Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday September 26 2007 - (813)

Wednesday September 26 2007 edition
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Inspector Finds Broad Failure In U.S. Program To Collect Billions From Oil Companies 2007-09-26 03:22:59 Report says program is plagued with ethical lapses. The U.S. Interior Department's program to collect billions of dollars annually from oil and gas companies that drill on federal lands is troubled by mismanagement, ethical lapses and fears of retaliation against whistle-blowers, the department’s chief independent investigator has concluded. The report, a result of a year-long investigation, grew out of complaints by four auditors at the agency, who said that senior administration officials had blocked them from recovering money from oil companies that underpaid the government. The report stopped short of accusing top agency officials of wrongdoing, concluding that the whistle-blowers were sometimes unaware of other efforts under way to recover the missing money and that they sometimes simply disagreed with top management. It offered a sharp description of failures at the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the agency within the Interior Department responsible for collecting about $10 billion a year in royalties on oil and gas. Many of the issues, including the complaints by whistle-blowers, were initially reported last year by the New York Times. Read The Full Story Commentary: For All This Talk, Still We Head Steadfastly For Catastrophe 2007-09-26 03:22:16 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Kevin Watkins, director of the U.N.'s Human Development Report Office. In his commentary, which appears in the Guardian edition for Wednesday, September 26, 2007, Mr. Watkins writes that this week's summit on climate change will accomplish nothing if rich countries don't finally show some leadership. His commentary follows: If talking could cut greenhouse gas emissions, then this would be a good week for international action on climate change. It opened with more than 80 speeches from governments at a special session on the issue at the United Nations, and will close with a two-day "summit" in the White House bringing together all the world's major emitters. The bad news is that we are still heading steadfastly in the direction of an avoidable climate catastrophe. The special session was a bold effort by the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to instill urgency into climate negotiations. His aim: to prepare the ground for an international treaty with real, enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions. That means a more ambitious, and inclusive, successor to the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012. Negotiations begin in earnest in December at a summit in Bali - or they might if governments can bring themselves to stop dithering and start acting. It's hard to exaggerate the importance of Bali. There is still a window of opportunity for avoiding the worst effects of climate change - but that window is closing. Most governments broadly accept the need to restrict average temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Business-as-usual will take us over twice that level by the end of the century, so every year of delay will make it more difficult to achieve the target. Climate change threatens to cause unprecedented reversals in human progress in our lifetime. Increased exposure to droughts, floods, storms and climatic uncertainties will reinforce the poverty trap affecting millions of the world's most vulnerable people. Future generations will have to live with potentially catastrophic ecological risks. Read The Full Story Iran's Ahmadinejad Considers Nuclear Dispute 'Closed', Vows To Resist U.N. Sanctions 2007-09-26 03:21:24 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, said Tuesday he considered the dispute over his country’s nuclear program “closed” and that Iran would disregard the resolutions of the Security Council, which he said was dominated by “arrogant powers”. In a rambling and defiant 40-minute speech to the opening session of the General Assemly, he said Iran would from now on consider the nuclear issue not a “political” one for the Security Council, but a “technical” one to be decided by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. Ahmadinejad’s assertion that the matter belonged with the nuclear agency indicated his preference to work with Mohamed ElBaradei,its director. Dr. ElBaradei has been at odds with Washington, and some European powers, who have accused him of meddling in the diplomacy by seeking separate accords with Iran, and in their eyes undercutting the Security Council resolutions. Read The Full Story Burma's Junta Declares Curfew, Bans Assembly 2007-09-26 03:20:41 Troops move into the streets of Rangoon. Troops moved into the streets of Rangoon, Burma in apparent readiness for a confrontation with pro-democracy protesters as the U.S. and U.K. Tuesday stepped up pressure on Burma's military government, threatening punitive measures against the regime. The Burmese junta last night imposed a 60-day 9 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew and ban on gatherings of more than five people, according to reports from the country's two biggest cities, Rangoon and Mandalay. Truckloads of armed security forces in riot gear surrounded several of the key protest sites, including Rangoon's city hall and the nearby Sule pagoda, in advance of Wednesday's planned marches. Earlier tens of thousand of monks and pro-democracy demonstrators defied government warnings and paraded through the streets of the old capital Tuesday, as they have for the past week. Ministers from the Burmese junta met in emergency session in the new capital, Naypyidaw, to discuss the growing threat to their regime. