Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday November 2 2006 - (813)

Thursday November 2 2006 edition
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Scandals Could Cost Republicans Their House Majority 2006-11-02 00:50:51 Indictments, investigations and allegations of wrongdoing have helped put at least 15 Republican House seats in jeopardy, enough to swing control to the Democrats on Tuesday even before the larger issues of war, economic unease and President Bush are invoked. With just five days left before Election Day, allegations are springing up like brushfires. Four GOP House seats have been tarred by lobbyist Jack Abramoff's influence-peddling scandal. Five have been adversely affected by then-Rep. Mark Foley's unseemly contacts with teenage male House pages. The remaining half a dozen or so could turn on controversies including offshore tax dodging, sexual misconduct and shady land deals. Not since the House bank check-kiting scandal of the early 1990s have so many seats been affected by scandals, and not since the Abscam bribery cases of the 1970s have the charges been so serious. But this year's combination of breadth and severity may be unprecedented, suggested Julian E. Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston University. Read The Full Story Commentary: Bush Owes Troops An Apology, Not Kerry 2006-11-02 00:49:47 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Keith Olbermann, anchor of MSNBC's "Countdown" program. In it, Mr. Olbermann argues forcefully that it is President Bush, and not John Kerry, who should apologize to the men and women serving in the U.S. military. Mr. Olbermann's commentary begins here: On the 22nd of May, 1856, as the deteriorating American political system veered toward the edge of the cliff, U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina shuffled into the Senate of this nation, his leg stiff from an old dueling injury, supported by a cane. And he looked for the familiar figure of the prominent senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner. Brooks found Sumner at his desk, mailing out copies of a speech he had delivered three days earlier - a speech against slavery. The congressman matter-of-factly raised his walking stick in midair and smashed its metal point across the senator’s head. Congressman Brooks hit his victim repeatedly. Sen. Sumner somehow got to his feet and tried to flee. Brooks chased him and delivered untold blows to Sumner’s head. Even though Sumner lay unconscious and bleeding on the Senate floor, Brooks finally stopped beating him only because his cane finally broke. Read The Full Story Bush Works To Solidify Base With Defense Of Rumsfeld 2006-11-02 00:48:24 With less than a week before the election, President Bush sought to rally Republican voters on Wednesday with a vigorous defense of the war in Iraq and a vow to keep Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsefeld in office until the end of Bush’s term. Bush appeared on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, whose audience is a reservoir of conservative voters, to criticize Democrats as lacking a plan for victory in Iraq. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also spent another day going after Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee two years ago, for remarks that Republicans claim insulted the intelligence of American troops in Iraq. Read The Full Story Homeland Security Contracts For Vast New Detention Camps 2006-11-01 15:04:52 Intellpuke: The following news analysis was written by Peter Dale Scott of New America Media and posted on the Pacific News Service's website. In it, the author writes that a little-known $385 million contract for Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build detention facilities for "an emergency influx of immigrants" is another step down the Bush administration's road toward martial law. Mr. Scott is the author of "Drugs, Oil and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina". He is completing a book on "The Road to 9/11". His news analysis follows: A Halliburton subsidiary has just received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to provide "temporary detention and processing capabilities." The contract - announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR - calls for preparing for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a natural disaster." The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when. To date, some newspapers have worried that open-ended provisions in the contract could lead to cost overruns, such as have occurred with KBR in Iraq. A Homeland Security spokesperson has responded that this is a "contingency contract" and that conceivably no centers might be built. But almost no paper so far has discussed the possibility that detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law. Read The Full Story Brothers Charged In Transatlantic Bomb Plot Freed For Lack Of Evidence 2006-11-01 15:03:41 Two brothers charged in connection with the alleged transatlantic airliner bomb plot walked free from court today after a judge found there was "insufficient" evidence to put them on trial. Mehran Hussain, 24, and Umair Hussain, 25, both of Chingford, east London, were discharged by district judge Quentin Purdy after a committal hearing at the City of