In the last few months, the small commercial air service to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been carrying people the military authorities had hoped would never be allowed there: American lawyers.
And they have been arriving in increasing numbers, providing more than a third of about 530 remaining detainees with representation in federal court. Despite considerable obstacles and expenses, other lawyers are lining up to challenge the government's detention of people the military has called enemy combatants and possible terrorists.
A meeting earlier this month in New York City at the law firm Clifford Chance drew dozens of new volunteer lawyers who attended lectures from other lawyers who have been through the rigorous process of getting the government to allow them access to Guantanamo.
The increase in lawyers for Guantanamo detainees was set in motion last June when the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration and said the prisoners there were entitled to challenge their detentions in federal courts.
The rate at which lawyers have stepped forward for the task may be a reflection of the changing public attitudes about Guantanamo Bay and its mission.
"In the beginning, just after 9/11, we couldn't get anybody," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group based in New York that is coordinating the assigning of lawyers to prisoners. The earliest volunteers, Mr. Ratner said, were those who regularly handled death-penalty clients and were accustomed to representing the reviled in near-hopeless cases.


The above is from Neil A. Lewis' "In Rising Numbers, Lawyers Head for Guantanamo Bay" in the New York Times.

Rachel e-mails to note Carlotta Gall's "Gunmen Kill Afghan Cleric Who Condemned Taliban Leaders:"

A senior pro-government cleric was shot dead in his office on Sunday in the southern city of Kandahar in a brazen attack by suspected Taliban supporters firing from a motorbike.
In Kabul, meanwhile, kidnappers of an Italian aid worker, Clementina Cantoni, released a videotape of her to a television station and demanded that the Italian authorities speed up negotiations for her release.
The cleric who was killed, Maulavi Abdullah Fayaz, leader of the Council of Clerics of Kandahar, was well known for his support for the government of President Hamid Karzai and his strong stance against the remnants of the Taliban leadership that continue to foment an insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan.


Eli notes Katharine Q. Seelye's "Ombudsmen Rebuff Move by Public Broadcasting:"


The Organization of News Ombudsmen, which represents nearly a hundred print and broadcast ombudsmen from around the world, more than half of them in the United States, voted at its annual conference here last week to change its bylaws to allow full membership only to those who work for news organizations. The corporation, a quasi-governmental organization, provides some federal funds for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System; it does not itself gather or produce news.
The change allows for the corporation's ombudsmen - and others in allied fields but who are not part of a news organization - to become associate members. As such, they are denied voting privileges and the stamp of legitimacy as independent ombudsmen that full membership would suggest.
"We want members who are responsive to readers, not to governments or lobby groups," said Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, who was president of the ombudsmen's organization until last week when his term ended and is the ombudsman for NPR. "I was worried about the political nature of the appointment and I was worried about the precedent."
The move is a rebuff to Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the corporation, who decided that the corporation should have two ombudsmen as a way to bring balance to what he sees as a liberal bias in public programming and an anti-Israeli bias in NPR's Middle East coverage. (A survey by the corporation itself has shown that viewers and listeners do not share those perceptions.)
The move could also heighten tensions between Mr. Tomlinson and NPR because of Mr. Dvorkin's role in opposing the corporation's appointees. Mr. Dvorkin abstained from voting on the matter and from presiding over discussions of it, ceding to complaints within his organization that he had a conflict of interest. But he was instrumental in setting the policy.

Eli notes that while he'll applaud the decision not to include the two, he'll refrain from personally applauding Dvorkin who initially met with one of the two CPB overseers (let's not call them ombdusmen) to discuss the application. Eli steers us to this section of Seelye's article:


One of the critics of Mr. Dvorkin's handling of the matter was Jamie Gold, the readers' representative at The Los Angeles Times, who protested by quitting her post as the organization's treasurer, resigning from its board and declining to attend the conference.
"It was the ONO president's attempt to manipulate the CPB ombudsmen's application process from the beginning that I objected to," Ms. Gold wrote in an e-mail. "ONO values transparency. Jeffrey Dvorkin could have taken steps early on to make the entire process - their membership application, their request to attend the conference - transparent by recusing himself and handing it over to the ONO board. He didn't."

