Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday August 3 2007 - (813)

Friday August 3 2007 edition
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Federal Crackdown On Illegal Immigrants Looms, So Does Chaos 2007-08-03 02:58:09 With the failure of immigration legislation in Congress this year, federal officials are planning a new crackdown on illegal immigrants that would force businesses to fire them or face stiff penalties. But the effort also could cause serious headaches for millions of U.S. citizens. In the coming days, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to issue a rule outlining how businesses must respond when they receive notice that there are discrepancies in a worker's tax records. Many businesses simply ignore such notices now. Under the new rules, employees would have a limited time to contact the Social Security Administration to correct the information, or face termination. Read The Full Story NASA's New Mars Probe To Go Off In Search Of Water - And Life? 2007-08-03 02:57:34 The search for life on other worlds can be boiled down to a simple maxim: Follow the water. Life, at least the carbonaceous form we are familiar with, loves water. Now, for the first time, NASA is about to land a spacecraft in a place on another planet where scientists are confident water exists. The Mars Phoenix lander is set to blast off from Cape Canaveral early Saturday morning for a journey to near the Martian north pole. Once there, it will extend a 7-foot-long robotic arm to dig down to a layer of ice thought to lie just beneath the surface. If the ice is as hard as some scientists suspect - think concrete - Phoenix will use a tungsten carbide drill to bore into it. The soil and ice will be analyzed by the most sophisticated suite of scientific instruments ever sent to the surface of another world. The instruments will scan, magnify and cook the compounds, finally sending them through a mass spectrometer to identify their parts. Read The Full Story Iraq Prime Minister Maliki's Impact Blunted By His Own Party's Fears 2007-08-03 02:56:33 As the U.S. military attempts to pacify Iraq so its leaders can pursue political reconciliation, Iraqi and Western observers say Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikiand his inner circle appear increasingly unable to pull the government out of its paralysis. At times consumed by conspiracy theories, Maliki and his Dawa party elite operate much as they did when they plotted to overthrow Saddam Hussein -- covertly and concerned more about their community's survival than with building consensus among Iraq's warring groups, say Iraqi politicians and analysts and Western diplomats. In recent weeks, those suspicions have deepened as U.S. military commanders have begun to work with Sunni insurgents, longtime foes of the Shiite-led government, who have agreed to battle the group al-Qaeda in Iraq.  "The level of mutual trust is so low that you really have to not just rebuild trust, you have to build trust in the first place, and that is still very much a work in progress right now," said Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the top U.N. envoy to Iraq. Read The Full Story Sen. Stevens, Aide, May Have Run Afoul Of The Law 2007-08-02 20:31:46 A Senate aide who handled Sen. Ted Stevens' personal bills did not report any payments from his personal funds, raising questions about whether the two violated gift restrictions or federal law. Barbara Flanders, a financial clerk at the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, is cooperating in a corruption investigation of the lawmaker. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Flanders is cooperating in the probe of Stevens' dealings with a wealthy Alaska contractor. In her public financial disclosure form for 2006, Flanders checked the "No" box when asked whether she or her spouse had earned income of more than $200 beyond her Senate salary. Income received from Stevens, R-Alaska, would be reportable under Senate rules. If she was not paid for the personal work, it could be considered a gift that Stevens would have to report on his annual disclosure forms. He has not reported gifts from Flanders, a longtime aide who also has worked in the senator's personal office. Read The Full Story Miles Below The North Pole, Russian Mini-Subs Lay Claim To Arctic Wealth 2007-08-02 20:31:10 Russia symbolically staked its claim to billions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the Arctic Ocean Thursday as two mini-submarines reached the sea bed more than two-and-a-half miles beneath the North Pole. In a record-breaking dive the two craft planted a one meter-high titanium Russian flag on the underwater Lomonosov ridge, which Moscow claims is directly connected to its continental shelf. The dangerous mission prompted ridicule and skepticism among other contenders for the Arctic's energy wealth, with Canada comparing it to a 15th-century colonial land-grab. Descending to 4,300 meters, the mini-subs Mir-1 and Mir-2 collected water and sediment samples from the sea bed that Russian scientists hope will shore up their claim that the ridge is an integral part of their country. Read The Full Story Up To 30 People Missing From Collapsed Bridge As Divers Hunt For Bodies 2007-08-02 20:30:39 Federal transport investigators began work Thursday to establish the cause of the catastrophic collapse of the Mississippi bridge that had been classified as "structurally deficient" two years ago . The police put the official death toll at four but predicted that would rise, confirming that rescuers had seen other bodies trapped in submerged cars. Up to 30 people are missing. In spite of danger from tangled steel girders and unstable concrete blocks, divers were trying to recover the bodies. The local police chief, Tim Dolan, said recovery would take days: "The bridge is still shifting. We're dealing with the Mississippi river. We're dealing with currents. We're going to have to do it slowly and safely." Read The Full Story Search For Bridge Victims Begins; At Least 4 Dead, Scores Still Missing 2007-08-02 13:37:46 Rescue workers began this morning to recover bodies at the scene of a bridge collapse over the Mississippi River last night, though they worked slowly because the area remained dangerous. Officials said that at least four people died when the bridge loaded with rush-hour traffic dropped more than 60 feet into the river last night, sending at least 50 vehicles and their occupants into the water. But the death toll is likely to climb during the day. Chief Tim Dolan or the Minneapolis Police Department said that an estimated 20 to 30 people were missing. And Mary Dooley, executive director of the Iowa Rivers chapter of the Red Cross, reported a higher number: 65 people still missing. Richard Stanek, the Hennepin County sherriff, said that about 12 cars could be seen submerged in the river, though there may be more that cannot be seen. More than 60 people were injured, news services reported. Read The Full Story	Wall Street's Lucrative Tax Break Is Under Fire 2007-08-03 02:57:55 The most controversial tax break on Wall Street, known simply as the Carry, is not authorized by any law and was never approved by Congress. Instead, it grew quietly over several decades, hinted at but never directly addressed in obscure court cases and arcane regulations issued by the Internal Revenue Service. Unchallenged by lawmakers, it swelled into a benefit that, by one back-of-the-envelope