Westminster magistrates court in central London. The brothers, who were arrested at their home on August 9, had been accused of failing to disclose information about their brother Nabeel, 22, a suspect in the case. They were among more than a dozen people variously charged in connection with the alleged plot. Addressing the men, district judge Purdy said: "On the evidence before me there is insufficient material to put you on trial." Read The Full Story Mortgage Applications Drop 2006-11-01 15:01:36 Applications for U.S. home mortgages declined last week after a four-week increase in long-term interest-rates, data from an industry group showed Wednesday. The seasonally adjusted index of total mortgage applications dipped 3 percent in the week ended Oct. 27 to 570.8, the lowest level in over a month, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Long-term, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rates - which drive the most common type of home loan - had climbed to 6.36 percent through Oct. 20 from 6.18 percent in mid-September, the MBA said. The rate, which typically leads application activity by several days, dropped to 6.24 percent in the latest week, it said. Read The Full Story Google To Overtake British T.V. In Ad Revenues 2006-11-01 15:00:32 Google's UK advertising revenues will outstrip those of Channel 4 this year, according to Andy Duncan, the broadcaster's chief executive. Underscoring the momentum of internet advertising, Duncan said: "It looks like Google will extract £900 million in advertising revenue in the UK, overtaking Channel 4, which is by some distance the second largest ad funded TV company in the UK." Channel 4's annual advertising income is expected to come in at around £800 million. Duncan added: "People need to wake up and realise that this is not just a cyclical issue - there is deep structural change, rather like global warming. If we want to protect the fantastic legacy of U.K. broadcasting, we need to wake up to this sooner rather than later." Read The Full Story TSA Fails 20 Of 22 Tests - Says It's Ok. 2006-11-01 13:57:12 Screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport failed 20 of 22 security tests conducted by undercover U.S. agents last week, missing an array of concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the hub's three terminals, federal security officials familiar with the results said. The tests, conducted Oct. 19 by U.S. Transportation Security Administration "Red Team" agents, also revealed significant failures by screeners to follow standard operating procedures while checking passengers and their baggage for prohibited items, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is against TSA policy to release covert-test results. Read The Full Story Gov't: No Sex Until You're 30! 2006-11-01 09:45:10 If you're single and in your 20s, the federal government wants you to steer clear of sex. That's the new guidance for states under the Department of Health and Human Services' $50 million Abstinence Education Program. HHS officials say it's not a requirement â€" just another option for states to combat what they call an alarming rise in out-of-wedlock births. A record 1.5 million babies were born to single mothers in 2004, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. More than half of them were born to women in their early 20s. Read The Full Story Italian Arms Contractor And U.S. Congressman Share Close Ties 2006-11-01 00:41:03 In November at the five-star Hotel Splendido overlooking the harbor in Portofino, a playground of the Italian rich, Representative Curt Weldon was the center of attention. The second-ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Weldon was a main speaker at a conference sponsored in part by the Italian military giant Finmeccanica. At the gathering of Italian, British and American political leaders, Weldon, of Pennsylvania, spoke on behalf of Italian arms makers who were seeking a bigger share of Pentagon contracts. Taxpayers paid for Weldon's stay. He received a $1,153 daily expense allowance from the federal government and flew over on a military jet. Read The Full Story Student Uleashes Uproar With Bogus Airline Boarding Passes 2006-11-01 00:39:50 Christopher Soghoian said he was simply trying to highlight a flaw in the nation's airline security procedures when he put a tool on his Web site letting anyone create fake boarding passes, but federal authorities didn't see it that way. FBI agents visited the 24-year-old doctoral candidate's home in Bloomington, Indiana, Friday and returned on Saturday to cart off his computers and other equipment. While Soghoian has not been charged with a crime, the incident has stirred a national tempest and renewed concerns about passenger screening procedures. Soghoian, a Virginia native and student at Indiana University's School of Informatics, declined to comment Tuesday on the advice of his attorney. But he has been writing about the incident on his Web site. "I came back today, to find the glass on the front door smashed," Soghoian wrote on Saturday. "Inside, is a rather ransacked home, a search warrant taped to my kitchen table, a total absence of computers - and various other important things." Read The Full Story Man Arrested For California Fires; 5th Firefighter Dies 2006-11-01 00:38:14 Authorities