And that's really it for anything that interests members or myself this morning. That's partly due to it being Monday and a holiday. Monday's are a traditionally slow day for the paper. (And probably has to do with the fact that on Sundays we do the "stories from outside the US" items so we've already covered a number of topics that will make the Monday paper.)

But we aren't yet done. We're about to do an editorial. And note that when I'm offering my opinion it should be considered an editorial or an op-ed. Members grasp that and are quite aware that I can be wrong and often am. And that I admit that openly. But a number of visitors seem to be confused over this so we'll note clearly that what follows is an EDITORIAL. (You can pretty much look at everything here that way. Whether it's from members or myself. Even what we we choose to highlight is an editorial -- from stories in the Times to announcements of events.)

EDITORIAL:

Three members have sent in a lengthy article on two US citizens arrested yesterday on charges that the reporters (Julia Preston and Michelle O'Donnell) are more than happy to repeat at length as well as public statements from officials. As members ask in their e-mails: So where's the other side?

There hasn't been a conviction but it's hard to tell that from the article. Two reporters for the Times (O'Donnell gets the byline) and the best they can do is to note a remark made in a Florida paper. Balance and "balance" are under a lot of criticism these days. Most of it deserved. If there's one area that balance is needed, it's when it has to do with criminal chrages. Trials convict, not the press.

I'm not seeing it in my edition of the paper, the story, but Lucy, Bryan and Kayla e-mailed it to the site. Possibly it's an early version of a story that will go into print tomorrow.

If that's the case, it should be pulled until the Times does something more than read a Florida newspaper (one of the two men is from Florida, the other from the Bronx). With Lawrence Franklin the point was made, here, from the start that he was under suspicion, that he had been charged, and that he had been convicted of nothing. I am not inclined to think favorably on Franklin on many political issues, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

I'll praise the Times for their restraint in leaping to conclusions regarding Franklin (while noting again that if they were to do an investigation of their own and come up with details, they should publish them).

I won't praise the reporting online today. A statement unearthed from a Florida paper and a statement from a neighbor who never spoke with the suspect from the Bronx doesn't count as balance. Especially considering the serious nature of the charges.

What's the paper to do if they can't get anyone to talk? Well for starters, don't turn the entire piece over to chatty cathy Paul J. Browne of the New York police department. Now maybe after taking down all that dictation, bodies and minds were too tired to seek out the other side. Not too tired to review the charges and the public statements made by other law enforcement agencies. And this statement: " There was no answer late last night at Mr. ____'s apartment on Grant Avenue in the Bronx." quite frankly doesn't cut it. The two men were arrested on Friday, in raids on their homes, and the Times only learned of it "yesterday."

These are serious charges and if the paper can't determine who the men's lawyers are (must be about the only speculation authorities didn't want to share with the reporters) and can't do much in the way of research other than a) a trip down to the Bronx where they find a neighbor who knows nothing about one suspect and b) reading a Florida newspaper than the story, as written, doesn't need to be online.

Chatty cathy authorities are usually chatty cathies for a reason. The Times knows that. To construct an entire article around what authorities with vested interests in the charges isn't the reason we have freedom of speech in this country. We have free speech in this country to hold those in authority accountable.

The story, based on the information the Times actually has, is a two paragraph story at best:

First paragraph:

Early Friday morning raids took place in the Bronk and in Florida to arrest ____ and ____ who are now charged with conspiring "to train and provide medical assistance to Al Qaeda terrorists." Attempts to determine whom was legal counsel for either men were unsuccesful.

Second paragraph would be a brief summary of the charges. And that would be it. Not what public statements the FBI made, not what public statements David N. Kelley made. Not what public statements the police made. And not what the chatty cathy told reporters directly.

The Times has one side of the story and by going into, at length, presenting the prosecution's side (and only that side), they aren't serving the public interest. If the two men are guilty, a court will determine that, not the Times being spoonfed statements from authorities and not some chatty cathys. Had the Times launched their own investigation and found details of guilt, by all means share that. However, that's not the case -- as is made obvious by the fact that the Times can't even determine the name or names of whom is representing the two men charged.

The Times may feel that they live in die by their official stories. In this instance, the burden of proof is on the prosecution and that case will have to be made in court. As for the paper, its burden is to present both sides of very serious charges. Official sources or not, this is still America and we still, at present, operate under the presumption of innocent until proven guilty -- even if two reporters choose not to act under that presumption.

