Covenant News Wire Service

DeLay press release on Travis County indictment

DeLay Press Release

Statement from the Office of the Majority Leader

WASHINGTON -- Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX) today released the following statement regarding today's announcement by the Travis County (TX) District Attorney's Office:

"These charges have no basis in the facts or the law. This is just another example of Ronnie Earle misusing his office for partisan vendettas. Despite the clearly political agenda of this prosecutor, Congressman DeLay has cooperated with officials throughout the entire process. Even in the last two weeks, Ronnie Earle himself had acknowledged publicly that Mr. DeLay was not a target of his investigation. However, as with many of Ronnie Earle's previous partisan investigations, Ronnie Earle refused to let the facts or the law get in the way of his partisan desire to indict a political foe.

This purely political investigation has been marked by illegal grand jury leaks, a fundraising speech by Ronnie Earle for Texas Democrats that inappropriately focused on the investigation, misuse of his office for partisan purposes, and extortion of money for Earle's pet projects from corporations in exchange for dismissing indictments he brought against them. Ronnie Earle's previous misuse of his office has resulted in failed prosecutions and we trust his partisan grandstanding will strike out again, as it should.

Ronnie Earle's 1994 indictment against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was quickly dismissed and his charges in the 1980s against former Attorney General Jim Mattox-another political foe of Earle-fell apart at trial.

We regret the people of Texas will once again have their taxpayer dollars wasted on Ronnie Earle's pursuit of headlines and political paybacks. Ronnie Earle began this investigation in 2002, after the Democrat Party lost the Texas state legislature to Republicans. For three years and through numerous grand juries, Ronnie Earle has tried to manufacture charges against Republicans involved in winning those elections using arcane statutes never before utilized in a case in the state. This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat."

Led us astray, angry flock says

Beyond angry. Beyond demoralized. Beyond repulsed.

by John Grogan

In case Cardinal Justin Rigali still doubts how deeply scarred the Archdiocese of Philadelphia clergy child sex-abuse bombshell has left lay Catholics, I'd like to introduce him to a few members of his flock who have been e-mailing me this week.

Cardinal, meet Susan Nunnamaker of Jamison, a product of 12 years of Catholic schools in Philadelphia, including Cardinal Dougherty High School, where she recently learned several abusive priests had been shipped.

"I am so saddened and angry about the abuses, but absolutely devastated by the cover up," she wrote. "The scope of the abuse by these men that we were told were 'God's messengers on Earth' just leaves me speechless."

Cardinal, say hello to Georgann Brophy of West Chester, who wrote: "Our church leadership worried more about safeguarding the institution than about protecting the most innocent members of that institution. No amount of apology or future concern will ever make up for the destruction of the lives of those children."

Meet Michael West of Cherry Hill, who wanted you to know this: "After much thought and soul searching, I have decided to leave the Roman Catholic Church. This is not to say that I am leaving my faith... . I am embarrassed to call myself a Roman Catholic."

A tenuous faith

Talk to Chris Pentz, a lifelong Catholic from Levittown, Bristol Township, who told me: "My faith in God survives, but my faith in the Church has eroded completely."

Listen to Dolores Smith of Richboro, who wrote: "As a practicing Catholic all my 64 years... my rage is with the hierarchy. Shame, shame on all those that knew and turned their heads. My money will no longer contribute to their cover-up."

Feel the burn in the voice of Mike Worthington of West Chester when he noted acidly: "If Christ were in his grave still, He would surely roll over."

And then there is John J. Hoda of Schwenksville, who wrote with disgust: "I am 75 years old and consider myself a good practicing Catholic. I am concerned that my spiritual leader is just another member of the 'good old boys club', and he does not want to offend them with the criticism they deserve. I still have my Church and my faith, but if it were possible to impeach Cardinal Rigali I would be the first one to cast my vote."

Hear Debbie O'Connor of Philadelphia, when she said: "As a lapsed Catholic, I can only feel revulsion and then anger at these arrogant fools. It's just too tragic to contemplate."

An ashamed sister

Hear the pain in the voice of a Catholic nun who shall remain nameless because she works in the archdiocese. She told me: "Wearing a holy habit, which I love dearly, I am ashamed, to say the least. How could all those despicable offenses be allowed to continue, much less be covered up? The crimes now being exposed have scarred young children for a lifetime."