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, had been moved to the notorious Insein prison on Sunday from the lakeside villa where she was under house arrest. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Trying To Block California's Effort To Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2007-09-25 17:55:07 The Bush administration has conducted a concerted, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to try to generate opposition to California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, according to documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  California, along with 11 other states, is hoping to enact rules that would cut global warming pollution from new motor vehicles by nearly 30 percent by 2016. To do so, California needs a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency, a request that has been pending for nearly two years. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has threatened to sue if EPA does not rule on the waiver by Oct. 22. A flurry of e-mails among Transportation Department (DOT) officials and between its staffers and the White House,  released Monday, highlights efforts that administration officials have made to stir up public opposition to the waiver. Rather than attacking California's request outright, Bush officials quietly reached out to two dozen congressional offices and a handful of governors to try to undermine it. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court To Consider Technology Patent Case 2007-09-25 17:54:31 Decision could have far-reaching impact on computer makers, other industries. The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider a technology patent case that could have far-reaching ramifications for computer makers and other industries with global supply chains. The case was brought by a group of Taiwanese computer makers, who have accused a South Korean rival of using its patents in an effort to "shake down the entire computer industry for several billion dollars in duplicative licensing fees." At issue is whether a patent holder can seek royalties from multiple companies as a patented product works its way through the manufacturing process. The Taiwanese firms, led by Quanta Computer Inc., are asking the justices to overturn a 2006 federal appeals court ruling that they say would open the door for patent holders to do just that. Read The Full Story Editorial: Gunfight At The S-Chip Corral 2007-09-25 13:48:59 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Tuesday, September 25, 2007. President Bush accused Congressional Democrats of putting health coverage for poor children at risk by forcing him to veto a bill that he says is a dangerous step toward government-run health care. The opposite is the case. Bush is the one putting the health of America’s children at risk, threatening to veto carefully crafted legislation that would reauthorize and expand the valuable State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-chip. We can only hope that fair-minded members of Congress will pass the compromise measure by veto-proof majorities this week. Otherwise, millions of low- and middle-income children would be denied access to a program that has played a critical role in reducing the number of uninsured children over the past decade. To hear the president tell it, he has long supported the joint federal-state program, and his budget for fiscal year 2008 proposes an additional $5 billion in federal funds spread over the next five years, a 20 percent increase over current levels. What he doesn’t say is that this paltry sum is not even enough to provide continued coverage for all of the children who are currently enrolled, let alone enroll millions more of the uninsured. Read The Full Story Burmese Monks Continue Protest, Defying Junta's Warning 2007-09-25 13:48:08 Tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and supporters Tuesday defied a government warning in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and returned to the streets for an eighth day of peaceful anti-government protests. For the first time since protests began on Aug. 19, the government began to issue warnings and to move security forces into positions in Yangon, the largest city and former capital. Witnesses said they saw truckloads of soldiers apparently moving into position in Yangon. It was the most ominous situation that the protesters had seen during a month of demonstrations that were sparked by a sharp fuel price increase in mid-August and have swelled into a huge outpouring that has filled the streets of several cities, although as evening fell the day’s protests dispersed without incident. Official vehicles patrolled the