If serious efforts were made, the article gives no indication that they were, and the two reporters came up empty handed, the article should have been a two paragraph story as noted above. If the reporters were then pressed by editorial staff for more details . . . That an editor for the paper did not see the problems with this story is very sad. Reporters can get too close to a story and editors are supposed to provide more than a spell check or fact check (at the Times editors are supposed to be the fact checkers), they are supposed to be ensuring perspective. That didn't happen here. Maybe someone had a bad day.

Or maybe it was thought that since it was just going online and possibly not in print it didn't matter. That's not the case. Three readers of the Times have already spotted and e-mailed this site. There's no telling how many others have spotted it and will continue to spot it throughout the day. (I've read it since it was sent in, so up the known count to four.) Rudith Miller and the training at Hack University aside, the role of the press is not to argue the prosectuion's case for it. The article, as it is, does not belong up at the Times' web site.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

A BRITISH soldier was killed and four others injured yesterday in Iraq as security forces launched a high-profile crackdown against terrorists in Baghdad.The troops were travelling in the Maysan region on their way to a planned meeting with Iraqi security officials when a roadside bomb exploded near the flashpoint town of Amara.The latest death brings the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq since the start of hostilities in March 2003 to 88.As insurgents used suicide bombings and ambushes to kill at least 17 people and al Qaeda said it had launched a new offensive of its own across the country, a US Marine also died in a bomb attack north-west of Baghdad.



Tori e-mailed the above from Scotland's The Herald. It's an excerpt from Billy Briggs' "Roadside bomb claims 88th British soldier."

Kara e-mails Martin Patience's "In unsettled times" from Scotland's Sunday Herald:


The mother-of-five has relatives who live a five-minute walk away, but because she cannot cross the road that leads to the settlement, Hassanat has to take a two-hour round-trip to see them.
But all that could change following the unilateral disengagement plan by Ariel Sharon’s government to withdraw from the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, scheduled to start by mid-July. Nehaya Hassanat and her husband Jaber would then be able to take the short stroll to their relatives' homes.
The Salah al-Din road that runs in front of their house means all Palestinians will be able to drive from the top to the bottom of the Gaza Strip in less than an hour.
"For sure, the people will be happy when they [the Israeli settlers] leave," said Jaber, who works for the Palestinian security services. "It will be easier for me to travel south."
In the past, the couple says, the orange groves behind their house have been used as a launch pad for attacks on the Netzarim settlement. Less than two weeks ago, members of the Islamic group Hamas had fired homemade Qassem rockets at the settlement. But Nehaya Hassanat said that she and her family had nothing to do with the attacks, and pleaded with the militants to stop firing the rockets from near her house, for fear of a reprisal attack by the Israeli army.

From Al Jazeera, we'll note "Ex-Sudan rebel warns of new crisis:"

UN chief Kofi Annan has met anex-rebel leader who told him thatthe post-war return of hundreds of thousands of refugees to their homesin southern Sudan is mushroominginto a humanitarian crisis.
John Garang, chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, told Annan at Rumbeik on Sunday that more than a quarter-million refugees have returned to homes around this former rebel stronghold since the signing of the January peace agreement with the Sudanese government in Khartoum. Now, Garang said, the war-ravaged region needs help feeding the returnees, who have not yet been able to go back to farming. "The UN food pipeline is empty," Garang told Annan.

There are some more entries for world news coming but I know a few people aren't on vacation and are waiting for something to go up here.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Brad just e-mailed this from Haaretz and we're going to post it as a single entry. It's Nathan Guttman's "Virginia grand jury to submit the indictments:"

The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file indictments against two former senior American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffers - Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman - and, according to sources familiar with the affair, the charges will be subsumed under the Espionage Act.
A Virginia grand jury is now examining the evidence in the case, which involved receipt of classified defense information from Larry Franklin, a Pentagon official, and its transfer to the representative of a foreign country, Naor Gilon, of the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Sources involved in the case confirmed that the Espionage Act is on the agenda. However, there is also the possibility that the Justice Department is raising the intention to use that law with the purpose of reaching a plea bargain concerning a lesser offense, albeit one that is still covered by anti-espionage legislation in the U.S.
Presumably, if indeed such an indictment is filed against two former top-level AIPAC staff members, then Gilon's name will come up, even though he is not a suspect. Israeli officials say he was never questioned in the affair. Gilon heads the political department at the embassy.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

My apologies to Kayla and anyone else waiting for Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts to go up. I got lost on BuzzFlash and in the e-mails.

