The Bush administration and Senate Republican leaders are pushing a plan that would significantly expand the F.B.I.'s power to demand business records in terror investigations without obtaining approval from a judge, officials said on Wednesday.
The proposal, which is likely to be considered next week in a closed session of the Senate intelligence committee, would allow federal investigators to subpoena records from businesses and other institutions without a judge's sign-off if they declared that the material was needed as part of a foreign intelligence investigation.

Apparently to the Fourth Amendment, we, in the words of Billy Joel, "say goodbye, my baby." ("Say Goodbye to Hollywood.") The above excerpt is from Eric Lichtblau's "Plan Would Broaden F.B.I.'s Terror Role."

Please note the ACLU's "Is The FBI Spying On You."

The ACLU has launched a nationwide effort to expose and prevent FBI spying on people and groups simply for speaking out or practicing their faith. As a first step, the ACLU and its affiliates have filed Freedom of Information Act requests in more than a dozen states. Although the FBI has refused to turn over most of the files, we have obtained evidence (pdf) that confirms the FBI and local police, working through Joint Terrorism Task Forces, are spying on political, environmental, anti-war and faith-based groups. We think the public deserves to know who is being investigated and why. We have sued (pdf) the FBI and the Department of Justice to get those answers.
Our clients comprise advocates for causes including the environment, animal rights, labor, religion, Native American rights, fair trade, grassroots politics, peace, social justice, nuclear disarmament, human rights and civil liberties. When the FBI invades the privacy of political and religious groups in the name of fighting terrorism, it abuses our trust and freedom.

There are numerous resources on the page linked above but please take note of "Documents Obtained by ACLU Expose FBI and Police Targeting of Political Groups:"

The American Civil Liberties Union charged today that the FBI and local police are engaging in intimidation based on political association and are improperly investigating law-abiding human rights and advocacy groups, according to documents obtained through a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. ACLU affiliates today filed FOIA requests seeking similar documents in ten states.
"Since when did feeding the homeless become a terrorist activity?" asked ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "When the FBI and local law enforcement target groups like Food Not Bombs under the guise of fighting terrorism, many Americans who oppose government policies will be discouraged from speaking out and exercising their rights."
In response to widespread complaints from students and political activists who said they were questioned by FBI agents in the months leading up to last summer’s political conventions, the ACLU filed FOIA requests in six states and the District of Columbia in December 2004 on behalf of more than 100 groups and individuals. To date, the ACLU has received fewer than 20 pages in response to the FOIAs.
The ACLU charged that the FBI is wrongfully withholding thousands of pages of documents, and today filed a lawsuit in federal court to compel the FBI to comply with the FOIA requests. The complaint seeks files kept by the FBI on the ACLU, as well as Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
The ACLU said that the few documents received to date through the December FOIA requests shed light on the FBI’s misuse of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to engage in political surveillance. In Colorado, one memo indicates an ongoing federal interest in Food Not Bombs, a group that provides free vegetarian food to hungry people and protests war and poverty,
The same memo suggests that an FBI interview of Sarah Bardwell and call to Scott Silber prior to last fall’s political conventions were intended as a means of intimidation. The FBI notes that although they did not obtain information about criminal activity from either student, it was unnecessary to contact others in the area as the "purpose of the interviews was served."

I'm going through the paper and not finding anything on this. Rachel Maddow discussed on The Rachel Maddow Show yesterday. Is the Times covering this?

Wally e-mails to note Douglas Jehl's "2 Sides in Bolton Debate Take Positions for Next Stage of Fight:"


One message circulated by a Bolton aide on June 7, 2002, contains a still classified draft letter from Mr. Bolton and Mr. Reich that is addressed to George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence.
The draft "urged the immediate replacement" of Mr. Armstrong and indicated that Mr. Bolton and Mr. Reich would take several measures on their own, including excluding Mr. Armstrong from official meetings at the State Department and official travel in the Western Hemisphere, the Democratic report says.
It cites a reply by a State Department official who reported that he had discussed the matter with Mr. Bolton, and said that Mr. Bolton "would prefer at this point to handle this in person with Tenet."

Martha e-mails to note an Associated Press article entitled "3 Colombians Held in U.S. Drug Smuggling:"

The authorities have arrested three Colombians, including a former serviceman, on charges of helping American soldiers who are accused of smuggling cocaine to the United States aboard an American military aircraft, the Colombian Air Force said Wednesday.
Five United States military personnel were previously arrested in the case, which caused widespread anger in Colombia. One suspect has been released, but the others are being held at an undisclosed location in the United States.

Richard W. Stevenson quotes Bully Boy (with a straight face) "Bush Says Patience Is Needed
as Nations Build a Democracy." He's learned his lessons well while serving under Elisbeth Bumiller on the Elite Fluff Patrol. I understand that besides nations needing patience to build democracy, nations need truth to decide whether or not to wage war. We'll assume that was on an index card Bully Boy didn't have time to get to because he was too busy doing air guitar and posing as Slash while informing us all that "We just need a little patience, yeah, yeah, yeah, just a little patience." Did Guns 'N Roses make his iPod list that Elisabeth Bumiller compiled recently?

Lynda e-mails to note Monica Davey's "Those Who Outgrow Foster Care Still Struggle, Study Finds:"


As the definition of adulthood has shifted in this country and young people are living with their parents even into their 20's, one group has been mostly left behind in this phenomenon: thousands of people who grow up in foster care.
Nationally each year, some 20,000 youths who were once removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect leave their second home - the child welfare system - because they get too old for it. In some states, they are allowed to stay on until they turn 21, but in many more places, they "age out" when they turn 18.
And that, the authors of a new study to be released on Thursday by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago say, can have devastating consequences. The study, which is believed to be the broadest of its kind in 20 years, looked at a rarely examined group - more than 600 young people, mostly 19 years old and in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, who recently left foster care or will soon do so.