estimate, spares a small band of the country's richest and most powerful financiers $6 billion a year in personal income taxes. The astonishing cost of this tax break to the federal government has riveted attention on Wall Street's titans of the moment, the extraordinarily wealthy managers of private-equity firms and hedge funds. Until now, they have gone largely unexamined by Washington but, at a time of rising income inequality and with Congress engaged in a desperate hunt for cash to expand aid to a disgruntled middle class, the Wall Street money men have become an appealing target for Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates, who say the financiers are woefully undertaxed. Read The Full Story Judge's Ruling Limited Spying Efforts 2007-08-03 02:56:56 A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) disclosed elements of the court's decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information. The judge, whose name could not be learned, concluded early this year that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to broadly surveil communications between two locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision. Read The Full Story Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Katrina Victims, For Insurance Companies 2007-08-03 02:56:13 Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed after floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damage, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The case could affect thousands of residents and business owners in Louisiana who are attempting to rebuild. Robert P. Hartwig, chief economist at the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute in New York,said in June that a ruling against the industry could have cost insurers $1 billion. "This event was excluded from coverage under the plaintiffs' insurance policies, and under Louisiana law, we are bound to enforce the unambiguous terms of their insurance contracts as written," Judge Carolyn D. King wrote for a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Read The Full Story White House Orders Rove Not To Cooperate With Congress, Gonzales Won't Alter Testimony 2007-08-02 20:31:29 The Bush administration pushed back against congressional Democrats on two fronts Wednesday, as the White House formally directed senior adviser Karl Rove not to cooperate with a Senate probe into the firing of U.S. attorneys and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales declined to alter testimony that some senators have described as misleading. The actions seemed certain to heighten the confrontation between Congress and the administration over a pair of investigations, one looking into whether politics tainted the removal of nine senior federal prosecutors, the other involving the legality of a surveillance program operated by the National Security Agency.  As expected, the White House invoked executive privilege in declining to allow Rove and one of his aides, J. Scott Jennings, to provide documents or testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is exploring Rove's role in the firing of U.S. attorneys. Read The Full Story Editorial: Investigating Mr. Gonzales 2007-08-02 20:30:55 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the Washington Post edition for Thursday, August 2, 2007. The furor over whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales perjured himself in congressional testimony has prompted four Democratic senators to call for the appointment of a special prosecutor and a group of House members to propose impeachment. The legislators have reason to be perturbed. Mr. Gonzales, as we have said, has been less than forthcoming on a host of issues, including internal administration disputes over the president's Terrorist Surveillance Program. He bungled the handling of a number of Justice Department matters, most notable being the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. But a special prosecutor or an impeachment is not the answer - at least not yet. It's well known what can happen when special prosecutors with unlimited time and money are appointed. Years elapse, tens of millions of tax dollars evaporate, and dozens of people with tangential relationships to the matter at hand are dragged into the investigation at terrible financial and emotional cost. The allegations surrounding Mr. Gonzales' parsed statements about classified programs and personnel matters are just the kind of muddy circumstances that invite such excesses. Impeachment of Mr. Gonzales would be just as problematic; if an impeachment succeeded in the absence of proven criminal offenses, it would invite future Congresses to launch similar proceedings against unpopular Cabinet members on a regular basis. Read The Full Story Thousands Of British Troops Suffering Mental Problems, Alcoholism And Family Breakdowns From Iraq, Afghanistan Service 2007-08-02 20:30:07 Thousands of Britain's frontline veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are facing escalating mental health problems, alcoholism and family breakdown, an extensive examination of the British military has found. Prolonged periods in conflict are linked to higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological distress and problems at home, researchers report in the British Medical Journal online. Britain's Ministry of Defense (MoD) said it would study the findings to try to better understand mental health problems in the military, but last night there was pressure on the government to address accusations that the military is currently overstretched, forcing personnel into longer tours of duty. Opposition Parliament members said the burden on the military was another reason to begin phased withdrawal from Iraq. The Kings College London military health center's study of 5,547 veterans of overseas tours focused on the 20% who were deployed for more than 13 months within a three-year period, the maximum recommended time limit set by the government and known as the "harmony guidelines". Read The Full Story Did U.S. Justice Dept. Slip On Chiquita's Bananas? 2007-08-02 13:37:23 On April 24, 2003, a board member of Chiquita International Brands disclosed to a top official at the Justice Department that the king of the banana trade was evidently breaking the nation's anti-terrorism laws. Roderick M. Hills, who had sought the meeting with former law firm colleague Michael Chertoff, explained that Chiquita was paying "protection money" to a Colombian paramilitary group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations. Hills said he knew that such payments were illegal, according to sources and court records, but said that he needed Chertoff's advice. Chiquita, Hills said, would have to pull out of the country if it could not continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana plantations. Chertoff, then assistant attorney general and now secretary of homeland security, affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting. Justice officials have acknowledged in court papers that an official at the meeting said they understood Chiquita's situation was "complicated," and three of the sources identified that official as Chertoff. They said he promised to get back to the company after conferring with national security advisers and the State Department about the larger ramifications for U.S. interests if the corporate giant pulled out overnight. Read The Full Story
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