arrested a man Tuesday who is suspected of intentionally starting two wildfires this summer and is considered a person of interest in a blaze started last week that killed five firefighters. Raymond Lee Oyler, 37, of Beaumont, California, was arrested on two counts of arson related to wildfires in June, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said in a statement. Oyler was not named as a suspect in the wildfire that started last week and roared across more than 60 square miles. Four U.S. Forest Service firefighters died shortly after the blaze began Thursday when flames overran them as they tried to protect homes in the area. A fifth firefighter died Tuesday evening. Read The Full Story	News Blog: The Problem For Republicans In Kansas 2006-11-02 00:50:16 Intellpuke: The following news blog is by journalist Kevin Anderson, it appears in the Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006, edition of Britain's Guardian newspaper. Mr. Anderson's blog follows: My first journalism job was at a small daily newspaper in Hays, Kansas. I lived a half-hour west of Bob Dole's hometown of Russell and covered the 1996 presidential election locally through the eyes of his lifelong friends. I still keep an eye on Kansas politics and occasionally chat with my first editor. In liberal circles in the U.S., the question has been: What's the Matter with Kansas? Thomas Frank, a Kansan himself, wondered how conservatives convinced blue-collar Kansans to care more about social issues than economic issues, often to their own financial detriment. Now, Kansas seems to be showing what the problems are for Republicans in this year's midterm elections. The popular Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius, is famously saying that she is "converting Republicans one at a time", and largely down to her influence and popularity, nine former Republicans will be running as Democrats this year. The Washington Postreferred to her as the recruiter-in-chief (registration required). Here's something the Post said to challenge a little bit of perceived wisdom about Kansas: Read The Full Story William Styron, Noted Author Of 'Nat Turner' And 'Sophie's Choice', Dies 2006-11-02 00:48:55 William Styron, the Virginia-born author whose novels plunged readers into the dark edges of historical moments, died of pneumonia Nov. 1 in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Mr. Styron, 81, won most of the major literary awards of the 20th century, including the Pulitzer Prize for "The Confessions of Nat Turner," the National Book Award for "Sophie's Choice" and the National Medal of the Arts for his lifetime body of work. He partied with presidents and publishers, signed petitions on political issues and testified in court that he saw Chicago police beat demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. His 1979 novel about the horrific decision forced on a character during the Nazi reign in Poland, "Sophie's Choice," was named one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library editorial board. His 1967 novel, "The Confessions of Nat Turner," about the leader of a real slave rebellion, sparked controversy among African American critics who said Mr. Styron did not understand the experience of slaves. His 1990 memoir of depression, "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness," made him a hero to advocates of destigmatizing mental illness and earned him a National Magazine Award. Read The Full Story Classified Military Briefing Shows Iraq Heading Toward Chaos 2006-11-01 15:05:21 A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict. A one-page slide shown at the Oct. 18 briefing provides a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting. The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad. Read The Full Story Clean Air Program Heads To U.S. Supreme Court 2006-11-01 15:04:11 Environmental groups are defending a Clinton-era clean air program that the Bush administration is trying to weaken, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that a power company must install costly pollution controls on its aging coal-fired plants. The outcome of the case, Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy Corp., could affect three dozen power plants in 10 states where utility companies are challenging federal requirements under the New Source Review program. Vickie Patton, a lawyer for Environmental Defense, says it is only the second time in 35 years the high court has agreed to review a case exclusively at the request of environmental groups and over the objections of the government. Read The Full Story Kerry Apologizes To Service Members And Their Families For Remark 2006-11-01 15:02:27 Thrust into the midst of the midterm election campaign, Sen. John Kerry apologized Wednesday to "any service member, family member or American who was offended" by remarks deemed by Republicans and Democrats alike to be insulting to U.S. forces in Iraq. Six days before the election, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee said he sincerely regretted his words were "misinterpreted to imply anything negative about those in uniform". In a brief statement, Kerry attacked President Bush for a "failed security policy". Yet his apology, issued after prominent Democrats had urged him to cancel public appearances, was designed