And from another nun: "Oh, how deep the hurt! How painful to realize the enormity and the horribleness of it. It tears me apart that our people have loved us and trusted us so much and some are suffering for doing so."

And then there is Emilio Celona of Glen Mills, who struggles with his faith: "I don't know what I will do, but I have serious reservations about entering another Catholic church. I don't see how people can trust priests again unless there is serious reform."

Sleep on this message from Kathy Burns of Bala Cynwyd: "What the priests did was awful. But what the Church leaders did was 10 times worse. They traded children for image and money."

And finally, try to answer Theresa Kumor of Northeast Philadelphia: "Years ago I was told by a priest that I would be excommunicated if I continued to practice birth control with my husband. None of the pedophiles were excommunicated even though they were defrocked. The Church has lost all credibility. How can they tell us we are sinners and deny us the sacraments when they have covered up the most egregious of sins?"

Cardinal Rigali, this is your flock. Beyond angry. Beyond demoralized. Beyond repulsed. Please tell us, how will you heal the wounds?


http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsyl
vania/counties/philadelphia_county/philadelphia/12777733.htm

DeLay Court Appearance Set for Late Oct.

DeLay Court Appearance Set

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Tom DeLay was summoned to appear in a Texas courtroom in three weeks, the initial legal step in his transition from the second-ranking House Republican to a criminal defendant. DeLay, meanwhile, provided new details Thursday about his behind-the scenes effort to try to convince prosecutors he shouldn't be indicted.

DeLay contended that after he recently met voluntarily with prosecutors, he was led to believe "it was pretty much over" and he would be spared indictment in a state campaign finance investigation. Two weeks ago, he said, the landscape suddenly changed because Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle buckled under pressure from fellow Democrats and the media — and tried to blame the switch on a "runaway" grand jury.

Earle has consistently denied the investigation of DeLay and his associates was political and has pointed out he has prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans.

DeLay was charged Wednesday with conspiring with two political associates to use corporate donations to support Texas legislative candidates. State law only allows political committees to use corporate money for administrative expenses.

The Austin grand jury charged that the conspirators carried out the scheme by having the DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee send corporate money to the Republican National Committee in Washington. The RNC then sent back a like amount — $190,000 — to distribute to Texas candidates.

Criminal conspiracy is a Texas felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The potential two-year sentence forced DeLay to step down as majority leader under House Republican rules.

DeLay was summoned by a judge to appear in court in Austin on Oct. 21, but his lawyers are working to spare him the humiliation of being handcuffed, photographed and fingerprinted.

DeLay went on the offensive Thursday in several broadcast interviews. The lawmaker said he thought he convinced prosecutors in a voluntary interview that he had little to do with operations of fundraising committee, known as TRMPAC.

"I got the impression from his (Earle's) chief prosecutor that they knew I had nothing to do with the day-to-day operation, that there was no conspiracy as far as I'm concerned," he said.

"In the following days after that, it was pretty much over until two weeks ago and Ronnie Earle made the statement that I was never part of this investigation publicly," he said.

DeLay said everything changed because Democrats put pressure on Earle and the local newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, wrote an editorial critical of Earle because the majority leader had not been indicted.

The grand jury has indicted three of DeLay's political associates, a Texas business association, several corporations and TRMPAC.

DeLay said Earle explained the change in thinking by telling DeLay's lawyers "that he has a runaway grand jury, the sixth grand jury he has impaneled and they're going to indict me."

DeLay said the change surprised him, because "we went to work and we were under the impression that he probably wasn't (going to indict), or he would have ... called me to testify before the grand jury. I have not testified before the grand jury to present my side of the case, and they indicted me."

The former leader also said Earle was working with Democratic leaders in Washington to have him indicted.

"There is very good evidence that they announced the strategy publicly, they put it on their Web site and their strategy is in their fundraising letters," he said, adding he was referring to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

"The evidence is coming," he said, but did not immediately offer any.

The Associated Press learned Thursday that one witness before the grand jury was a former political director of the Republican National Committee, Terry Nelson, according to an official familiar with the grand jury deliberations who did not want to be identified speaking about grand jury matters.