streets calling on monks to return to their temples, inserting a government presence into streets that had been largely given over to huge waves of protesters. “People are not to follow, encourage or take part in these marches,” the announcements said. “Action will be taken against those who violate this order.” Diplomats in Yangon said uniformed security personnel were moving discreetly into the city, where they had not been visible in past days. Read The Full Story U.S. Military Tallies Grim Data On Iraq Civilian Deaths 2007-09-25 13:47:23 What defines a killing as sectarian? On Sept. 1, the bullet-riddled bodies of four Iraqi men were found on a Baghdad street. Two days later, a single dead man, with one bullet in his head, was found on a different street. According to the U.S. military in Iraq,the solitary man was a victim of sectarian violence. The first four were not. Such determinations are the building blocks for what the Bush administration has declared a downward trend in sectarian deaths and a sign that its war strategy is working. They are made by a specialized team of soldiers who spend their nights at computer terminals, sifting through data on the day's civilian victims for clues to the motivations of killers. The soldiers have a manual telling them what to look for. Signs of torture or a single shot to the head, corpses left in a "known body dump" - as the body of the Sunni man found on Sept. 3 was - spell sectarian violence, said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Dan Macomber, the team leader. Macomber, who has been at his job in Baghdad since February, rarely has to look it up anymore. "If you were just a criminal and you just wanted to take somebody's money, just wanted to discipline them, you're not going to take the time to bind them up, burn their bodies, cut their arms off, cut their head off," he explained. "You're just going to shoot them in the body and get it over with." That, the team judged, is what happened to the four Shiite men, sprayed with gunfire and left where they dropped. Read The Full Story U.N. Secretary General Calls For 'Unprecedented Action' On Climate Change 2007-09-25 01:24:03 U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that a 15-year international effort to stem global warming has not halted the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions and that governments must take "unprecedented action" to reverse the trend. "Today, the time for doubt has passed," Ban told delegates at a U.N. conference on climate change that brought together more than 80 heads of state, former U.S. vice president Al Gore and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Ban organized Monday's meeting to build political momentum for negotiations set for December in Bali, Indonesia, on a new treaty, which is expected to impose deep cuts on emissions of heat-trapping gases by industrial powers. Ban stressed the urgency of reaching agreement on a plan of action that would replace the world's principal climate accord, the Kyoto Protocol.The agreement, which the Bush administration opposes, expires at the end of 2012. Read The Full Story Salmonella More Virulent In Space 2007-09-25 01:23:23 Food poisoning bacteria become super virulent in space, according to a study on the shuttle Atlantis. Food poisoning bacteria become super-virulent in space, according to a study of salmonella that spent 12 days orbiting the Earth on the space shuttle Atlantis. The research raises fears that diseases boosted by low gravity could pose unexpected medical problems on future long-haul space journeys or for astronauts on a proposed future moon base. It is the first study to examine the effect of space flight on the virulence of a pathogen. "Given the proposed increase in both duration and distance from Earth for future manned space flight missions - including lunar colonization and a mission to Mars - the risk for in-flight infectious diseases will be increased," said Cheryl Nickerson at Arizona State University. Her team sent vials of salmonella bacteria into orbit on Atlantis's 12-day mission in September last year. They kept bacteria from the same strain in conditions as close to the space shuttle as possible on Earth. When they fed the samples to different groups of mice they found that the bacteria that had been in space were nearly three times as likely to kill the animals. Read The Full Story At Columbia University, Ahmadinejad Parries And Puzzles 2007-09-25 01:22:18 He said that there were no homosexuals in Iran - not one - and that the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews should not be treated as fact, but theory, and therefore open to debate and more research. