News stories

BYE-BYE MR. DELAY!

"DeLay's gotten himself in a terrible predicament... He has a lot of
explaining to do."

"We're here because this leadership got caught with their hands
in the cookie jar," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "Americans
were listening, and they forced a change."

Early in the day, Tom Delay was clearly annoyed as he emerged
from a closed Republican meeting and found himself in a mob of
reporters.

"You guys better get out of my way," he said. "Where's our security?"

In a rare retreat, the Republican-led House on Wednesday overturned
contentious rule changes made to the House ethics process, with
Republicans saying they surrendered to the Democrats to try to
restore a way to enforce proper conduct in the House...the reversal
was primarily motivated by a need to resolve the torrent of questions
surrounding the conduct of Tom DeLay, the majority leader.

Mr. Hastert's relenting to Democrats' demands marked a startling turn
as Republicans confronted the fallout from a stalled ethics process
that Democrats said was rigged to protect Mr. DeLay, who was
admonished three times by the ethics committee last year. The
Republican majority has also come under increasing criticism for the
rule changes, which their opponents said would render
the committee impotent to pursue wrongdoing by members.

Which name were the credit card receipts in, that's what
I'd like to know...
In other HOT news, the Freedom of Information Act has released White House Secret Service logs of the comings and goings of "Jeff Gannon" but sometimes he never signed out. Are they having press sleepovers these days? This information was obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a FOIA request, & reveals Guckert had remarkable access to the White House. Though he wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, the records show that he applied with his real name.

FAREWELL TO TRUST IN PBS's LACK OF PARTISAN BIAS
I knew it was too good to last--how can we protest this?
Stop sending them money?
The new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the gatekeeper between
lawmakers and public broadcasters), Ken Ferree, is a staunch Republican
proponent of media deregulation and a former top adviser to FCC Chairman
Michael Powell. Three top CPB officials, all with Democratic affiliations, departed
or were dismissed in recent months. For the first time in its 38-year history, the
CPB ordered a comprehensive review of public TV and radio programming for
"evidence of bias." All new PBS funding agreements are conditioned
upon the network following "objectivity and balance" requirements for
each of its programs.

Big Week for News

Here are some interesting articles I found recently online:

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050509&s=alterman
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality... you will be left to just study what we do." -- unnamed Bush insider.
The Bush attack on the press has three primary components--Secrecy, Lies and Fake News.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1732
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/04/21/national/w073505D40.DTL
http://www.pulsejournal.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/04/22_SECRECY_COURT.html
A federal appeals court met in secret Thursday to hear a secret case about an FBI whistleblower who alleged security breaches at the bureau immediately following the Sept. 11. 2001 terrorist attacks. The result? Well, that is secret too. After hearing oral arguments on behalf of Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered Edmonds and her attorneys to leave the courtroom so the government could present its side in secret.

"From firing whistleblowers to using special privileges to cover up mistakes, the government is taking extreme steps to shield itself from political embarrassment while gambling with our safety."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/education/20cnd-child.html?pagewanted=print&position=&oref=login
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=national&story_id=042105b2_nochild
NEA rejects "No Child Left Behind" with lawsuit to Federal Government
Education groups have complained that the 2002 law, championed by Bush and widely supported in Congress, forces schools to spend billions on standardized testing, paperwork and other demands, crowding out essential programs. The lawsuit filed by the National Education Association on behalf of nine school districts and 10 local union affiliates says Congress has given schools $27 billion less than the law calls for. It challenges Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to increase funding or let schools opt out of unfunded demands.

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050422/ap_on_bi_ge/greenspan&printer=1
On the same day that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan issued a fresh warning about the dangers of bloated budget deficits, Congress considered new tax breaks for the energy industry and an $81 billion measure to pay for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2000, the government posted a record budget surplus. Four years later, there was a record deficit, $412 billion.

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050421/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_spending_7&printer=1
The Senate moved toward approving $81 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Thursday in a measure that would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/etc/script.html
WAYNE SLATER, Dallas Morning News "Karl Rove never really talked about religion very much. In fact, I got the clear impression that he was a person who was not religious at all."

NARRATOR: Rove ran training seminars on campuses all over the country.
WAYNE SLATER: Karl during these seminars began to talk about dirty tricks. He was talking about ways to undercut your opponent in not too nice a form.
NARRATOR: Rove also drew the interest of The Washington Post just as Watergate was dominating the news. It was a story about one of those college seminars where Rove talked about dirty tricks.
WAYNE SLATER: It came at the heels of Watergate, and what you had was a young group of Republicans officially associated with the national Republican Party, following Watergate, talking about dirty tricks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7420-2005Apr21.html
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is emerging as a behind-the-scenes player in the battle over John R. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, privately telling at least two key Republican lawmakers that Bolton is a smart but very problematic government official.
"On two occasions, he has let it be known that the Bolton nomination is a bad one, to put it mildly."

