?

Maggie
Pensacola, FL - My vote did not count
© 2001 G.A.G.

New Protests From Voter March

August 22, Wed., Voter March NY General Meeting

Voter March New York will have a general meeting at Chris Acosta's loft in Union Square at 239 Park Avenue South, Loft # 3C, (betw 19th and 20th Streets) on Wednesday, August 22nd from 7 pm to 9 pm. Key on the agenda are the upcoming actions: Scalia Protest at Hofstra law School on Sunday, September 9th and the Bush Protest at the United Nations on Monday, September 24th. There is no admission fee, but feel free to bring snacks or non-alcoholic beverages. Please RSVP to outreach@votermarch.org

September 9, Hempstead, Long Island, NY, Scalia Protest

A protest is planned at the Hofstra University School of Law on Sunday, September 9, where Antonin Scalia, one of the 5 Supreme Court Justices who stopped the hand counting of votes in Bush v. Gore, will give a keynote address at the Legal Ethics 2002 Conference. Scalia is scheduled to be a speaker from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm and at 6:00 pm there will be a banquet in honor of Justice Antonin Scalia. The banquet will be at Carlton on the Park at Eisenhower Park, near Hofstra University School of Law. Hofstra University is located in Hempstead, Long island, about 25 miles east of Manhattan, less than an hour away by train or automobile.

September 24, Monday, United Nations, New York City
Protest Bush at U.N. General Assembly

To protest Bush at his appearance and speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations. We will gather before noon at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Park at 47th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan. Voter March has a permit pending and is inviting all pro-democracy groups to join in with this protest action. We will have a stage and sound system. For additional information, contact info@votermarch.org

For updates and additional information on all these events, see Voters March

SUPPORT THE OREGON DEMOCRATS' PROPOSAL TO IMPEACH THE FELONIOUS FIVE!

Here's what you can do to help:

1. Write your members of Congress and urge them to support the Democratic Party of Oregon's resolution.

2. Contact your local and/or state Democratic Party office urging them to also support the resolution.

3. Contribute to the Democratic Party of Oregon. We plan to continue to promote this resolution and your contribution, no matter how small, will help us in this fight for democracy. Click on Democratic Party of Oregon to send your support today!

Supreme Injustice
by STEVE COBBLE

Lest we forget--just over six months ago, the Rehnquist Court stole an election in broad daylight. In fear of the truth, the Scalia Five intervened to block all votes from being counted, an action "unprecedented" (both historically and judicially) in US history. Though the June 12 "anniversary" went unnoticed by the media, we must never forget.

Was it the worst Supreme Court decision in US history, as American University Constitutional scholar Jamin Raskin has suggested? Considering that Raskin is a staunch civil rights advocate, the very thought that he would rank Bush v. Gore lower than both the Dred Scott and Plessy rulings is instructive. Nor does Raskin stand alone in his opinion of this judicial coup.

Justice John Paul Stevens: "One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. I respectfully dissent."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States. I dissent." And related is the unsigned per curiam decision of the Scalia 5, a transparent attempt to try to avoid history's scarlet letter.

Hendrik Hertzberg, former presidential speechwriter: "The election of 2000 was not stolen. It was expropriated."

David Kairys, Temple University: "We had a constitutional crisis, and it was Bush v. Gore. History will not be kind."

Suzanna Sherry, Vanderbilt University: "There is really very little way to reconcile this opinion other than that they wanted Bush to win."

Jeffrey Rosen, legal scholar: "They have...made it impossible for citizens of the United States to sustain any kind of faith in the rule of law as something larger than the self-interested political preferences of William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Sandra Day O'Connor."

Randall Kennedy, Harvard University: "But we should also insist that there be no confirmation for Scalia-like champions of the right-wing agenda. The Supreme Court has hurt its own reputation by wrongly intervening to ensure the victory of George W. Bush. Those who abhor what the Court did should say so and say so loudly and clearly."

Jesse Jackson and John Sweeney: "But if it comes down for justices to the 14th amendment and the promise of equal protection, one can only hope for the sake of the country that they consider how not counting all the votes mirrors too closely the habits of heart and mind that brought us slavery and segregation--the original sins of our nation that the equal protection clause sought to repair."

And, of course, Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of several bestselling true-crime books, in The Betrayal of America: ". . . the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law.... [The Court searched] mightily for a way, any way at all, to aid their choice for president, Bush, in the suppression of the truth, finally settling, in their judicial coup d'État, on the untenable argument that there was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause..."