to quell a controversy that party leaders feared would stall their drive for big gains on Nov. 7. Read The Full Story Manufacturing Data Slam Wall Street 2006-11-01 15:01:11 Stocks tumbled Wednesday after most of the day’s economic data showed weakness, including a report that manufacturing growth in October was the slowest in more than three years. The Institute for Supply Management, a private research group, reported weakness across the U.S. manufacturing sector. New orders, production and prices fell, while hiring was up. Treasurys rallied on the numbers and the dollar fell. Data on the housing market also bolstered fears of an economic slowdown. Pending home sales for September, fell 1.1 percent, down 13.6 percent from a year earlier. September residential construction spending also fell 1.1 percent, the sixth month that construction spending dropped, the longest stretch of weakness in residential construction in more than a decade. Read The Full Story Airline's Medicine Ban Leaves Diabetic Passenger In Coma 2006-11-01 14:59:58 A diabetic man fell into a coma because airport staff refused to let him take his insulin on board a flight from Auckland to Christchurch, New Zealand.   Qantas yesterday apologized to Tui Peter Russell, who had a severe attack on the plane and was in hospital for two weeks.   Russell said check-in staff at Auckland Airport told him he could not take his medication on board because it was dangerous.   The 43-year-old Glen Innes chef said he had flown many times with Qantas and had never had problems taking his medicine on board. Read The Full Story Explosion At PayPal Headquarters 2006-11-01 12:04:56 An explosive device left at the eBay-owned PayPal headquarters in San Jose exploded Tuesday night, shattering a plate-glass window on the four-story building. Some 26 employees were working inside the building at the time of the explosion. They reportedly called 911 after hearing the blast. "Whatever caused this was pretty strong,' said San Jose Fire Department Capt. Jose Guerrero. "It's tough to break one of these windows." Read The Full Story Senators Tell Exxon To Stop Denying Global Warming Exists 2006-11-01 00:41:34 ExxonMobil should stop funding groups that have spread the idea that global warming is a myth and that try to influence policymakers to adopt that view, two senators said today in a letter to the oil company. In their letter to ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, appealed to Exxon's sense of corporate responsibility, asking the company to "come clean about its past denial activities." The two senators called on ExxonMobil to "end any further financial assistance" to groups "whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth". Read The Full Story Iraqi Prime Minister Demands Removal Of U.S. Baghdad Checkpoints 2006-11-01 00:40:30 Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded the removal of American checkpoints from the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday, in what appeared to be his latest and boldest gambit in an increasingly tense struggle for more independence from his American protectors. Maliki’s public declaration seemed at first to catch American commanders off guard. But by nightfall, American troops had abandoned all the positions in eastern and central Baghdad that they had set up last week with Iraqi forces as part of a search for a missing American soldier. The checkpoints had snarled traffic and disrupted daily life and commerce throughout the eastern part of the city. The language of the declaration, which implied that Maliki had the power to command American forces, seemed to overstep his authority and to be aimed at placating his Shiite constituency. Read The Full Story Pfizer Heart Medication Dealt Blow In Testing 2006-11-01 00:38:53 Pfizer said Tuesday that clinical trials of torcetrapib - a heart medication that is the most important drug in the company’s pipeline - confirmed that it raises blood pressure, a potentially serious side effect. Any problems with torcetrapib would be a serious setback for Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company. Pfizer has been counting on the new medicine to eventually replace the $13 billion in annual sales from the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, which loses patent protection in 2010. Cardiologists and Wall Street analysts alike have been closely watching the clinical trials of torcetrapib, a medicine intended to raise so-called good cholesterol. Read The Full Story Pakistanis Protest Attack By Own Army On School 2006-11-01 00:37:18 More than 15,000 Pakistani tribesmen, many of them carrying rifles and ammunition, protested Tuesday over a Pakistani army helicopter attack on an al-Qaeda-linked religious school near Khar, Pakistan, that killed about 80 suspected radicals. Chants of "Down with America" and "Down with Musharraf," referring to Pakistan's president, rang out as the tribesmen protested in Khar, main town in the Bajaur tribal region close to the Afghan border. "Our jihad will continue and, God willing, people will go to Afghanistan to oust American and British forces," Maulana Faqir Mohammad, a pro-Taliban cleric, told the crowd of turbaned tribal members. Some of them shouldered rocket launchers. Read The Full Story
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