Obviously, members have been there this weekend but before I note the e-mails from this morning and yesterday (sorry, I was working with The Third Estate Sunday Review, Betty and Rebecca most of the night and didn't have time to read e-mails until this morning), I want to note The Third Estate Sunday Review's editorial this week:


The Sunday Times has an article by Michael Smith entitled "RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war." It opens with the following:
THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.
Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime".
We realize that our readers are far more intelligent than the mainstream press corp but indulge us we address the above. The Bully Boy and his cohorts went around screaming that we didn't want a "mushroom cloud," that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. To accept those lies today, in the face of The Sunday Times of London's story, you have to accept that the Bully Boy was perfectly okay with the United States being attacked with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. If that were true, then the only response would be to call for an immediate impeachment. The leader of the country is not supposed to actively court the destruction of our nation.

As noted further down in the editorial, the link to this story was found at BuzzFlash. When everything but the editorial is done, we all usually go running to BuzzFlash and other sites to find a topic to advocate for being the editorial. There are usually several topics proposed and then there's a vote on which one to go with. This was the top of the page, large print, main headline on BuzzFlash and I doubt anyone went further down on the page (I know I didn't). But since I'm always running late on Sundays and since a lot of members are on vacation, I told myself I'd go back to the site after the entries here started go up. There's a lot up there (this isn't a slow news Sunday) so, besides what we're about to highlight, try to make a point to check out BuzzFlash today.


Charlie e-mailed BuzzFlash's GOP Hypocrite of the Week. Here's the opening:

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
As we mentioned a few honorees ago, BuzzFlash just can't keep up with the revelations of Republican sexual perversity. It's kind of brazenly breathtaking to see so many phonies indulge in such public affirmations of Puritanism and such private acts of hedonism.

Who is it? Click the link to find out.

Kara e-mailed, from BuzzFlash, Dr. Teresa Whitehurst's "A Meditation on Killing First and Asking Questions Later:"

After all the human carnage that’s gone on in Afghanistan and Iraq, I suppose it’s not too important to many Americans that our dog lovers in uniform have been forced to "go through towns shooting dogs" because they’re "suspected of carrying rabies." A young soldier, 19 years old, reported this sad assignment to my daughter a month or so ago, but quickly added, "I don’t want to talk about it."
Some will leap to defend whatever the US military deems necessary: "Well of course they have to shoot rabid dogs. They spread disease and when our boys kill them, it’s for the good of the Iraqi people." But most won’t even bother. After over 100,000 civilians and 1,600 US soldiers have died (not to mention the staggering numbers of permanently wounded and maimed Americans and Iraqis), what do dogs matter?

Cedric e-mailed Gloria R. Lalumia's "WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR MAY 27, 2005" from BuzzFlash, here's an excerpt:

REMAKING CENTRAL ASIA
By Ramtanu Maitra
Most major media outlets have spelled out with a profusion of details the "exact" events that led to the death of what some claim to have been hundreds of people in the eastern Uzbekistan town of Andijan on May 13. Led by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, the world media condemned much-maligned Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov for yet another bloody and ruthless suppression of "public dissent". Yet, all the details so far provided do not explain who the real players were or their end objectives.
It is certain, however, that the puzzle cannot be solved unless the London factor is understood. The answers lie in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Liverpool. The old British colonial establishment, with former intelligence officer Bernard Lewis as its mentor, appears to have set in motion a series of events that will bring endless bloodshed to Central Asia. London's objective would appear to be to keep both China and Russia under an open-ended threat. At this point, there is no one who can better serve this "Lewis Doctrine" than Muslims nurtured in Britain - the Hizbut-Tehrir (HT).

Ben e-mailed to note Bill Scher's Friday entry at Liberal Oasis:

Liberal Oasis is not keen on playing the sourpuss all week, but the “non-filibuster filibuster” that Dems laid on the Bolton nomination is nothing to get excited about.
Dems are contending it’s not really a filibuster because they aren’t extending debate in order to directly kill the nomination.
Only to delay a vote until the State Dept. coughs up info that the Senate deserves to review before a vote.
The gambit of course is that with delay comes hope that they can uncover damning evidence that would shake loose a few more uneasy Republicans and defeat Bolton outright.
Anything is possible, but the farce of the Foreign Relations Cmte vote -- which allowed the nomination to go to the full Senate without majority support -- should have taught Dems the lesson.