Recent polls indicate the public's growing dissatisfaction with the results of the Scalia Five's decision. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center and Princeton Survey Research Associates (June 13-17) showed George W. Bush's job approval rating at just 50 percent, down six points from March; the New York Times survey with CBS News (June 14-18) put the rating at 53 percent, down seven points from March. And Democracy Corps's Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll (June 11-13) found that 48 percent of likely voters think the nation is currently on the "wrong track." Perhaps most tellingly, 25 percent of voters in the Democracy Corps poll said that the phrase "not really elected President" describes Bush "very well," with another 15 percent saying that it describes him "well"--in other words, six months after the Scalia Five coup, 40 percent of likely voters still believe Bush was not really elected President.

What then, is to be done?

The least we can do is know our own history, and to understand that what the Injustices did was an insult to the dreams and ideals of Lexington and Concord, Valley Forge and Jefferson and Paine, Gettsyburg and Lincoln and Douglass, Selma and King, Seneca Falls and Anthony, Delano and Chavez, Flint and Debs and Lewis. We can bear witness to injustice, in the nonviolent protest tradition of Thoreau, Gandhi, King, Havel, Robinson, Chavez.

The Scalia Five's judicial coup came down on the second Tuesday last December. So, on the second Tuesday of July, July 10, 2001, the Tuesday after the Pro-Democracy Convention in Philadelphia, the Tuesday between Independence Day and Bastille Day, the Institute for Policy Studies and friends are calling for a peaceful, nonviolent vigil at the Supreme Court building, at noon.

On July 10--and each Tuesday at noon from then on--let's gather at the scene of the crime, and bear witness to the truth. The Scalia Five won't be there; but we should be.

Bring a candle or a bell, like the Czechs a decade ago. Bring a copy of the Voters' Bill of Rights, or the US Constitution. Send an e-mail to all your friends, with your favorite quote from this list. Bring Pablo Neruda's and Marge Piercy's poems. Bring the next generation, so they will never forget. Bring your commitment to restore, rebuild, and expand American democracy. The Supreme Court cheated. Democracy lost. For now.
©2001 STEVE COBBLE

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TO OUR REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS

We, the undersigned voters, know that our cherished democracy is endangered from within by the grave and potentially fatal flaws in our voting systems exposed by the Presidential Election of 2000.

As our elected representatives, you have the duty, the opportunity, and the privilege to correct these flaws and to restore fair and honest elections throughout our nation. To this end, we charge you to construct and pass a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS, which shall include:

Strict enforcement and extension of the Voting Rights Act to prevent the disenfranchisement of voters and require full investigation and criminal prosecution of any offenders;

Standardized, easily understandable federal election ballots

Funding to replace old and unreliable voting machines to ensure that every vote is counted fairly and accurately

Genuine campaign finance reform that bans campaign contributions from special interests

Replacement of the Electoral College with a majority-rule election, or substantial reform of the Electoral College to allow for proportional representation

Measures to increase voter participation by eliminating bureaucratic hurdles to voter registration and turnout, including language barriers, physical barriers, archaic equipment, and lack of resources

Enactment and enforcement of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS will restore trust in our government and encourage participation in our democratic processes. The linchpin of a democracy is the process by which we select our representatives and leaders. The right to vote is our defining right as citizens of this nation. We call upon our elected representatives to protect our Constitution from abusive exercise of government power by enacting a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.

We pledge our full and constant support for enactment of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.

A Note of Protest:

It is likely that 50% of the U.S. population is strongly dissatisfied with the ascendancy of George W. Bush to the office of President. There are three likely reasons:
1. Bush won the election under questionable circumstances;
2. Bush has espoused a reactionary platform that places him far to the right of mainstream America;
3. Bush has demonstrated none of the intellectual attributes expected of a president.

In the interest of democracy, one could discredit election gripes (point number one) as being unfair to our longstanding electoral college process.. Also, one might disregard Bush’s agenda (point number two) because the hallmark of the United States Constitution is tolerance for divergent political and moral beliefs.

However, point number three leads to a more egregious problem, namely that a rather anonymous man, with no distinguishing ambition or vision has, by virtue of family wealth and connection, been installed as President of the United States. Even the most cursory glance at George W. Bush’s history and character builds a strong case for charges of nepotism and cronyism. Such a glaring display of favoritism, to benefit an individual with no considerable talent, runs counter to the spirit of competition and fair play that has driven the engine of American capitalism for more than two hundred years.

There is a way to tangibly and immediately raise a voice in protest of George W. Bush as President. For the remainder of his term, conscientious Americans should simply write "George W. Bush is an Idiot" on all U.S. currency that passes through their hands.

This protest has already begun. The first bills were marked and spent in San Francisco as of January 26, 2001. What is important, though, is to not only begin marking all currency (and to continue the effort throughout the Bush presidency), but to forward this memo as much as possible so as to replicate the message throughout our money supply.

In an effort to mark money more industriously, many of us have ordered a BUSH IS A FRAUD rubber stamp; these self-inking rubber stamps are useful for marking the "Fraud" message in red ink.

Make your voice heard,
Steven Capozzola
San Francisco, California