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

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

Dahr Jamail has a new post up at Iraq Dispatches. Here's an excerpt:

Yesterday Hassan Nuaimi, high ranking member of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) was found dead in Baghdad. One of his arms was broken and a hole was drilled into the side of his head.
This coming the day after the AMS had accused the Shia led governmnet of state sponsored terrorism by using the Badr Brigades to murder Sunnis.
In response to the murdering of Nuaimi, two Shia clerics were gunned down in Baghdad yesterday.
Harith al-Dhari, head of the AMS, blamed the Shia Badr Brigades for the recent spate of killings of Sunni clerics in the country.
Dhari, making a statement that could be interpreted as an announcement of civil war, said Sunnis would not keep silent over the killings.
"We are heading towards a catastrophe, only God knows when it will end, this is a warning from us," he said angrily.
The Badr Brigades were in exile in Iran during much of Saddam's rule, and returned to Iraq after the invasion and have been a fully operational militia in Iraq ever since. I have seen their members in full uniform and with heavy weapons in Baghdad during a Shia demonstration last summer. The Badr Brigades was headed for years by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance who won the largest percentage of votes in the January 30 "election."
There has been a low-grade civil war going on for quite some time-but now the veil has been ripped off by the statements made by Dhari.

For those wondering where the posts are tonight, we're working on one on Okrent. We're includes Dallas and Shirley who are hunting down links to statements quoted in some e-mails.
The post is being worked on and if we can't find a link to a quote after X-number of attempts, we'll have to leave those comments that were intended to be public out.

The Okrent post will go up tonight.

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

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

We'll note the upcoming dates for Amy Goodman's Un-Embed The Media Tour. Shirley noted that some of the dates we posted earlier now had more details. This covers all dates for the rest of this month through June as announced at the Un-Embed The Media home page.

San Francisco, CA:
Friday, May 20, 7:30 PM
U.S. premiere of the documentary,
Helen's War: Portrait of a Dissident,
with Dr. Helen Caldicott of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute
and Julia Butterfly Hill
Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street at Market
San Francisco
$25 for the event ($15 student/seniors) and $100 for the event and reception following the film with Dr. Caldicott, Amy Goodman and Julia Butterfly Hill.
To purchase advance tickets online or print out a mail-in order form, visit www.nuclearpolicy.org/EventArticle.cfm?EventID=91

Philadelphia, PA:
Saturday,
May 21,
4:15 PM
Sustainable Business Network of Philadelphia
Keynote speech,
The Importance of Independent Media
Law School of the University of Pennylvania
3401 Sansom St.
www.sbnphiladelphia.org

Ashland, WI:
Saturday,
May 28,
2:30 PM
Northland College Commencement
Alvord Theatre
1411 Ellis Avenue
Ashland, WI 54806
For more information, visit www.northland.edu

Ashland, WI:
Saturday,
May 28,
8 pm
Kendrigan Gymnasium
Northland College
1411 Ellis Ave
Ashland WI 54806
Tickets: $10.00 general admission, $5.00 studentsFor more information, visit www.northland.edu

Los Angeles, CA:
Sunday,
May 29,
8:00 PM
11th Annual Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed Conference
Co-hosted by the Center for Theatre of the Oppressed; and Applied Theatre Arts, Los Angeles; and CAFE of the Paulo Freire Instute, UCLA
Renaissance Hollywood Hotel
1755 North Highland
Hollywood, California
Tickets for this event:
The Saturday through Tuesday Conference tickets are available online at PTO Website
Tickets for the Saturday, 8:00 PM event: $10 donation, available at the door
For more information, call (213) 740-6673

New York, NY:
Wednesday,
June 1,
6:30 PM
First Annual New York Civic Participation Project Bridge Builders Awards Reception
SEIU Local 32BJ
101 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY
This is a fundraising awards dinner for NYCPP.
Amy Goodman will be the program MC.
For tickets, visit www.nycpp.org, and click on the "Upcoming Events" link.

Riccione, Italy, :
Friday,
June 3 &4
9 pm
IIlaria Alpi Journalistic Television Awards
4 pm: Seminar organized by Tavola Della Pace
9 pm: Traditional Round Table
Palazzo del TurismoRiccione, Italy
This event is free and open to the public
For more information, visit www.ilariaalpi.it/premio

New York, NY:
Tuesday,
June 7,
12:30-2 PM
National Council for Research on Women's Annual Conference
Panel discussion
365 5th Avenue
New York City
Registration fee for conference:$70 for Tuesday only. For more information, visit www.ncrw.org

Croton-on-Hudson, NY:
Saturday,
June 18
Saturday, June 18 or Sunday, June 19
Clearwater Festival
Croton Point Park

Amy Goodman and her brother David Goodman have written Exceptions to the Rulers (as every member of this community knows) and is out in paperback. You can purchase a copy at the Un-Embed The Media Tour web site or you can purchase a copy at BuzzFlash and many other places online. You can also find it at your local bookstores (it's a bestselling book) and at your libraries.

Since we get more and more visitors, in case anyone doesn't know Amy Goodman, they can see her work at Democracy Now! and they can read Lizzy Ratner's "Amy Goodman's 'Empire" from The Nation.

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

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

Democracy Now!: (Marcia: "always worth watching"):
Headlines for May 18, 2005
- Los Angeles Elects First Latino Mayor in 130 Years
- Bush Administration Moves Toward the Weaponization of Space
- U.S. Officials Arrest Anti-Castro Cuban Militant in Miami
- CIA Assassinates Al Qaeda Suspect in Pakistan
- Rep. McDermott Calls for Depleted Uranium Investigation
- Ex-Haitian PM Neptune Enters 2nd Month of Hunger Strike
- Media Reform Group Calls For Ouster of CPB Head Tomlinson
- Protesters Gather Outside Halliburton Shareholder Meeting

U.S. Arrests Anti-Castro Cuban Tied To 1976 Airline Bombing
Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles was arrested in Miami shortly after he gave a press conference. Despite having been jailed on terrorism charges in Venezuela and Panama, Carriles managed to sneak into the United States in March in order to seek political asylum.