Elaine e-mailed to note CounterRecruiter's "37 Military Recruiters Go AWOL:"

"But the focus at the Defense Department has been on the excesses of desperate recruiters, 37 of whom reflected their frustration in trying to meet quotas by going AWOL over the last 2-1/2 years. The official response was a 24-hour stand-down in recruiting to review proper procedures. It also has been proposed that enlistments, now usually three to four years with a minimum of 24 months, be cut to 15 months."

Zach e-mailed to note David Sirota's "POLL: On Trade, Follow Lou Dobbs not Tom Friedman:"

Democrats are still engaged in a debate about whether to continue embracing Clinton-style corporate-written "free" trade deals, or whether to start putting America's middle-class first. If there was any debate about where the right place to go politically is, a new poll puts it to rest.Check out page 32 of this new Democracy Corps poll.
It pits the New York Times' Tom Friedman's "free" trade views up against CNN's Lou Dobbs' views on fair trade - and it shows Dobbs views destroy Friedman's in the public's mind. (Note to those of you who take issue with Dobbs on immigration, this is only on trade policy - not on anything else).
Sadly, the former Clintonites/Beltway insiders who put together this poll (some of whom like Stan Greenberg I do really admire) couldn't prevent their own biases from trying to skew the result: they could only bring themselves to write a headline that said a huge 54%-40% gap meant that "Lou Dobbs is ahead of Tom Friedman FOR NOW."

Okay, that covers things that members wanted highlighted. Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts will go up immediately after this (my apologies for the delay).

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

An arrest warrant has been issued for a rape counselor who refused to turn over records of her sessions with a former Air Force Academy cadet, one of the women whose allegations touched off a scandal that toppled the academy's leaders.
The counselor, Jennifer Bier, is fighting a subpoena in the court-martial of Second Lt. Joseph Harding, who is accused of sexually assaulting two women at the academy in 1999 and 2000. His lawyers say his right to a fair trial overrides the accuser's right to privacy.
[. . .]
"For me to betray a client renders my whole field null and void and I refuse to do that," she said.

The above is from the Associated Press' "Rape Counselor Faces Arrest for Refusal to Release Records:"

Lloyd e-mails to note the Associated Press' "Miami Official Prefers Paper Ballots:"


Miami-Dade County's elections chief has recommended getting rid of its A.T.M.-style voting machines, just three years after buying them for $24.5 million to avoid a repeat of the hanging and dimpled chads from the 2000 election.
The elections supervisor, Lester Sola, said in a memorandum on Friday that the county should switch to optical scanners that use paper ballots because voters were losing confidence in the paperless touch-screen machines and because those machines quadrupled Election Day labor costs.

Susan e-mails to note Jason DeParle's front page article entitled "Goals Reached, Donor on Right Closes Up Shop:"

In the budget offices of the right, the loss of Olin, though long anticipated, is bringing a stab of anxiety, as total annual giving of up to $20 million disappears from policy organizations, journals and academic aeries. Yet it is a measure of the foundation's success that the anxiety has not been greater. While a generation ago just three or four major foundations operated on the right, today's conservatism has no shortage of institutions, donors or brio.

Susan: For at least one of those fright wing donors, as Bob Dylan would put it, "It's All Over Now Baby Blue." I do have serious problems with two books being called "classics of the conservative canon." Both books have questionable scholarship. Allan Bloom supposedly critiques our modern civilization and it's decline but his "research" seems to be based primarily on one overheard conversation. As for Charles Murray, I thought his "classic" has long since been discredited. Had they used "popular" I would have less of a problem. But to me "classic" in regards to books is supposed to indicate quality, not popularity.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

In 2002, when the United States government seized Maher Arar as he changed planes in New York and took him to Syria, the reason was starkly stated in a Justice Department document: he was a member of Al Qaeda.
But no evidence of that has been made public in a judicial inquiry here into why Mr. Arar, a Canadian who was born in Syria, was sent to his native country, where he says he was beaten with a metal cable and held for 10 months in a tiny cell. Instead, it increasingly appears that Mr. Arar was singled out because his ties to other Muslims under suspicion in Ottawa were misinterpreted by jittery Canadian and American security officers.
American officials said in recent interviews that the decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria was made by the Justice Department after consultation with the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the National Security Council, and was based on secret information from Canadian security agencies. But a Canadian official who reviewed that information and other evidence said nothing persuasively connected Mr. Arar to any terrorist group.