The indictment said Nelson received a check for $190,000 in September 2002 that contained corporate donations given to a DeLay-founded Texas political committee. Jim Ellis, the DeLay associate, gave Nelson the check and also the names of Texas state House candidates who were to receive contributions from the donations, according to the indictment.

Court documents in the case also show that DeLay's daughter, political consultant Danielle Ferro, was subpoenaed in early 2004 to appear before the grand jury and bring records of work she did for TRMPAC.

DeLay was indicted Wednesday on the last day of the grand jury's term.

However, he waived his right to waive an initial deadline for indicting him in 2004, about the time Ferro was subpoenaed by the grand jury.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor
y&u=/ap/20050930/ap_on_go_co/delay_12

Probation in baseball bat abortion

NO Justice in Michigan

Baby Killer gets community service and six months probation

Probation in bat abortion case
A Richmond Township teen convicted and sentenced for striking his pregnant girlfriend until she miscarried will serve 200 hours of community service at an abortion alternatives center in Clinton Township, a Macomb County judge has ruled.

But an attorney for the boy, who must also serve probation and observe a curfew for at least six months under Thursday's juvenile sentence, said the choice of location for his community service is troublesome for constitutional reasons and she'll likely appeal.

"These kinds of places are exactly the kind that gave this young man and his girlfriend erroneous and misleading information about their options with the pregnancy that have him here in the first place," said Miranda Massie, who objected strenuously to the notion during the proceedings. "The people here specialize in guilt-tripping young women into having their unwanted pregnancies." She said the pregnancy center receives aid from some pro-life or faith-based organizations.

Circuit Judge Matthew Switalski ordered Thursday that the teen, whose name is being withheld by The Macomb Daily, to serve the first six months of a probation sentence, which is expected to last until he is 19, and then return to court next March for a review date to monitor his progress on that sentence.

In the meantime, he is to observe a 9 p.m. curfew on weekdays and 10 p.m. on weekends, remain in school and report to a probation officer, and to fulfill his community service requirements at Compassion Pregnancy Center in Clinton Township.

"He (Switalski) has chosen a venue to fulfill the obligation that's tailored to the offense and within the judge's discretion, and it's our understanding probation (officials) see it as an appropriate disposition," said Therese Tobin, chief trial attorney for Macomb County prosecutors, who handled the case against the teen and did not object to Switalski's determination.

Switalski himself said Thursday that the defendant is not to serve in a counseling capacity at the center and his duties there would befit a "fit young man" who could help out with lifting or menial tasks. If the organization staff attempts to indoctrinate him with its views or badger him for his acts, the judge said, he should report that immediately to the court.

"It's not like I'm trying to rub his nose in it. I'm trying to fashion community service that's appropriate to the nature of the crime for which he's now convicted," Switalski said. "He can simply pitch in and help out with any odd jobs they may need to get done."

Police and prosecutors claim last fall the accused boy, then 16, and his then-girlfriend, an Armada Township girl who is now 17, sought ways to obtain an abortion without alerting the girl's family or anyone else to the unwanted pregnancy.

They ultimately settled on a series of beatings to her abdomen over two to three weeks with a 22-inch souvenir-style bat, until she miscarried in early October.

But Michigan law apparently has no specific crime for this kind of behavior; the closest applicable charge comes from a 1999 state statute about assaults against pregnant women causing miscarriages, but the language of the law specifically states that the expectant mother herself is exempt from prosecution.

As a result, the boy faced a 15-year felony charge in the case while the girl faced no charges at all. But a conviction in juvenile court could've meant probation or possible incarceration at the Macomb County Juvenile Justice Center until he is 21. Court officials only became aware of the beatings several weeks later, based on statements the girl made during a school-related function, and police uncovered the remains of a 25-week-old fetus buried on the boy's family property.

The boy pleaded no contest late last month to a charge of assault upon a pregnant individual causing miscarriage or stillbirth, normally a 15-year felony in the adult court system. But under Thursday's juvenile disposition, he will instead receive probation and community service under juvenile disposition.

"We want to give an environment of support and assistance to women who are pregnant or think they may be pregnant," explained Barbara Seiferlein, a client services coordinator for Compassion Pregnancy Center. "We offer emotional support, material goods support and other services at least until the first or second birthday, depending on the mother's choice.