Attorney: Former Detainees Have Repeatedly Accused U.S. of Desecrating Koran at Guatanamo
In August 2003, 23 Yemeni detainees reportedly tried to commit mass suicide after a guard stomped on the Koran. In addition, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights reported former detainees said they saw the Koran being thrown into the toilets. Three British citizens released last year from Guantanamo reported similar treatment of the Koran in a 115-page dossier on the conditions at the detention camp.

British MP Galloway Slams U.S. War in Iraq & Ties to Saddam During Senate Testimony
On Tuesday British politician George Galloway testified in Washington as part of the Senate's so-called oil for food scandal. Galloway said "This is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth." [includes rush transcript]

Los Angeles Elects First Latino Mayor in 130 Years
Antonio Villaraigosa, a son of a Mexican immigrant, defeated incumbent Mayor Jim Hahn. Villaraigosa took about 59 percent of votes against 41 percent for Hahn, who beat Villaraigosa in a bitter 2001 election. [includes rush transcript]

25 Years Ago: The Kwangju Massacre in South Korea
Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez looks back at the 1980 pro-democracy uprising that ended when South Korean soldiers opened fire. The official body count was 500. Some human rights groups have estimated the number of dead as high as 2,000. Despite his public policy of supporting human rights, U.S. President Jimmy Carter refused to back the pro-democracy protesters in South Korea. [includes rush transcript]

Over at The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby's addressing Newsweek, the Times coverage of Janice Rogers Brown and other topics. We'll focus on the Times coverage (but read his points regarding Newsweek -- they are worth reading) for the excerpt below:

NO FILIBUSTERS ON SUBSTANCE: As Dems prepare to filibuster that first pair of judges, the national press keeps it short and sweet. This morning, Neil Lewis profiles Janice Rogers Brown in the paper of record. Incredibly, this is his only attempt to examine the claim that Brown is a judicial activist:
LEWIS (5/18/05): The Supreme Court case cited most often for the idea that Justice Brown might inject her views into court opinions is San Remo Hotel v. San Francisco in 2002. The majority upheld a requirement, intended to maintain low-cost housing, that owners pay a fee to demolish a residential hotel. In her dissent, Justice Brown said the city had engaged in theft of the property. ''Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery,'' she wrote. ''Turning a democracy into a kleptocracy does not enhance the stature of the thieves, it only diminishes the legitimacy of the government.''
Incredibly, that's the entire discussion of the San Remo case, and Lewis mentions no other case where Brown is alleged to have inappropriately "injected her views" into court decisions. If readers want to know what this fuss is about, they'll have to take their business somewhere else.
But then, Lewis gave the same cursory treatment to Justice Priscilla Owen on Monday. [. . .]
Do you want to know why people claim that Brown and Owen are activist judges? To all appearances, you won't find out from reading the Times. We can find no news reports in the past six months which examine this question in more detail--and this morning, Lewis gives you exactly one paragraph. But so it goes in our modern press corps--a cohort with an almost pathological aversion to exploring matters of substance. This week, Democrats will talk and talk about the activist pair. Providing balance, the Times keeps it brief.

From CounterPunch Seth e-mails Dave Lindorff's "The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act Even Worse:"

The administration has been arguing for renewal or for making the provisions permanent, but a coalition of conservative and liberal groups calling itself Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, has expressed hopes of convincing a majority of the Judiciary Committees of both House and Senate to modify those and several other rights-threatening measures in the PATRIOT Act before sending the renewal legislation to the full Congress in June.
This surprise move by the Intelligence Committee, which is packed with senators from both parties who have not been particularly friendly to civil libertarians, appears to be an end run by supporters of the White House.
Says Lisa Graves, intelligence lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, "This is an effort by the administration to get everything they want. It is an outrage." Graves says the move suggests that the administration and its congressional backers fear that they could lose in the Judiciary Committee, and are hoping to present the bill they want as a fait accompli and then call anyone who tries to weaken it "soft on terror."
"This is a radical bill," Graves says of the Intelligence Committee work-in-progress. She says her sources tell her that besides making the controversial sunset provisions of the PATRIOT Act permanent, the Intelligence Committee version of the revised act would greatly expand one of its most dangerous provisions, the administrative subpoena. "It would allow administrative subpoenas for virtually anything held by a third party, such as bank or phone or medical records, with only the merest unsubstantiated hint of a foreign connection." Equally troubling, she says, the Intelligence Committee version of the bill would strip out a current bar on using warrantless administrative subpoenas in cases that involved primarily protected First Amendment activities, such as legitimate political protest.

Beth e-mailed to note Matthew Rothschild's latest "This Just In" entitled "The Newsweek Retraction:"

Newsweek's retraction of its story about the U.S. interrogator at Guantanamo flushing a Koran down the toilet raises serious questions about the state of journalism in America.
The threshold question is whether the initial story was true.
"We are not in a position to know that," Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor, told the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Whitaker explained that the anonymous high-level government source the magazine relied on could not reconfirm the story in all its details, though the source said "he thought he had still seen something," Whitaker said.
Of course, there are issues of journalistic practice at stake here, as well. Should journalists use anonymous sources, and should editors run a story based on only one such source? In Newsweek's defense, it did ask the Pentagon for comment, even showing the whole story to a senior Pentagon official who did not take issue with the Koran bit, according to Whitaker.
But beyond Journalism 101, there is something much more troubling here.
Did Newsweek cave?