The above is from Scott Shane's should be front page article entitled "The Costs of Outsourcing Interrogation: A Canadian Muslim's Long Ordeal in Syria." Instead it appears on A11 (David Johnston contributed to the report.)

Keesha e-mails to note Eric Lipton's "U.S. Is Set to Test Missile Defenses Aboard Airlines:"

In an airplane hangar north of Fort Worth, technicians are preparing to mount a fire-hydrant-shaped device onto the belly of an American Airlines Boeing 767. It is an effort that could soon turn into a more than $10 billion project to install a high-tech missile defense system on the nation's commercial planes.

The Boeing 767 - the same type of plane that terrorists flew into the World Trade Center - is one of three planes that, by the end of this year, will be used to test the infrared laser-based systems designed to find and disable shoulder-fired missiles. The missiles have long been popular among terrorists and rebel groups in war zones around the world; the concern now is that they could become a domestic threat.
The tests are being financed by the Department of Homeland Security, which has been directed by Congress to move rapidly to take technology designed for military aircraft and adapt it so it can protect the nation's 6,800 commercial jets. It has so far invested $120 million in the testing effort, which is expected to last through next year.

Wally e-mails to note Katrin Bennhold's "Chirac and Socialists Reel After a Debate on Europe:"

Even if the yes camp wins, both the center-right government of President Jacques Chirac and the opposition Socialist Party look badly wounded, and with the two main pillars of French democracy weakened, strategists of the far right and far left sense opportunities to enter the mainstream.
Mr. Chirac, the main proponent of the charter, could have ratified the constitution by a parliamentary vote, but under pressure from rivals in his party demanding a popular vote, he decided last year to call for a referendum. The subsequent months of debate, however, have become as much a funnel for discontent over his government as a debate about the European Union. Elected to his second term three years ago, with 82 percent of the vote, Mr. Chirac is now so weak that a third run in 2007 looks impossible, and his center-right government is adrift, in need of new leadership and ideas, said politicians, political analysts and party officials.

Lastly, Erika e-mails to note an article in the Times' Sunday Magazine (and she notes that she found it via BuzzFlash), Cynthia Gorney's "A Mothers' War:"


They were talking about military burial benefits as the waitress took the salad plates away, and one of them had come up with something perversely humorous even on this subject, so they had been laughing. Now there was a brief, comfortable silence. They had one of the back rooms at Boone Tavern in downtown Columbia, Mo., where they usually go. It was a Friday night in February, and because one woman had other plans, there were only five of them, which made the big, round table seem too large. Instead of spacing themselves around it, they had taken seats along one side, closer to one another.
Patricia said, ''I had a doorbell moment this week.''
Tracy Della Vecchia looked up quickly and watched Patricia's face. Tracy's son had gone to high school with Patricia's son, so Tracy and Patricia knew of each other during the years when all the teenagers would hole up drinking beer in the barn on Tracy's property. But now their sons were 22 and in the same Marine unit in Iraq, and Tracy knows things about Patricia that she has never known about another person before. Tracy knows that clipped to Patricia's refrigerator is a list of things to remember in case the telephone rings in the middle of the night and it's Patricia's son calling from a camp somewhere just to talk. Tracy knows that the grandfather clock in Patricia's house chimes nine times when the other clocks say it's noon because the grandfather clock is set to Baghdad time. Tracy knows that Patricia has figured out how to tell if someone is in her driveway by squinting at the reflection off a certain glass-covered picture in the dining room, so that if it should ever be two men in uniform, Patricia will know they have arrived before they start ringing the bell and before she is obliged to look directly at them and hear what they have come to say.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

From the "about the show" page for Air America's The Laura Flanders Show:

In his first interview with the US media, freed Guantanamo Bay detainee, Martin Mubanga tells Laura Flanders 'What Really Happened at Guantanamo Bay'. Read the article, or LISTEN to the interview, first broadcast on The Laura Flanders Show on Sunday, May 22, 2005.