"We are volunteers and everything we give (to women) is donated to us and we donate as those materials are available."

Seiferlein said organizations like the center do not exist to antagonize or browbeat young women as some abortion rights advocates who attended the boy's hearing Thursday described, but would not get into specifics on what the center advises visitors about abortion or what the boy's duties might be when he works there, citing a desire to maintain "confidentiality."

"These places are run by the very people who picket clinics, and try to harass women who seek abortion as an option," said Renee Chelian of Northland Family Planning, who has attended several hearings in the case including Thursday's disposition. "If you've already had the abortion, they tell you about how you're going to hell and they try to make you a convert, which is a big gold star for them."

But a young woman who works for a private investigation agency and was employed by Massie to visit the center two weeks ago, posing as a pregnant teen seeking abortion, painted a picture that didn't exactly fit that view.

The woman, who identified herself just as "T.R.," said no one at the center told her she was going to hell or tried to convert her to an ideology, but said they steadfastly refused to give her any factual information about abortion as an option.

"They are compassionate, to your face, and also kind of lying to your face," she said. "They would only tell me negatives about abortion, and nothing else. Or there were some misleading facts like I would be 150 percent more likely to get breast cancer (following an abortion). I'm not sure where they get that."


http://www.macombdaily.com/stori
es/093005/loc_abortion001.shtml

Senate Confirms Roberts As Chief Justice

Senate Confirms Roberts

President Bush's pro-sodomite nominee is confirmed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -- John Glover Roberts Jr. won confirmation as the 17th chief justice of the United States Thursday, overwhelmingly approved by the Senate as the jurist to lead the Supreme Court through turbulent social issues for generations to come.

The Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Roberts — a 50-year-old U.S. Appeals judge from the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md. — as the successor to the late William H. Rehnquist, who died earlier this month.

All of the Senate's majority Republicans, and about half of the Democrats, voted for Roberts.

Underscoring the rarity of a chief justice's confirmation, senators answered the roll by standing one by one at their desks as their names were called, instead of voting and leaving the chamber.

Roberts is the first new Supreme Court justice since 1994. Before becoming a federal judge, Roberts was one of the nation's best appellate lawyers, arguing 39 cases — many in front of the same eight justices he will now lead as chief justice.

He won 25 of those cases.

Roberts watched the Senate vote on television from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

He and his wife Jane, were to have lunch with President Bush and first lady Laura Bush, followed by a swearing-in ceremony with the president at the White House, so Roberts could take his seat in time for the new court session Monday. Justice John Paul Stevens was administering the oath.

Under Roberts, justices will tackle issues like assisted suicide, campaign finance law and abortion this year, with questions about religion, same-sex marriage, the government's war on terrorism and human cloning looming in the future.

"With the confirmation of John Roberts, the Supreme Court will embark upon a new era in its history, the Roberts era," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., whose 55 GOP members unanimously voted for the multimillionaire judge. "And for many years to come, long after many of us have left public service, the Roberts court will be deliberating on some of the most difficult and fundamental questions of U.S. law."

Twenty-two Democrats opposed Roberts, saying he could turn out to be as conservative as justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court anchors on the right.

"At the end of the day, I have too many unanswered questions about the nominee to justify confirming him to this lifetime seat," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Anti-abortion and abortion rights activists both have their hopes pinned on Roberts, a former government lawyer in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. While Roberts is solidly conservative and his wife, Jane, volunteers for Feminists for Life, both sides were eager to see how he will vote on abortion cases.

Roberts told senators during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings that past Supreme Court rulings carry weight, including the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1973. He also said he agreed with the 1965 Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that established the right of privacy in the sale and use of contraceptives.

But he tempered that by saying Supreme Court justices can overturn rulings.

During four days of sometimes testy questioning by Democrats, Roberts refused to hint how he would rule on cases.

"If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, then the little guy's going to win in the court before me," Roberts told senators. "But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well then the big guy's going to win because my obligation is to the Constitution."

Over and over, he has assured lawmakers his rulings would be guided by his understanding of the facts of cases, the law and the Constitution, not by his personal views. "My faith and my religious beliefs do not play a role," said Roberts, who is Catholic.