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=69952
Mayor Bloomberg has refused a permit for the May Day March organized by the Troops Out Now Coalition and the Million Worker March. The march, which is expected to draw thousands of people from all over the region, will begin with a 1:00 pm rally in Union Square.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_5286.shtml
“It is dumbfounding that the United States government has placed a higher priority on the supposed privacy rights of Osama bin Laden than the public’s right to know what happened in the days following the September 11 terrorist attacks,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050422/D89KOOI80.html
The Army has cleared four top officers - including the three-star general who commanded all U.S. forces in Iraq - of all allegations of wrongdoing in connection with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and will not be punished, officials said Friday.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who became the senior commander in Iraq in June 2003, two months after the fall of Baghdad, had been faulted in earlier investigations for leadership lapses that may have contributed to prisoner abuse. He is the highest ranking officer to face official allegations of leadership failures in Iraq, but he has not been accused of criminal violations.

EPA Cheers Program cancelled, 1957 flu virus -- a bioweapon?

Did you know that Steve Johnson, the guy Bush wants to head the EPA, was trying to do a pesticides test in Florida that targeted poor children? They were offering $970 to families to expose their infant to five-year-olds to pesticides in the home for TWO YEARS. Infant guinea pigs, in other words.

The acting director of the Environmental Protection Agency Steve Johnson terminated a planned program testing pesticides on young children Friday afternoon. On Thursday, he faced stiff questioning from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who threatened to block his nomination to become director over the program during a Senate hearing. Sen. Boxer cheered the announcement of the program's cancellation.

"I am very pleased that Mr. Johnson has recognized the gross error in judgment the EPA made when they concocted this immoral program to test pesticides on children," Boxer said in a statement to RAW STORY . "The CHEERS program was a reprehensible idea that never should have made it out of the boardroom, and I am just happy that it was stopped before any children were put in harm’s way.I will continue to oppose policies that lead to the testing of toxins on humans," Boxer added.

The program, Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study, or CHEERS, involved families in Duval County, Florida that regularly used pesticides in their homes. Parents were offered $970 over two years if they promised to continue to use pesticides around their young children. Researchers then collected data every three to six months. Johnson said in his statement that the goal of CHEERS was aimed at increasing understanding of how pesticides affect children.

"As a scientist and a 24-year employee of the EPA, I have a deep passion for the Agency's mission to protect human health and the environment," Johnson said. "Continual review and reassessment is a fundamental aspect of scientific progress, and I am committed to ensuring that EPA's research is based on sound science with the highest ethical standards." Johnson suspended the study in the fall after "questions about the study design," he said. He asserted that "many misrepresentations about the study have been made."

What's to misrepresent, Mr. Johnson? Did you figure they would be exposed anyway, or was this some sort of eugenics campaign?

Also, the lab which sent out 5,000 samples of the deadly 1957 "Asian Flu" to labs all over the world is a DEFENSE contractor, Meridian Bioscience.

CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 9, 2005--Meridian Bioscience, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Viral Antigens, Inc. has entered the emerging biodefense market by providing contract services for Biodefense and Emerging Infections Resources.

Regulators have found problems at Meridian in the past. In 2001, the Food and Drug Administration cited the firm for "serious regulatory problems" involving some of its diagnostic products and declared them "adulterated" because the methods under which they were manufactured did not meet quality regulations.

Earnings were $9.1 million and net sales were $79.6 million for the fiscal year that ended in September, compared with sales of $65.9 million and earnings of $7 million a year earlier. Meridian Bioscience shares rose 4 cents to close at $15.12 Wednesday on the Nasdaq stock market.

Gee, let's hope these potential pandemic-causing samples were "adulterated". What if some wacky lab technician decides to do something awful with it instead of destroying it?

Interview with Gore Vidal

GORE VIDAL:

What is the Republican Party? Well, it used to be the party of the small-town businessman, generally in the Middle West, generally sort of out of the mainstream. Very conservative. It now represents nothing but the gas and oil business. They own it. And the people who go to Congress are simply bought. They are lawyers who are paid to represent Halliburton, big oil, big banking. So the very rich
corporate America has a party for itself, the Republican Party...

There is also something in the water that has made Americans contemptuous of intelligence whenever they recognize it, which is not very often. And a hatred of learning, which you don't find in any other
country. There's no one in America now who knows who Shakespeare is, because they stopped teaching him in high schools. So we are out of it. And noattempt is being made to put us back into it.

L&D ladies chat on their blog!

Chat with Ella Waldek, Ida May Martinez, Penny Banner and
Gladys "Killem" Gillem at their new blog:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/lipstick/
Here's a snip from Gladys:

I tell it like it is.... I have enjoyed a crazy life.

Not many people have done and seen what I have. I've heard
the roar of the crowd and people calling my name. That is
priceless and can never be taken away. I have enjoyed life all
the way. I'm 85 and still kicking.
The Lord don't want me, I'm too damm mean.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that after all this time
Ruth Leitman would give the first ladies of wrestling their rightful
place in history. Now our story will live on and not be forgotten.
I would not miss the opportunity to be at the premieres for
anything. I love meeting and talking to all the wonderful
people who have just been introduced to us, and the ones who
have been there throughout our careers. I always "tell it like it is"
and there is nothing I would like better than to sit and talk to you
and tell you some road stories.
"Ya'll come on out and see us."

Love,
Gladys

Ella Waldek takes charge