The article "What Really Happened at Guantanamo Bay?" is posted at AlterNet. Here's an excerpt:

Laura Flanders: Did Newsweek lie about abuse of the Qu'ran? What did you see?
Martin Mubanga: From my own personal experience and from what I know of what occurs in Guantanamo Bay, this is actually an ongoing thing for the past three years, so we don't need Newsweek to corroborate or substantiate these accusations. We who have been in Guantanamo Bay know that these and other things occur in degradation of our religion.
You described a situation where your cell was searched by six or seven military police and a Qu'ran was thrown to the ground. Can you explain why that was so offensive to you?
In our religion, firstly, the Qu'ran is believed to be the word of God, who we refer to as Allah in our religion. Basically the Qu'ran is supposed to be treated with respect and most people believe that the Qu'ran should be placed in a high place in a house or only taken with respect in a certain condition of purification or ablution. It's never to be placed on a floor, on a dirty floor or to be treated or to be mishandled in any way.
What did those six or seven military police do?
At the time, there was a story going around that I was supposed to be a top-notch fighter, as they said, and they tried to provoke me in many ways to see what I could do. This was one of the methods that was used to see if I would fight and I believe that's why they chose me on this particular occasion and threw the Qu'ran on the floor.

To read more, click the link.

One more time, Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, will be on The Laura Flanders Show tonight.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

The Laura Flanders Show (7pm to 10 pm eastern time, Saturdays and Sundays on Air America Radio) gets its own entry (actually two, another to follow). Yes, it's one of the favorite shows of members (and a favorite of mine) but Matthew Rothschild will be on tonight so we really need to note that since he's also a favorite of the community. (Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive.)

Here's Saturday's line up again:

On Saturday, what's worth fighting for? Did the Senate's Dems cave too soon? And what does a fallen soldier's mom want from Donald Rumsfeld? We’ll get a reality check on Priscilla Owen and Tom Delay’s convicted treasurer from DEECE ECKSTEIN, director of People for the American Way in Texas. Then, yes - Bush and his top cammanders did commit war crimes - and should be held accountable. Progressive magazine Editor MATT ROTHCHILD on his explosive new article. And SUE NIEDERER on her letter to Rummy. Plus NED SUBLETTE, who created Cowboy Rumba music, on his new book extolling Cuban music.

Sunday is a compilation but one worth listening to:

On Sunday, best-ofs on telling the truth about war. We start with REG KEYS, who lost a son in Iraq and ran against Prime Minister Tony Blair in his hometown, Sedgefield, England. Then, what to do when military recruiters come to your school? We'll talk to TODD BOYLE on efforts to limit military recruiting in high schools and Colorado High School journalist DAVID MCSWANE on how he went undercover and taped recruiters telling him to lie. The hear MOLLY IVINS rip on the Downing St. Memo on fixed facts for war. That and more thoughts about the political animals running amok in Washington. Plus MEDEA BENJAMIN, co-founder of CodePink and co-editor of 'STOP THE NEXT WAR NOW: Effective responses to Violence and Terrorism.' and a British Member of Parliament BRIAN SEDGEMORE, who left the Labour Party to protest Tony Blair's lies on Iraq and a conservative takeover of his country's judiciary.

Note, this isn't a repeat of one show. This is compilation. I missed Medea Benjamin's interview (I had a really intense headache that night and focused on getting the what-are-they-reporting-in-the-rest-of-the-world posts up as quickly as possible and then called a night) so here's a chance to hear it. Molly Ivins was funny and insightful (Kayla, make sure you listen). I'm remembing Reg Keys (strong interview) but I'm blanking on Brian Sedgemore and Todd Boyle, but I'm sure that, as with David McSwane whose interview I do remember, those are interviews worth hearing.

Remember that you can listen on the radio if you have satellite or have a station in your area that carries AAR (fifty-six cites currently carry it). In addition, you can listen online via Real Player or Windows Media Player. (And, if you do not have RP or WMP, you can install it at the listen live page.)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Weekend schedule for Air America's programs from the Air America home page. Please note, I've rearranged them so that they appear in the order they originally air.

