From Ilene Proctor:

From: David Donnelly, Public Campaign Action Fund
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 10:53 AM
To: Ilene Proctor
Subject: House Ethics: Stranger than Fiction

Dear Ilene,

In this Congress, the truth about ethics is stranger than fiction. And often, more elusive.

A congressman took a trip paid for by a corporation that he helped get a government contract, but he didn’t to disclose it – an apparent violation of House rules. And, what’s worse, the corporation’s employees were the congressman’s top contributor in the 2004 election.

Does that sound like reason enough to have the House Ethics Committee investigate him?

But what if that member of Congress was Doc Hastings of Washington state, the chairman of the Ethics Committee?

This is the man that is, so far, refusing to appoint an outside counsel to investigate Tom DeLay.

Enough is enough. Doc Hastings should step down from his Ethics Committee chairmanship and support the appointment of an outside counsel to investigate the House lobbying scandals.

Call him today at (202) 225-5816.

Hastings is standing in the way of an independent investigation into DeLay, who has given him $5,930 in Political Action Committee contributions, and trying to appoint his chief of staff from his congressional office to head the nonpartisan Ethics Committee staff, contrary to Committee rules.

Now we find out he’s failed to disclose trips paid for by a corporation to which he’s steered lucrative government contracts and from whose employees he’s received $10,200 for his 2004 election.

He should resign as chair immediately and support the appointment of an outside counsel. No ifs, ads, or buts. Call Hastings’s office today at (202) 225-5816.

After you’ve called, give us a sense of how the call went at the Daily DeLay.

Thanks,

David Donnelly
Public Campaign Action Fund

Senate Gives Feds Power to Approve LNG Terminal Sites
By Richard Simon and Miguel Bustillo
Times Staff Writers
7:16 PM PDT, June 22, 2005

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted on Wednesday to give federal regulators authority over the location of liquefied natural gas terminals, despite objections from governors that states should be have an equal say in deciding where such projects are built.

Republican and Democratic officials from city halls to Capitol Hill have expressed concern that the terminals could become targets of terrorist attacks or pose other safety risks, and they have sought a role in siting them.

Read more.

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Is Cheney Alright?

I just landed at Vail airport, right next to the Vice President’s Gulfstream jet (actually, there were two Vice Presidential planes, not one… how much of an entourage does one VP need?). He’s here to speak at the World Forum at Beaver Creek, sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, and held, of course, behind closed doors. The guy sent to pick me up by the Vail Valley Institute (where I’m speaking) told me that he had seen the VP’s motorcade speed towards the local hospital. Being an intrepid HuffPost reporter, I asked him to take me straight there. Upon our arrival, we encountered a high level of security — and a lot of zipped lips: “We cannot tell you anything,” “No comment,” “That information is not available…” But one hospital staffer, obviously not schooled in the secretive ways of Cheney, let it slip: “He’s no longer here”. And since you cannot “no longer” be someplace you’ve never been, we can deduce — though not confirm — that Cheney did, in fact, pay a visit to the local hospital. The reason? Over to you AP…

….and soon that’s all we’ll see, on PBS at any rate.

June 23, 2005
Public Broadcasting Names New President
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:48 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, already embroiled in controversy over allegations of a liberal-leaning bias in PBS programming, chose a former Republican Party co-chairman Thursday as its president and chief executive.

Patricia S. Harrison, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, was selected following three days of closed-door meetings by the corporation’s board of directors.

Democratic lawmakers last week urged the CPB to put off choosing a new president, citing concerns about political interference by the corporation’s chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. A Republican, Tomlinson, has been critical of public affairs programming at PBS, alleging that it’s too liberal.

In a statement, PBS said it looked forward to working with Harrison. It added: ”We have every expectation that she will execute her responsibilities with nonpartisan integrity.”

Read more.

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 23, 2005; 10:50 AM

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments
may seize people’s homes and businesses against their will for
private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities
where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights.

Read more.

From R. Miller:

RAW STORY REPORTS: Conyers doesn’t take Milbank’s hit piece lying down!

Write to the Post and help Conyers kick Tory ass! Milbank is a SKULL & BONES brother of Bushie.