Please note, those who read "This Just In" regularly (which includes myself), this is a lengthier one than usual. The cut off point for the pull quote seemed to fall naturally with "Did Newswee cave?" Click the link to read the rest.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Judith Miller covers the George Galloway Senate appearence for the Times today. We won't link to it. You can search out the article for yourself by going to the Times web site.

Instead, we'll note Common Dreams has posted Galloway's speech. Here's an excerpt:

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.
"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.
[. . .]
"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.
“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.
"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.
"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.
"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

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

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

Uzbekistan acknowledged Tuesday that its crackdown last week on an antigovernment demonstration and a prison break had been far more violent than it previously described, saying 169 people had been killed, including 32 government troops.
President Islam A. Karimov said Saturday that only 10 soldiers and a larger but unspecified number of "rebels" had been killed.
Despite the big increase in the casualty figures, announced at a news conference in Tashkent by Mr. Karimov and Prosecutor General Rashid Kadyrov, the government's total still was far below the estimates of survivors and witnesses, who have put the death toll in the hundreds.

The above is from C.J. Chivers' "Under Pressure, Uzbek President Raises Death Toll From Clashes" in this morning's New York Times.

Elisabeth Bumiller has an article in today's paper (not a "White House Letter" op-ed). We have one e-mail noting frivolity in the paper today.

Kara: Thank God the paper continues to set aside so much valuable space to the very pressing issue of steroid abuse in professional sports. I hope they'll next launch into a detailed examination of recreational drug use among rock stars.

That's right. Bumiller appears and for a change reigns in some of the fluffing. (Bumiller didn't write the steroid article.)

From her article "White House Presses Newsweek in Wake of Koran Report:"

Republicans close to the White House said that although President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were genuinely angered by the Newsweek article, West Wing officials were also exploiting it in an effort to put a check on the press.
"There's no expectation that they're going to bring down Newsweek, but there is a feeling that there is no check on what you guys do," said one outside Bush adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified as talking about possible motives of the White House.

Franciso notes Abby Goodnough's "U.S. Arrests Cuban Exile Accused in Deadly '76 Airline Bombing:"

Immigration officials arrested Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile suspected in a deadly airplane bombing and other attacks, on Tuesday, weeks after he slipped into the United States and shortly after he withdrew an application for political asylum.
The Bush administration, which had been mostly silent about Mr. Posada's presence and until Tuesday denied knowing if he was even in the country, faced growing pressure from Cuba and its ally Venezuela to extradite him. Critics had questioned why the United States would not root out a suspected terrorist, even one hailed by Cuban exiles as a freedom fighter against Fidel Castro.
As the Department of Homeland Security detained the 77-year-old Mr. Posada, hundreds of thousands of Cubans in Havana participated in a protest march against him, which Mr. Castro described as "against terrorism and in favor of our people's life and peace." Mr. Castro had furiously accused Mr. Bush of sheltering Mr. Posada, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative, in recent weeks.

Gina e-mails to note Shaila Dewan and Ariel Hart's "F.B.I. Discovers Trial Transcript in Emmett Till Case:"


The copy, described as faint and barely legible, is the only publicly known record of the trial, in which an all-white jury in Tallahatchie County, Miss., acquitted the defendants. Both men, who later confessed the crime to Look magazine, are now dead. The investigation seeks to determine whether anyone still living may also have been involved.
Emmett was a 14-year-old Chicagoan who was visiting relatives in the town of Money when, accused of whistling at a white woman, he was dragged from his bed, beaten beyond recognition and shot, his body dumped into the Tallahatchie River. A photograph of his grotesquely misshapen face at his funeral became emblematic of Jim Crow horror.
Robert J. Garrity Jr., the F.B.I.'s special agent in charge in Mississippi, said in an interview yesterday that the newly found transcript would allow investigators to review the testimony of witnesses who are now dead and also compare living witnesses' accounts today with what they said in court 50 years ago.

Rob e-mails Marc Lacey's "The Mournful Math of Darfur: The Dead Don't Add Up:"

Darfur's dead have been tossed into the bottoms of wells, dumped into mass graves, interred in sandy cemeteries and crudely cremated. Children have been snatched from the arms of their mothers and thrown into fires, villagers dragged on the ground behind horses and camels by ropes strung around their necks.
[. . .]
Is the death toll between 60,000 and 160,000, as Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick told reporters during a recent trip to the region?
Or is it closer to the roughly 400,000 dead reported recently by the Coalition for International Justice, a Washington-based nongovernmental organization that was hired by the United States Agency for International Development to try to determine whether the killing amounts to genocide. (Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called the Darfur killing genocide last year, but Mr. Zoellick has studiously avoided the issue.) The State Department has said the higher mortality figures offered by some groups are "skewed" by overestimates of the number of deaths from violence in Darfur, rather than from disease and other causes.


Liang e-mails to note Joseph Kahn's "China Calls Off Rights Conference:"


China canceled an international conference on human rights, the rule of law and democracy days before it was scheduled to convene in Beijing this week, disappointing scholars who had hoped the event would help spur political openness in the one-party state.
The three-day conference had been scheduled to begin Thursday, but several participants said they were notified in the past two days that the event would not be held. Many had planned to board flights for China on Wednesday.
No reason was cited, these participants said, and there was no word on whether the event would be rescheduled.

Chrissy e-mails to note a Reuters' article "Reservist Gets Six-Month Sentence for Abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib:"

A United States Army reservist convicted of attaching wires to an Iraqi prisoner in a photographed scene that brought waves of public outrage was sentenced Tuesday to six months in prison.
A military jury at the nation's largest Army base recommended the prison term for the soldier, Specialist Sabrina Harman, 27. She will also receive a bad conduct discharge. The charges carried a maximum potential sentence of five and a half years; the prosecution had asked for three years. She was credited with 51 days already served.