Roberts' confirmation brings the number of Catholics on the court to a historic high of four. The Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes abortion.

Democrats, even as they complained about his Reagan-era opinions and the White House's refusal to release his paperwork from the George H.W. Bush administration, acknowledged his brilliance and judicial demeanor.

"I've taken him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda and he will be his own man as chief justice ," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary.

Republicans showered praise on Roberts, and said the justices on the court like him too. "There have already been indications from members of the court about their liking the fact that Judge Roberts is going to be the new chief justice," said Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who shepherded the nomination out of his committee on a 13-5 vote.

Roberts has the potential of leading the Supreme Court for decades. Not since John Marshall, confirmed in 1801 at 45, has there been a younger chief justice.

Roberts also will hold a record of sorts — nominated to succeed two different Supreme Court justices within seven weeks. Bush originally named him to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in July. Rehnquist's death led to the second nomination on Sept. 6, and Roberts now will be confirmed as chief justice while O'Connor remains on the court until the president selects a new replacement.

Democrats already were warning the White House not to nominate a conservative ideologue to replace O'Connor. Bush was expected to announce the nominee soon.

"While this nomination did not warrant an attempt to block the nominee on the floor of the Senate, the next one might," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

Roberts is married to lawyer Jane Sullivan Roberts, and has two adopted children, ages 4 and 5.

He grew up in Long Beach, Ind., working summers in the same steel mill where his father was an electrical engineer. After graduating with honors from Harvard University — both as an undergraduate and in law school — he clerked for Rehnquist on the Supreme Court.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u
=/ap/20050929/ap_on_go_su_co/roberts_47

Fetuses found at Bogota airport

Fetuses Found At Airport

Police said unborn babies meant for Satanic rituals

Colombian police have found the bodies of three human fetuses hidden in statues destined for the United States.

The discovery was made by officers searching for contraband at Bogota Airport on Tuesday.

The corpses were wrapped in plastic and concealed inside statues of Christian icons, which were smashed open.

Colombian police chief Gen Jord Alirio Varon said the four- to five-month-old foetuses could have been intended for use in Satanic rituals.

Gen Varon said the fetuses were found alongside crucifixes and medals.

He said officials are trying to find out who sent the packages, which came from Barranquilla in Colombia and were destined for Miami in the US.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2
/hi/americas/4293934.stm

Attempt to Pick Successor Is Foiled

Republican Party in Chaos

Blunt Temporarily Takes Reins as Conservatives Reject Dreier

As the legal troubles mounted for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in recent weeks, he and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert talked repeatedly to craft a detailed strategy for the Republican leadership for the day when a long-feared indictment arrived.

DeLay, according to several GOP sources, knew that House rules would give him no choice but to step down immediately. But he made clear to Hastert, his longtime friend and protege, that he was determined to fight the charges and return to power as soon as possible.

What he and Hastert wanted was a timeserver, someone to hold the job but with no ambitions to stay in it. And they had someone in mind. This week, an aide to the speaker approached Rep. David Dreier about his role in a post-DeLay caucus. Dreier, a congenial Californian who has loyally served the GOP leadership as Rules Committee chairman, expressed interest in helping Hastert.

There was one big problem: When DeLay's indictment was unsealed yesterday, conservatives in the GOP caucus immediately erupted in anger over rumors that the selection of Dreier, whom they regard as too moderate, was being presented as a fait accompli.

As the conservatives met to vent frustrations and plot options, Hastert was changing course in a separate meeting on the second floor of the Capitol. Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), the majority whip, was making a personal appeal for the promotion. Hastert agreed, forestalling a possible revolt by conservatives, who regard Blunt as one of their own.

The wild day of maneuvering made clear that beneath the image of lockstep discipline in the House -- which DeLay himself enforced for years -- the GOP caucus is rife with ambitious personalities in not-so-subtle competition. With DeLay sidelined, it will fall largely to Hastert to move President Bush's agenda and to maintain order among an increasingly restless crowd as the 2006 elections approach.

Hastert's challenge was vividly highlighted yesterday by the mood at a private late-afternoon meeting of the House Republican Conference, with nearly all members in attendance.