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, aired those and other bewildering thoughts in a two-hour verbal contest at Columbia University Monday, providing some ammunition to people who said there was no point in inviting him to speak. Yet his appearance also offered evidence of why he is widely admired in the developing world for his defiance toward Western, especially American, power. In repeated clashes with his hosts, Ahmadinejad accused the United States of supporting terrorist groups, and characterized as hypocritical American and European efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “If you have created the fifth generation of atomic bombs and are testing them already, who are you to question other people who just want nuclear power,” said Ahmadinejad, adding, pointedly: “I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, politically, they’re backwards. Retarded.” Read The Full Story Bomber Kills 16 At Iraqi Reconciliation Banquet 2007-09-25 01:21:04 A suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday at a banquet intended to be a reconciliation feast between provincial officials and former Sunni insurgents in Diyala Province, killing 16 people and wounding at least 28. Among the wounded were the provincial governor, the regional police chief and the local military commander, local police officials said. At least one former insurgent leader was killed, they said. The gathering was of the type that is a cornerstone of American plans to reconcile former insurgents with the Iraqi government and enlist their help in fighting Sunni extremist groups. The strategy has produced security gains in Sunni areas in western Iraq, and the military is trying to repeat that success in places like Diyala, a mixed area of Sunnis and Shiites north of Baghdad. The American military confirmed that American officers had attended the meeting, held at a Shiite mosque in an outlying district of Baquba, the provincial capital. It said soldiers had been attacked by a suicide bomber, but said nothing about any wounded or dead among the Americans. Read The Full Story	Pentagon Pressing State Dept. To Assert More Control Over Blackwater 2007-09-26 03:22:43 A confrontation between the U.S. military and the State Department is unfolding over the involvement of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square Sept. 16, bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions between the military and private security companies in Iraq,according to U.S. military and government officials. In high-level meetings over the past several days, U.S. military officials have pressed State Department officials to assert more control over Blackwater, which operates under the department's authority, said a U.S. government official with knowledge of the discussions. "The military is very sensitive to its relationship that they've built with the Iraqis being altered or even severely degraded by actions such as this event," said the official. "This is a nightmare," said a senior U.S. military official. "We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib, and it comes at a time when we're trying to have an impact for the long term." The official was referring to the prison scandal that emerged in 2004 in which U.S. soldiers tortured and abused Iraqis. In last week's incident, Blackwater guards shot into a crush of cars, killing at least 11 Iraqis and wounding 12. Blackwater officials insist their guards were ambushed, but witnesses have described the shooting as unprovoked. Iraq's Interior Ministry has concluded that Blackwater was at fault. Read The Full Story U.S. House Committee Says Rice Is Hindering Its Work 2007-09-26 03:21:55 Blackwater, corruption in Iraq at issue. An ongoing battle between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a House committee investigating Iraqi government corruption and the activities of the Blackwater USA security firm erupted into another skirmish Tuesday as U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-California) accused Rice of interfering with the committee's work and preventing administration and Blackwater officials from providing pertinent information. In the latest of a series of exchanges, Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote Rice to urge that she "reconsider the unusual positions you are taking." Congress has a "constitutional prerogative" to look into the issues, he wrote, and she is "wrong to interfere with the Committee's inquiry." State Department spokesman Tom Casey cited a "misunderstanding" on Waxman's part. "All information requested by the committee has been or is in the process of being provided," he said. The dispute began late last month when the Nation magazine published an account of an internal memo by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The 82-page draft document, which was subsequently widely leaked, said the Iraqi government was "not capable of even rudimentary enforcement" of its own anti-corruption laws and would not meet "any reasonable timeline" for improvement. Read The Full Story Shaky U.S. Home Prices And German Ills Hits Markets 2007-09-26 03:21:00 Financial markets on both sides of the Atlantic took fright Tuesday at economic data showing weakness in the U.S.  and Germany as investors fretted about banks' balance sheets in the wake of Britain's Northern Rock Bank fiasco. The FTSE 100 share index fell almost 100 points, or 1.5%, although by the close it had recovered to 6,397, down 69 points. Dealers sold bank shares on worries that the sector could be hit by further problems in credit markets, which caused the Northern Rock crisis. Barclays and the French banks BNP Paribas and Societe Generale were among the biggest losers. In the U.S., fresh signs of weakness from the summer's crisis in sub-prime mortgages emerged as figures showed house prices dropped by 4.5% year-on-year