Chrissy wonders why the Times "with their big pool of reporters has no one covering this trial?"

Good question. Where are the reporters from the Times on the Associated Press story that Hank notes "2 Officers Punished in 2003 for Abusing Iraqi Detainees?" From that article:

Two Army officers staged mock executions of Iraqi prisoners in 2003 and were given career-ending punishments, according to military officials and newly released documents.
Mock executions, in which a prisoner is made to believe that his death is imminent, are prohibited by the Army as a form of torture.
The details of the investigations were described in documents sought by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act. The Army provided the documents on Tuesday.

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

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

Thanks to Tammy for alerting us that CodePink is on a book tour to promote the excellent CodePink book Stop the Next War Now:

HOUSTON
May 18
Borders
Click here for your invitation
5:30pm
Medea Benjamin

PORTLAND
May 19
Powell's
3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd. (97214)
7:30pm
Medea Benjamin

LOS ANGELES
May 19
Book party at Arianna Huffington's House
6:30pm
Jodie Evans


SALT LAKE CITY
May 20
King's English
1511 South 1500 East (84105)
7:00pm
Jodie Evans

TEMPE
May 21
Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S. McClintock Dr. Ste C-101
12:30pm
Medea Benjamin

TUCSON
May 21
Reader's Oasis
3400 East Speedway (85716)
7:00pm
Medea Benjamin

PACIFICA
May 22
Pacifica Peace People
Sanchez Concert Hall
3:00pm
Medea Benjamin

SANTA CRUZ
May 22
Book Shop Santa Cruz
1520 Pacific Avenue (95060)
7:30pm
Medea Benjamin

ST. PAUL
May 22
Bound to Be Read
870 Grand Avenue (55105)
7:00pm
Jodie Evans

IOWA CITY
May 23
Prairie Lights
15 South Dubuque (52240)
8:00pm
Jodie Evans

CARMEL
May 23
Thunderbird Books
7:00pm
Medea BenjaminRiane Eisler

ST. LOUIS
May 24
Left Bank Books
399 Noth Euclid (63108)
7:00pm
Jodie Evans

NEW YORK CITY
May 31
Coliseum Books
11 West 42nd St (10036)
6:30pm
Medea BenjaminDiane WilsonAdrienne BrownFrida BerriganKathryn Blume

SOUTH HADLEY
June 1
Odyssey Bookshop
9 College St. (1075)
7:00pm
Medea BenjaminSusan Griffen

Hartford CT
June 2
Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice
Medea Benjamin
NEW YORK CITY
June 3
See Related Action Planned for June 2
Art of the Century Gallery
Medea BenjaminJodie EvansEve Ensler

NEW YORK CITY
June 4
Book Expo America

Medea Benjamin
Jodie Evans
Diane Wilson

CORTE MADERA
June 11
Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd. (94925)
7:30pm
Medea Benjamin

PHILADELPHIA
June 17
White Dog
3420 Samsom St. (19104)
Medea Benjamin


For more information on CodePink go to their web site.

We're going to Folding Star (who's quoting from this site) because I can naviage A Winding Road more quickly than I can this site. (FS is usually kind enough to send a post as soon as it goes up and two weeks ago, FS and I were discussing music and I mentioned something FS had written. FS didn't even remember it. I completely understand that because I frequently blank on topics we discuss at this site. But I canusually pinpoint FS's posts within a day or two from memory.)

A New Book By Code Pink
Today's Book Chat is in the works, though it probably won't be up until late tonight.
In the meantime, I wanted to note the following, which is reprinted from The Common Ills.
It's about an important book that you should all consider purchasing, and one which will probably feature in an upcoming Book Chat on A Winding Road.
Book: Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism
Alice Walker
Medea Benjamin
Jodie Evans
Arundhati Roy
Camilo Mejia
Nancy Lessin
Cindy Sheehan
Carly Sheehan
Marti Hiken
MaryAnn Wright
Kit Gage
Patricia Foulkrod
Eve Ensler
Terry Tempest Williams
Rose Kabuye
Elise Boulding
Riane Eisler
Joan Almon
Catherine Ingram
Susan Griffin
Phyllis Bennis
Leslie Cagan
Fridea Berrigan
Eisha Mason
Rebecca Solnit
Diane Wilson
Marti Hiken
Becky Bond
Barbara Ehrenreich
Beth Osnes
Julia Ward Howe
Laura Flanders
Starhawk
Sonali Kolhatkar
Kavita N. Ramdas
Neela Marikkar
Sumaya Farhat-Naser
Gila Svirsky
Shirin Ebadi
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Rabia Roberts
Jasmina Tesanovic
Pramila Jayapal
Mary Robinson
Helen Thomas
Gael Murphy
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Amy Goodman
Janine Jackson
Andrea Buffa
Nina Rothschild Utne
Tad Bartimus
Patricia Scott Schroeder
Doris "Granny D" Haddock
Chellie Pingree
Lynn Woolsey
Barbara Lee
Jody Williams
Noeleen Heyzer
Helen Caldicott
Randall Forsberg
Joseph Gerson
Gar Smith
Arianna Huffington
Julia Butterfly Hill
Jennifer Krill
Naomi Klein
Benazir Bhutto
Wangari Maathai
Aya de Leon
Alli Chagi-Starr
Holly Near
Juana Alicia
Kathryn Blume
Cynthia McKinney
Adrienne Maree Brwon
Sharon Salzberg

What is the above? A list of the people contributing to Stop the Next War Now which Dallas compiled and e-mailed in hoping it might interest some members in the book. Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism is a book attempting to increase our understanding of possible solutions and responses.