Some lawmakers, such as Zach Wamp (Tenn.) challenged Republican leaders to set a date for formal leadership elections instead of allowing party bosses to impose their choices. At the same time, conservatives such as Steve Buyer (Ind.) rose to say Republicans should have allowed DeLay to remain majority leader even with an indictment. Earlier this year, under pressure from Democrats and a few in his own party, Hastert reversed a rule designed expressly for DeLay that would have allowed indicted leaders to retain their positions.

Rep. Tom Feeney (Fla.) said afterward that the rules change "was like waving a red flag to Ronnie Earle," the Texas prosecutor who pushed for DeLay's indictment. Feeney said some conservatives may push for still another reversal, allowing DeLay to return even before his legal problems are resolved.

Despite the brave face, however, many Republicans said privately it is unlikely DeLay will return to his leadership position anytime soon, if ever. This would open the door for members such as Rep. John A. Boehner (Ohio), chairman of the House education committee, to run for a leadership position. Blunt, a teacher turned politician who first was elected to the House in 1996, is at least temporarily now the number two Republican in the House.

Many Republicans said they are more comfortable with Blunt, who as whip had been in the number three job. His conservative positions on issues are similar to DeLay's. He also is considered an effective legislative operator, with strong ties to the Washington lobbying community. "He had an edge from the get-go," said Rep. David Joseph Weldon (Fla.).

DeLay and Hastert handpicked Blunt in 1999 to become chief deputy whip, just a few years after he won his House seat. Blunt rose to the whip job in 2003, after DeLay became majority leader.

In Missouri, the Blunt organization is a family affair. Son Matt, 34, is governor, and son Andrew, 29, is a top state-government lobbyist whose client list is studded with major donors to his father.

As majority whip, Blunt, even more than DeLay before him, has created a formal alliance with K Street lobbyists, empowering corporate representatives and trade association executives to assist the House leadership in counting votes and negotiating amendments to bring holdouts into the fold.

Last year, when the House leadership faced apparently insurmountable odds in passing legislation eliminating a $50 billion export tax break, the lobbying community stepped in to add billions of new tax breaks for major corporations with facilities in nearly every district -- General Electric, Boeing, Caterpillar, United Technologies, Honeywell and Emerson. The support built up majority backing for the measure.

Blunt's best-known special-interest intervention was a 2003 late-night attempt -- unsuccessful, as it turned out -- to add an amendment sought by Philip Morris. Blunt's son then was a lobbyist for Philip Morris in Missouri; Blunt himself was dating a Philip Morris lobbyist whom he later married, and he had received more than $150,000 in contributions from the company and subsidiaries.

In a sign of DeLay's confidence he will return, he will keep his majority leader office in the Capitol rather than vacate it for Blunt.

DeLay found a friendly audience last night at a banquet of Stand for Israel, an organization of evangelical Christians and Jews, which gave him a standing ovation.

"So how was your day?" DeLay said, producing a burst of laughter. "It's really good to be here among so many old friends and brothers and sisters in the cause for justice and human freedom," he said. "Today, as you may know, the justice part has taken on a particularly personal meaning for me. And in case you were wondering, ladies and gentlemen, I fear no evil. The truth is on my side. And make no mistake about it -- justice will be served."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conten
t/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802550_pf.html

DeLay Is Indicted and Forced to Step Down as Majority Leader

DeLay Charged With Criminal Conspiracy

WASHINGTON -- Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the powerful House Republican majority leader, was accused by a Texas grand jury today of criminal conspiracy in a campaign fund-raising scheme.

Mr. DeLay was indicted on one count charging that he violated state election laws in September 2002. Two political associates, John D. Colyandro and James W. Ellis, were indicted with him.

The indictment of Mr. DeLay, while not entirely unexpected, still reverberated through the Capitol. The House Republican rules require a member of the leadership to step down, at least temporarily, if indicted.

Late this afternoon, Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the majority whip, was appointed temporary House majority leader, with David Dreier of California, the chairman of the Rules Committee, designated to assist him. Earlier in the day, Republicans on Capitol Hill said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert intended to appoint Mr. Dreier to take over for Mr. DeLay.

A conviction on the felony charge against Mr. DeLay, 58, carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. The lawmaker has consistently maintained his innocence and today asserted that the indictment resulted from a "purely political investigation" by the Travis County district attorney, Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.