during July - the biggest fall for 16 years. Read The Full Story Air Traffic Near Memphis, Tennessee, Grounded, Ripple Effect Extends Across U.S. 2007-09-26 03:20:14 Communications equipment failed Tuesday at a regional air-traffic control center, shutting down all airline traffic within 250 miles of Memphis and causing a ripple effect across the country that grounded dozens of passenger and cargo flights. The problem started when a major telephone line to the Memphis center went out at 12:35 p.m. EDT. The Federal Aviation Administration said air-traffic control operations were back to normal about three hours later. Air-traffic control centers in adjacent regions handled flights that were already in the air when the problem was discovered. "The airspace was completely cleared by 1:30 (p.m.) Eastern time," said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen. Read The Full Story Polygamist Leader Warren Jeffs Convicted In Utah 2007-09-25 17:54:51 The leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group was convicted Tuesday of being an accomplice to rape for performing a wedding between a 19-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl. Warren Jeffs, 51, could get life in prison after a trial that threw a spotlight on a renegade community along the Arizona-Utah border where as many as 10,000 of Jeffs' followers practice plural marriage and revere him as a mighty prophet with dominion over their salvation. Jeffs stood and, like his 15 followers in the courtroom, wore a stoic look as the verdict was read. "Everyone should now know that no one is above the law, religion is not an excuse for abuse and every victim has a right to be heard," said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who had endorsed the prosecution in Washington County. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court To Rule On Voter I.D. Laws 2007-09-25 13:49:18 Ruling could effect close elections in several states. The U.S. Supreme Court set the stage Tuesday for an election-year clash over whether states can require voters to have a government-issued photo identification before they cast a ballot. The court's ruling could affect the outcome in close races in several states. The photo identification laws have been championed by Republicans as a means of preventing voter fraud. They say the required identification will screen out ineligible voters, including felons, illegal immigrants and non-residents. A state-issued driver's license meets the requirement. Democrats have opposed the requirement and argue that thousands of poor, elderly or disabled persons do not have a photo identification because they do not drive. They fear the rules are likely to dissuade an untold number of voters from casting ballots, and thereby might tip a close election. Read The Full Story U.S. Home Sales At 5-Year Low 2007-09-25 13:48:41 Sales of existing homes, depressed by turmoil in credit markets, fell for a sixth straight month in August, pushing activity to the lowest point in five years. The National Association of Realtors said that sales of existing single-family homes dropped by 4.3 percent in August, compared to July. Sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate dropped to 5.5 million units, the slowest pace since August 2002. The housing market has been battered by the steepest downturn in 16 years. Those problems were exacerbated in August by turmoil in credit markets, reflecting new worries about rising defaults in subprime mortgages. The median price of an existing home - the point where half sold for more and half for less - edged up slightly in August to $224,500, an increase of 0.2 percent from August 2006. It marked the first year-over-year price increase after a record 12 straight months of declining prices. Read The Full Story Bush Announces Tighter Sanctions Against Myanmar (Burma) 2007-09-25 13:47:48 President Bush announced Tuesday that the United States was taking a series of steps to tighten economic sanctions on Myanmar’s leaders and their backers and would impose a visa ban on the leaders and their families. Bush, who has spoken out frequently on Myanmar, was addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His remarks coincided with the eighth day of peaceful anti-government protests in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), led by Buddhist monks in the main city of Yangon and in other cities. “Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear,” said Bush, using the former name of the country. Bush was one of the first speakers to take the podium on the assembly’s opening day of speeches today that also begins a week of diplomatic activity on the sidelines. Read The Full Story Special Military Court Advances Trials For Detainees 2007-09-25 13:46:34 A special military appeals court, overturning a lower court ruling, on Monday removed a legal hurdle that has derailed war crime trials for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The ruling allows military prosecutors to address a legal flaw that had ground the prosecutions to a halt. The decision, by a three-judge panel of a newly formed military appeals court, was an important victory for the government in its protracted efforts to begin prosecuting some of the 340 detainees at Guantanamo.  