Below:
================
LINK
Conyers letter
sample letter to Wash Post and their contact info
==================

The following letter was carbon-copied to RAW STORY.

June 17, 2005
Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor; Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman; Mr. Dana Milbank;
The Washington Post,
1150 15th Street, NW,
Washington, D.C. 20071

Dear Sirs:

I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank’s June 17 report, “Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War,” which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post’s only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.

In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that “only one” member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline “Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight”. Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.

The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats “pretended” a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing.

In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.

That said, to give such emphasis to 100 seconds of a 3 hour and five minute hearing that included the powerful and sad testimony (hardly mentioned by Milbank) of a woman who lost her son in the Iraq war and now feels lied to as a result of the Downing Street Minutes, is incredibly misleading. Many, many different pamphlets were being passed out at the overflow room, including pamphlets about getting out of the Iraq war and anti-Central American Free Trade Agreement, and it is puzzling why Milbank saw fit to only mention the one he did.

In a typically derisive and uninformed passage, Milbank makes much of other lawmakers calling me “Mr. Chairman” and says I liked it so much that I used “chairmanly phrases.” Milbank may not know that I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee from 1988 to 1994. By protocol and tradition in the House, once you have been a Chairman you are always referred to as such. Thus, there was nothing unusual about my being referred to as Mr. Chairman.

To administer his coup-de-grace, Milbank literally makes up another cheap shot that I “was having so much fun that [I] ignored aides’ entreaties to end the session.” This did not occur. None of my aides offered entreaties to end the session and I have no idea where Milbank gets that information. The hearing certainly ran longer than expected, but that was because so many Members of Congress persevered under very difficult circumstances to attend, and I thought – given that – the least I could do was allow them to say their piece. That is called courtesy, not “fun.”

By the way, the “Downing Street Memo” is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials – having just met with their American counterparts – describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank’s article.

The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn’t make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter-whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

To reach Milbank and the Post:

milbankd@washpost.com

webnews@washingtonpost.com

Main Phone: 703-469-2500

From Eileen Sutton:

MSNBC Poll

Do you believe President Bush misled the nation in order to go to war with Iraq?
Yes 94%
No 6%

…so far roughly 35,000 votes on this site

GO VOTE AND PASS IT ON!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8248969

Gov. Bush Says Prosecutor Will Investigate Accusation Of Delayed 911 Call For Schaivo
Jun 17, 2005, 1:55 PM

(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that a prosecutor has agreed to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, citing an alleged time gap between when her husband found her and when he called 911.

Bush said his request for the probe was not meant to suggest wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo.

“It’s a significant question that during this ordeal was never brought up,” Bush told reporters.

Michael Schiavo’s attorney has said his client called for help right away.

Read more.

Here are the 19 senators who refused to co-sponsor the anti-lynching resolution
passed on Monday. (Story follows.)

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Christopher Bond (R-MO)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Conrad Burns (R-MT)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Michael Crapo (R-ID)
Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Trent Lott (R-MS)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
John Sununu (R-NH)
Craig Thomas (R-WY)
George Voinovich (R-OH)

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Senate Apologizes for Lynching-Ban Delays
By JIM ABRAMS,
Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 13, 7:14 PM ET

The Senate on Monday acknowledged its own failure to stand against the lynching of thousands of black people, a practice that continued well into the 20th century.

“It’s important that we are honest with ourselves and that we tell the truth about what happened,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (news, bio, voting record), D-La., said before the Senate by voice vote approved an apology for blocking anti-lynching legislation at a time when mob violence against blacks was commonplace. At least 80 senators signed on as co-sponsors.

Read more.

On misreporting the recruitment crisis:

From Jonathan Whiten:

A Problem of How to Best Wage War
Sloppy Reporting on Recruitment Resistance

As the War in Iraq drags on and more and more lives are lost, another ‘problem’ with the military has caught the eye of the press – lack of recruitment. But the majority of mainstream news reports are dismissing the failure of military recruitment, often pinning it on parental fears. Yet if the press could begin to connect the dots, we would be hearing about how the recruiting ‘problems’ are related to a growing antiwar sentiment in America.

Read more.