"I have done nothing wrong," Mr. DeLay said, adding that he had violated "no law, no regulation, no rule of the House."

Mr. DeLay, speaking on Capitol Hill, described Mr. Erle, a longtime antagonist, as "a partisan fanatic" and a "rogue district attorney" and said the prosecutor had shamelessly courted journalists on "the only days he actually comes to the office."

Mr. DeLay said the charge lodged against him today was "one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history," one that is "a sham, and Mr. Earle knows it."

Mr. Earle, in a separate news conference, disputed Mr. DeLay's contentions. "We have over the years prosecuted a number of public officials," he said in Houston, adding that it was his duty to go after "abuses of power." In fact, he said, he has prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans.

At the White House, the president's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, expressed support for Mr. Delay, telling reporters, "Mr. Delay is a good ally and a leader who we have worked closely with for the good of the American people."

"The president's view is to let the legal process work," Mr. McClellan said. "There's a legal process and we're going to let it work."

Democrats were quick to seize on Mr. DeLay's troubles. "The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom Delay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said in a statement.

Mr. DeLay is second only to Speaker Hastert of Illinois in power in the House of Representatives and has been credited with shepherding much of his party's legislative programs through Congress. He has also been seen as a key in expanding the Republican majority in the House, which now stands at 231 to 202 Democrats, with one independent and one vacancy.

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the indictment was further evidence that "alleged illegal activity reaches to the highest levels of the Republican Party."

"Tom DeLay is neither the beginning nor the end of the Washington Republicans' ethical problems," Mr. Dean said in a statement that also cited questions over a stock sale by the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, and an investigation into the leaking of the identity of a C.I.A. operative that has touched on the presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The DeLay indictment asserts that Mr. Colyandro and Mr. Ellis were part of a scheme in which corporations contributed large sums ($50,000 in one instance, and $25,000 in at least three other instances) that were destined for the Republican National Committee. The indictment includes a copy of a check for $190,000 made out to the Republican National State Elections Committee, a component of the party's national committee. That money was to go to various candidates for the Texas Legislature, the indictment says.

The indictment came just three weeks after a political organization formed by Mr. DeLay, Texans for a Republican Majority, was indicted on charges of taking illegal corporate money while Mr. DeLay was helping Republicans win control of the Texas Legislature as well as strengthening their hold on Congress.

The DeLay organization was charged with accepting a contribution of $100,000 from the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care and one of $20,000 from AT&T. A statewide business group, the Texas Association of Business, was also charged.

State law prohibits use of corporate contributions to advocate the election or defeat of state candidates, and prosecutors accuse the DeLay organization of engaging in a complex scheme to circumvent the law.

Mr. DeLay, who has also come under fire from the House ethics committee on three occasions in recent months, will not have to leave his post as the congressman from Texas's 22d District, near Houston, as a result of the indictment. But by his having to step down from his leadership position, his power will be vastly diminished, at least for the time being.

Mr. DeLay has won the grudging respect of Democrats for his effectiveness, not only in pushing legislation through the House but for helping to strengthen the Republican majority. In Texas, he helped to engineer a redistricting plan that boosted the Texas Republican majority to 21-11 in the current Congress.

Mr. DeLay's troubles come at an awkward time for Republicans, as President Bush is sagging in public opinion surveys and as the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, has been defending himself against questions about the timing of the sale of stock in a family-owned business.

To compound embarrassment for the Republicans, Mr. DeLay is a close friend of Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist who has been under scrutiny by the Justice Department for more than a year and who has been indicted on unrelated federal fraud charges in Florida.

Democrats are sure to try to capitalize on the Republican troubles in next year's Congressional elections, and probably in the presidential election campaign of 2008.

Representative Tom Reynolds of New York, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, asserted today that the political motive behind the investigation of Mr. DeLay was obvious. "The majority leader has been a highly effective leader of our conference," Mr. Reynolds said. "Democrats resent Tom DeLay because he routinely defeats them - both politically and legislatively."

"Until Majority Leader Tom DeLay has his day in court, it is vitally important he be afforded the same presumption of innocence afforded to every other American," Mr. Reynolds said.