As we noted on Wednesday:

Code Pink has a book out entitled How to Stop the Next War Now. For more information, see Code Pink or BuzzFlash. The book contains contributions from a number of women this community has noted and highlighted. Among the contributors: Medea Benjamin, Amy Goodman, Barbara Lee, Naomi Klein, Eve Ensler, Janeane Garofalo and Arianna Huffington.

Dallas ordered the book via BuzzFlash and he e-mailed this afternoon to pass on the list of contributors thinking it might raise interest in the book. I agree this is an important book. I hadn't thought of purchasing it online from Code Pink or BuzzFlash when I saw it in my local independent bookstore -- I don't think BuzzFlash had offered it yet as a premium because the first I knew of the book was when the cover caught my eye. Whether you purchase the book from an independent bookstore, Code Pink, BuzzFlash, or wherever you usually purchase your books, I'd urge you to consider purchasing it. And for those on limited funds, check your local libraries and utilize their inter or intra library loan programs.

There are responses other than drop bombs and starve off a population (of food or medical supplies). Our current administration knows only war. Which is why so many of us flinch when someone starts saying "We have to do something about ___" -- fill in the blank. In five years our world view has been dangerously warped and our options reduced to one: war.

Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism is an attempt to raise our understanding and provide us with other tools. If it's not your "bag," that's fine. But, like Dallas, I feel strongly about the issue. As does Rebecca and The Third Estate Sunday Review which is why, with Dallas' permission, this entry will be posted at both of their sites as well.

Obviously, we all feel strongly about this book. Folding Star, Rebecca, The Third Estate Sunday Review and Betty all noted the book at their sites. If you haven't purchased the book yet, there are two different links provided. Or, if the book tour is coming to your area, you can purchase it there. If you're planning to read it via your library system, that's great too. But there's a reason we all highlighted the list Dallas compiled (thank you to Dallas for doing the list and for giving permission for everyone to repost it) and it's that we belive it's an important topic and it's a conversation we need to be having as a nation.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com. I noted in the Okrent entry this morning that e-mails jump whenever he's discussed and there are a ton of e-mails. I'm going to go through them now and hopefully be able to get a post up on them tonight. But, and anyone who e-mails this site gets an automated reply that tells them this, if you want to be quoted, you need to note that in your e-mail. (If you only want one section quoted, you need to note that section.) I've read 35 already (from visitors) as I worked my way backwards. They haven't noted that they want to be quoted. Therefore they won't be.

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

Jill asked for an entry that I had to delay because I was just too tired. (Apologies to Jill.) As most member know, Pablo Paredes is a war resister who was tried for his refusal to go to Iraq.
At his trial, he read a statement.

Jill found it very powerful. (As do I.) Jill wondered if it could be quoted in full?

My understanding is that statement to the court is public record, so yes, it can be quoted in full. The text of it comes from Democracy Now!'s interview with Paredes last Friday. Amy Goodman asked him to read the statement during the interview. If you go to that report, you will also find out about the trial itself. There's a full transcript for those who would prefer to read (or only have that option). There's also the options of watching the report or listening to it.

Here is Pablo Paredes' statement to the court, which as Jill notes is "history in modern times":