Saturday:

So What Else is News?
Summer is right around the corner, but does that mean we have to burn lots of gas on the way to our meaningless vacations? This weekend on So What Else Is News, get travel tips that can change the world. Plus, a summer movie preview you won't hear anywhere else. With host Marty Kaplan.
[Note: So What Else Is News? airs Saturday at 3 5 pm eastern time. It repeats on Sundays at the same time.]

Ring of Fire
Saturday: Yoshi Tsumari, professor of international business at Baruch College,City University of New York, reminisces about an innocent and ignorant former student: George W. Bush. Bobby welcomes Bobby Muller, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Charles Mathis, veteran of the civil rights struggle, talks to Mike about the Republican spin on African-American voters. 5-7PM
[Note: Ring of Fire repeats on Sundays at the same time.]

The Laura Flanders Show
Saturday and Sunday 3 to 7 pm.Saturday: We’ll get a reality check on Priscilla Owen, and Tom Delay’s convicted treasurer from DEECE ECKSTEIN, director of People for the America Way in Texas. Then, yes - Bush and his top commanders did commit war crimes - and should be held accountable. Progressive magazine Editor MATT ROTHCHILD on his explosive new article . And SUE NIEDERER on her letter to Rummy. Plus NED SUBLETTE, who created Cowboy Rumba music , on his new book extolling Cuban music.
Sunday, Best of the truth about war: REG KEYS, who lost a son in Iraq and ran against Prime Minister Tony Blair's party in Sedgefield, England. Then, TODD BOYLE on military recruiting in high schools and Colorado High School journalist DAVID MCSWANE on how he taped recruiters telling him to lie. Hear MOLLY IVINS rip on the Downing St. Memo and the political animals running amok in Washington. Plus MEDEA BENJAMIN, co-founder of CodePink and co-editor of 'STOP THE NEXT WAR NOW.' Finally, British MP BRIAN SEDGEMORE, who left the Labour Party to protest Tony Blair's lies on Iraq.

Kyle Jason
Saturday: Special best of show! 10-12AM

Sunday

EcoTalk
Sunday 7-8 pm. Join veteran broadcast journalist Betsy Rosenberg for an hour of hard-hitting questions and candid answers about the health of our planet—and learn what you can do about it.

Politically Direct
Sunday: David takes a Memorial Day walk down "short term" memory lane! Best of Politically Direct guests Senators Hillary Clinton, Robert Byrd, Dick Durbin, actors Alec Baldwin and Whoopi Goldberg and PGAW president Raplh Neas. 2-3pm

Here is where Saturday's episodes of So What Else Is News? and Ring of Fire repeat.

The Laura Flanders Show
Sunday 3 to 7 pm.
Sunday, Best of the truth about war: REG KEYS, who lost a son in Iraq and ran against Prime Minister Tony Blair's party in Sedgefield, England. Then, TODD BOYLE on military recruiting in high schools and Colorado High School journalist DAVID MCSWANE on how he taped recruiters telling him to lie. Hear MOLLY IVINS rip on the Downing St. Memo and the political animals running amok in Washington. Plus MEDEA BENJAMIN, co-founder of CodePink and co-editor of 'STOP THE NEXT WAR NOW.' Finally, British MP BRIAN SEDGEMORE, who left the Labour Party to protest Tony Blair's lies on Iraq.

The Revolution Starts Now
Sunday: Steve hosts Michael Penn, acclaimed songwriter in the 80's who also scored the films Hard Eight and Boogie Nights. 10-11PM

On The Real
Sunday: Chuck D. is back on the air and talking to the one and only Jamie Foxx. 11-1AM

Note: This is the debut of Chuck D's new show On the Real. Chuck D, Lizz Winstead and Rachel Maddow hosted the gone but not forgotten Unfiltered. If Air America wanted to extend an olive branch to those still smarting over the cancellation of Unfiltered, they could bring Lizz Winstead back on the airwaves with her own show.

From the home page, we'll again note this item on Chuck D's show:


Air America News
Chuck D back "On the Real"
Air America Radio expands its programming with "On the Real," an inspirational Sunday night show co-hosted by Public Enemy founder and previous Unfiltered host, Chuck D and writer, actress, producer Gia Garel. "On the Real" launches Sunday, May 29th from 11:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m. ET. Actor Jamie Foxx will be included in the guest line-up.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]