The legal flaw involved a requirement by Congress that before the detainees could be tried in military tribunals, they had to be formally declared “alien unlawful enemy combatants.” The problem for prosecutors was that while the detainees had been found by a military panel to be enemy combatants, they had not been specifically found to be unlawful. Under the ruling, prosecutors will be able to present new evidence to the war crimes trial judge hearing a case to support their contention that a detainee was an unlawful combatant. Until now, only one case has been resolved, that of an Australian citizen who accepted a plea deal in March. Read The Full Story At U.N., Britain's Environment Secretary Calls On U.S. To Adopt Binding Targets On Emission Controls 2007-09-25 01:23:42 Britain's environment secretary, Hilary Benn, Monday called on the U.S. to agree to mandatory goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, warning that the alternative was dangerous climate change. Mr. Benn made his appeal at a climate change summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The summit, attended by more than 80 heads of state and government, was intended to bolster international resolve to come to an agreement in principle on a new international global warming pact in December in Bali. President George Bush was not at the meeting, but was due to attend a post-summit dinner last night. He has called his own conference of "major emitters" for Thursday this week, at which he is expected to promote his preference for a looser global accord in which nations set their own non-mandatory targets. Benn said that approach will not work. "The only way forward must involve developed countries taking on binding emissions commitments because a voluntary approach ... isn't going to do the job," he said. "And that means all of us, including the largest economy in the world, the United States - taking on binding reduction targets. It is inconceivable that dangerous climate change can be avoided without this happening." Read The Full Story NRG Energy Seeks U.S. Approval For Nuclear Reactors 2007-09-25 01:22:42 In a bid to take the lead in the race to revive the nuclear power industry, an energy company will ask the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (N.R.C.)on Tuesday for permission to build two reactors in Texas. It is the first time since the 1970s and the accident at Three Mile Island that an American power company has sought permission to start work on a new reactor to add to the existing array of operable reactors, which now number 104. The company, NRG Energy, based in Princeton, New Jersey, wants to be the first to pour concrete in the main section of the plant, allowing it to qualify for the maximum federal benefits, David Crane, its chief executive, said in a telephone interview. NRG is applying under a new process intended to avoid the extensive delays and cost overruns in the last round of nuclear construction. In the 1970s and ’80s, more than 100 of the reactor projects were canceled, some abandoned in late stages of construction, mostly because they no longer made financial sense. Read The Full Story Junta Threatens Burma's Protesting Monks 2007-09-25 01:21:51 100,000 take part in biggest demonstrations for nearly 20 years, but fears of crackdown grow. Myanmar's (formerly Burma) military rulers last night threatened to "take action' after up to 100,000 demonstrators protesting against the regime flooded the streets of Rangoon in the biggest show of dissent in almost two decades. Tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and pink-robed nuns led the marchers who snaked for nearly a mile through the former capital, one of several marches that slowed traffic to a crawl and prompted the closure of shops and schools. The monks, carrying flags and banners proclaiming the peaceful nature of the demonstration, were flanked by even greater numbers of people who joined the parade, clapping and chanting in what many described as a carnival atmosphere. The mood of elation among the ranks on the sixth straight day of marches sparked by crippling fuel price rises reflected the surprise that the generals had not crushed the anti-government movement. But in the regime's first response to the protests, the minister for religious affairs Brigadier General Thura Myint Maung was quoted on state-owned radio as saying "actions will be taken against the monks' protest marches according to the law if they cannot be stopped by religious teachings". He blamed the protests on "destructive elements who do not want to see peace, stability and progress in the country". Read The Full Story U.S. Homeland Security Dept.'s Second-In-Command Resigns 2007-09-25 01:20:27 The Homeland Security Department's second-in-command resigned Monday, citing personal financial reasons. Michael P. Jackson, the department's deputy secretary, has had a major hand in running the large department, particularly in putting the current management team in place. In an e-mail to staff Monday, said Jackson, "The simple truth, however, is that after over five years of serving with the president's team, I am compelled to depart for financial reasons that I can no longer ignore." Read The Full Story
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