Your Honor, and to all present, I'd like to state first and foremost that it has never been my intent or motivation to create a mockery of the Navy or its judicial system. I do not consider military members adversaries. I consider myself in solidarity with all service members. It is this feeling of solidarity that was at the root of my actions. I don't pretend to be in a position to lecture anyone on what I perceive as facts concerning our current political state of affairs. I accept that it is very possible that my political perspective on this war could be wrong. I don't think that rational people can even engage in debate if neither is willing to accept the possibility that their assertions, no matter how researched, can be tainted with inaccuracy and falsehoods. I do believe that accepting this in no way takes away from one's confidence in their own convictions.
I am convinced that the current war in Iraq is illegal. I am also convinced that the true causality for it lacked any high ground in the topography of morality. I believe as a member of the Armed Forces, beyond having duty to my Chain of Command and my President, I have a higher duty to my conscience and to the supreme law of the land. Both of these higher duties dictate that I must not participate in any way, hands-on or indirect, in the current aggression that has been unleashed on Iraq. In the past few months I have been continually asked if I regret my decision to refuse to board my ship and to do so publicly. I have spent hour upon hour reflecting on my decision, and I can tell you with every fiber of certitude that I possess that I feel in my heart I did the right thing.
This does not mean I have no regrets. I regret dearly exposing the families of marines and sailors to my protest. While I do not feel my message was wrong, I know that those families were facing a difficult moment. This moment was made in some ways more difficult by my actions, and this pains me. That day on the pier, I restrained myself from answering the calls of coward and even some harsher variations of the same term. I did so because I knew this wasn't the time to engage these families in debate. I thought that I became in many ways a forum in which to vent their fears and sadness. And I didn't want to turn that into a combative situation in which the families were distracted more by our debate than simply empowered by their ability to chastise my actions. All that being said I still feel my actions made some people very unhappy and made others feel that I was taking away from their child's or their husband's goodbye, and I regret this.
I also regret the pain and stress I have caused those near and dear to me. I know that my lawyers feel that it is ill advised of me to say these things, and I am aware of that. My lawyers have had a very difficult time with me. They also thought that it was ill advised me for me to plead not guilty. It is this I truly want to explain, both to them and to the court. I realize I did not board the Bonhomme Richard on December 6 and that I left after the ship personnel and Pier Master-at-Arms refused to arrest me. Given these confessions one may find it hard to understand why would anyone admit to the action but not plead guilty to the crime. It is this question that has also been the topic of much reflection for me.
I never deny my actions nor do I run from their consequences. But pleading guilty is more than admission of action. It is also acceptance that that action was wrong and illegal. These are two things I do not and cannot accept. I feel, even with all the regrets and difficulties that have come as a result of my actions, that they were in fact my duty as a human being and as a service member. I feel in my mind and heart that this war is illegal and immoral. The moral argument is one that courts have little room for and has been articulated in my C.O. application. It is an argument that encompasses all wars as intolerable in my system of morals. The legal argument is quite relevant, although motions filed and approved have discriminated against it to the point it was not allowed into this trial.
I have long now been an ardent reader of independent media, and, in my opinion, less corrupted forms of media, such as TruthOut.org, Democracy Now!, books from folks like Steven Zunes, and Chalmers Johnson, articles from people like Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein. These folks are very educated in matters of politics and are not on the payroll of any major corporate news programming, such as CNN or FOX News network. They all do what they do for reasons other than money, as they could earn much more if they joined the corporate-controlled ranks. I have come to trust their research and value their convictions in assisting me to form my own. They have all unanimously condemned this war as illegal, as well as made resources available for me to draw my own conclusions, resources like Kofi Annan's statements on how under the U.N. Charter the Iraq War is illegal, resources like Marjorie Cohn's countless articles providing numerous sources and reasons why the war is illegal under international, as well as domestic law. I could speak on countless sources and their arguments as to the legality of the war on Iraq quite extensively. But again, I don't presume to be in a position to lecture anyone here on law. I mean only to provide insight on my actions on December 6.
I understood before that date very well what the precedent was for service members participating in illegal wars. I read extensively on the arguments and results of Nazi German soldiers, as well as imperial Japanese soldiers, in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, respectively. In all I read I came to an overwhelming conclusion supported by countless examples that any soldier who knowingly participates in an illegal war can find no haven in the fact that they were following orders, in the eyes of international law.
Nazi aggression and imperialist Japan are very charged moments of history and simply mentioning them evokes many emotions and reminds of many atrocities. So I want to be very clear that I am in no way comparing our current government to any of the historical counterparts. I am not comparing the leaders or their acts, not their militaries nor their acts. I am only citing the trials because they are the best example of judicial precedent for what a soldier/sailor is expected to do when faced with the decision to participate or refuse to participate in what he perceives is an illegal war.
I think we would all agree that a service member must not participate in random unprovoked illegitimate violence simply because he is ordered to. What I submit to you and the court is that I am convinced that the current war is exactly that. So, if there's anything I could be guilty of, it is my beliefs. I am guilty of believing this war is illegal. I'm guilty of believing war in all forms is immoral and useless, and I am guilty of believing that as a service member I have a duty to refuse to participate in this war because it is illegal.
I do not expect the court to rule on the legality of this war, nor do I expect the court to agree with me. I only wish to express my reasons and convictions surrounding my actions. I acted on my conscience. Whether right or wrong in my convictions I will be at peace knowing I followed my conscience.

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

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

From an e-mail sent out to those who sign up for it at The Nation, here are upcoming speaking engagements for Victor Navasky.

These days, more than ever, organs of dissent are critical to the prospects for positive social change in America, as Nation publisher Victor Navasky argues in his new book A Matter of Opinion.

Please join Navasky in Michigan at three special events this weekend.

This Friday,
May 20
at 4:00pm,

Navasky will discuss "The Journal of Opinion--Past Relic or Present Counterforce?" at
200 Reuther Library,
5401 Cass Avenue
on the campus of Wayne State University
in Detroit.

The event is free and open to the public.

Then, on
Saturday,
May 21
at 4:00,
Navasky will be in Ann Arbor
at the Shaman Drum Bookshop stage
as part of the AA Book Festival
(Main Stage East, Modern Languages Building, Auditorium 4, 812 East Washington Street).

http://www.aabookfestival.org/

Navasky will also be part of the Detroit premiere of
Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellman
on Sunday,
May 22
at 3:00pm
in 100 General Lectures Building,
5045 Anthony Wayne (3rd Street) at Warren,
on the Wayne State campus.

The festivities will begin with
a reception for Victor
at 2:00pm
in the Polish Lounge
of Alex Manoogian Hall.

A discussion with Navasky, director Judith Montrell and film participants will follow the film. Admission is $20 for the film and reception. Click below for more info and details on sliding scales and benefactor tickets.
http://www.professionalrevolutionary.org

Navasky will also be appearing in
Cambridge
on Monday,
May 23,

and in New York City
on Wednesday,
May 25
at the CUNY Graduate Center
along with E.L. Doctorow.

Monday,
May 23,
6:30pm to 8:00
Harvard Bookstore,
1256 Massachussetts Ave.,
Cambridge
http://www.harvard.com/events/press_release.php?id=1466

Wednesday,
May 25,
7:00 to 8:30
With E.L. Doctorow
Proshansky Auditorium,
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street
$5/ Free with student ID
Call 212-817-2005 for reservations

You can get a small taste of A Matter of Opinion by reading a recent Nation magazine excerpt, in which he discussed the critical role of journals of dissent.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050516&s=navasky

And check out the book's website for more info and to order copies online.
http://www.amatterofopinionbyvictornavasky.com/

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

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

Democracy Now! (Marcia: "always worth watching")

Headlines for May 17, 2005
- Iraqis Accuse U.S. of "Bombing Whole Villages" Near Syrian Border
- Newsweek Retracts Koran Desecration Story
- More Evidence Emerges U.S. Did Desecrate Koran At Guantanamo
- Military Jury Convicts Soldier For Abu Ghraib Abuses
- Luis Posada Carriles Gives Interview to Miami Herald
- George Galloway To Testify Before Senate Over Iraq Kickbacks
- Voters In Los Angeles Head to the Polls

Is there another Hugo Chavez in Latin America? An Exclusive Interview with Ecuador's New President
In a Democracy Now exclusive, investigative reporter Greg Palast reports from Ecuador where he interviews the country's new president, Alfredo Palacio, and takes a look at whether he will join the popular leftist movements in Latin America or will continue the neoliberal program of his predecessor. [includes rush transcript]

Natural Gas Issues Ignite Mass Antigovernment Protests in BoliviaTens of thousands of protesters in Bolivia marched on the capital La Paz after President Carlos Mesa's attempt to push through a law giving large corporations and investors greater control of the country's significant natural gas resources. [includes rush transcript]



Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions
We play an interview with, John Perkins - author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" - who says he says he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies. [includes rush transcript]

Investigative Journalist Recalls Leaving CBS After Encountering Fierce Resistance to Re-Air Expose on Nike Labor Practices
We play a speech by Roberta Baskin, the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. For years, Baskin was an investigative journalist working for CBS. She eventually left after she encountered fierce resistance to re-air her story on Nike's labor practices in Vietnam. And we hear response from a senior official of CBS's owner Viacom.

At The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby addresses a number of things but we'll go with the opening (regarding Newsweek) item:

E UNUM, PLURIBUS: As in the earlier case of Dan Rather, we're puzzled when liberals, centrists and Democrats seem inclined to vouch for Newsweek in its recent blundering. Here, for example, is a pungent passage from today's New York Times, from a front-page report by "Kit" Seelye:
SEELYE (5/17/05): Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek, said in an interview that the magazine was retracting the part of the article saying sources told Newsweek that a coming military report would say interrogators had flushed a holy book down the toilet to unnerve detainees. As it turned out, Newsweek now says, there was one source. And Mr. Whitaker said that because that source had ''backed away'' from his original account, the magazine could ''no longer stand by'' it.
As we've told you, your modern "press corps" has many slippery techniques for making weak stories seem stronger. (No one knows this any better than Seelye.) One of the slickest techniques was put in play here--the turning of one into many. Newsweek now says it had one source; in its original item, it claimed it had "sources." This pluralization of the single is a familiar press corps technique, and it's the mark of a cheat--of a fake, a dissembler. And by the way, these dissembling techniques have been widely used for the past dozen years against an array of Big Dems.
Who knows? The substance of this story may turn out to be true. And White House outrage is a gimmicked-up posture. But Newsweek made a serious accusation against the U.S. military--an accusation it can’t back up, in which it embellished its number of sources. Dems shouldn’t rush to defend such conduct. They ought to take this as a teaching opportunity--a chance to tel the public that, despite what you hear about "liberal bias," this is exactly the sort of thing that has routinely been done to our leaders.
Oops, sorry--we almost forgot! That would force career "liberal" writers to bite the hands that may one day feed them. So liberal career writers won't say these vile things. There's no reason why amateurs shouldn't.

Sam e-mails to note Katrina vanden Heuvel's Editor's Cut:

As I wrote in March, charismatic SEIU leader Andy Stern has been anything but shy about triggering the most far-reaching strategic debate in labor in more than a generation. And while I disagree with some of SEIU's argument about what is to be done, I admire Stern's call for dramatic structural changes, his openness to remake labor's traditional ties to the Democratic Party and create new institutions and alliances for working people. His sense of urgency, even desperation about the future of labor is admirable and welcome.
On Monday, SEIU--along with its insurgent allies, including the Teamsters, Laborers and UNITE HERE --issued an unprecedented joint statement of principles, "Restoring the American Dream: Building a 21st Century Labor Movement That Can Win." (Click below to find Andy Stern's blog, and then scroll to the end where he encourages you to read the unions' joint proposal.)
Together these unions represent 5.5 million members, and the majority of the major organizing unions in the private sector. (The UFCW was also involved in drafting the statement and will take it to their executive board meeting for endorsement; the proposal is also being discussed with the Carpenters Union.)

Keesha e-mails to note The Black Commentator's "Black Caucus Conservatives Attempt to Clone Themselves:"

Corporate funding and influence have succeeded in placing the most rightwing members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in key positions that empower them to recruit and fund other business- and Republican-friendly Black candidates. Unless independent mechanisms are created to finance progressive CBC incumbents -- and nurture challengers to the corporate contributions-rich members -- the rightwing faction will replicate itself, and the Caucus will lose all but ceremonial value to Black America.
Corporate-led members already exercise an effective veto power in the CBC, preventing the Caucus from taking positions on "bright line" issues vital to African Americans, but deemed inimical to wealthy interests. History will record that the CBC definitively lost its ability to act as a body on behalf of its national Black constituency last month, when 15 members voted with the Republicans on at least one of three critical measures: bankruptcy, repeal of the estate tax, and energy. (See chart in BC, "How to Fix the Fractured Black Caucus," April 28, 2005.)
Six members make up the core of defectors from the historical Black Political Consensus – deviants from the CBC's proud 36-year progressive tradition: Harold Ford, Jr. (TN), Artur Davis (AL), David Scott (GA), Sanford Bishop (GA), Albert Wynn (MD), and William Jefferson (LA). All but Jefferson are members of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and/or the Blue Dog Coalition, vehicles for corporate funding and intrigue in the Democratic Party. Having reached critical mass with the election of Alabama's Davis and Georgia's Scott in 2002, the corporate-allied faction's influence is greatly enhanced by the DLC's institutional and financial clout.
Rep. Albert Wynn chairs the Caucus's Political Action Committee, through which he can direct funds to incumbents and candidates. The congressman from Washington, DC's relatively prosperous Maryland suburbs is the DLC's key operative in the Caucus -- which is doubtless the reason he sits in the money-chair. Wynn scored a grand slam for the Republicans in April, siding with the GOP on all three "bright line" measures, as did Bishop, Scott, and Jefferson.

(The above piece is by "BC Co-Publishers Glen Ford and Peter Gamble are working on a book to be titled, Barack Obama and the Crisis of Black Leadership.)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]