As majority whip, Mr. Blunt has held the third-highest post in the House, with responsibility for rounding up votes to support the leadership's agenda. Before going to Congress in 1997, Mr. Blunt was Missouri's secretary of state and president of his alma mater, Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Mo.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/0
9/28/politics/28cnd-delay.html

Evacuees Offered Free Abortions

Evacuees Offered 'Free' Abortions

Babies In The Womb Face a Greater Danger Than Any Hurricane

Serial killer cites 'risk prevention'

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A Little Rock abortion clinic says it has provided six free abortions to Hurricane Katrina evacuees and will continue to provide the procedures free of charge for those displaced by the storm, despite protests from an anti-abortion group.

Little Rock Family Planning clinic director Jerry Edwards said he is helping pregnant evacuees by offering free abortions because later-term abortions are more dangerous.

"If we didn't provide it now, they would get it later – a late-term abortion that would give greater risk to the mother's health," he told Little Rock television station KTHV. Dr. Edwards' clinic is the only abortion clinic in central Arkansas.

Rose Mimms, executive director of Arkansas Right to Life, called Dr. Edwards' offer of his free services to hurricane victims "insensitive" and said he is risking further traumatizing women who have already lost their material belongings in the storm.

Ms. Mimms said Arkansas Right to Life has started its own drive to help pregnant Katrina survivors in a program called Operation Baby Box, which provides diapers, clothing and other supplies for newborns and their mothers.

Marvin Schwartz, spokesman for Arkansas-Oklahoma Planned Parenthood, said Dr. Edwards is providing women with a needed service.

A first-trimester abortion at the Little Rock clinic, if uncomplicated, costs $525 to $600, the clinic said Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood does not provide abortions but sees Dr. Edwards' clinic as a valuable part of women's health needs in central Arkansas and for Katrina evacuees now living in the region, Mr. Schwartz said.


http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stor
ies/DN-katrinaabort_28tex.ART.State.Edition2.129f215b.html

Police Allow Nude Sodomite Parade in San Francisco

Police Allow Nude Sodomite Parade

SAN FRANCISCO -- Despite sweltering morning heat, leather-clad minions mixed with fully nude street revelers as an estimated 400,000 people flocked to Folsom Street on Sunday for the 22nd annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco.

Dominants and submissives came from all over the globe, including London, Paris, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to experience the "granddaddy of leather" extravaganzas, according to Darryl Flick, president of Folsom Street Events. The organization hoped to raise at least $265,000, the same as last year, to provide services to gay, lesbian and AIDS organizations throughout San Francisco.

First aid personnel said the biggest problem was party-goers passing out from heat exhaustion. But Flick said that the fair provides a chance for people to honestly express themselves and receives the full support of the city.

"Everybody has some degree of fetish," said Bill Worthen, vice president of Folsom Street Events.

Worthen joined the leather community more than 10 years ago after attending a leather party wearing his father's leather pants. He still owns the pants and talks freely of interests in flogging and water sports.

Fixations displayed at the fair ranged all across the board.

Sister Maple Syrup, a leather-clad nun in spiky black studded boots and neon blue hair, said she was fully involved in the leather community and has been for more than three years. She said she does hospice work to raise money for charities all over the Bay Area.

"I love being out in a kinky environment. I'm a kinky nun," Maple Syrup said. "A great way to control a man is to get him to wear panties."

Maple Syrup said she has the full support of her three college-age daughters who also attended the fair, the youngest of which Maple Syrup said has an interest in spanking.

The fair attracted the usual enthusiasts in San Francisco's leather-clad, S&M and gay community, as well as many families.

"There's a lot more straight people and strollers," said Chuck Rudd, a member of the Bears of San Francisco, a local nonprofit organization.

Elder San Francisco resident Larry Raymond said he comes to the fair every year for "all the good hot bodies."

Kat Ortland, a statuesque model and a recent college graduate from Oregon, suited up in an all-black vinyl pantsuit and three-inch lace-up boots to demonstrate Shabiri, the Japanese art of binding.

"There are amazing people here and some amazing customs," Ortland said. There's a raw energy. Everyone is so uninhibited.

But not everyone was dressed in head-to-toe leather or spanking naked.

The Freedom in Christ Church of San Francisco, the first church in the city to attend the fair, has been handing out information for several years and was welcomed by the organizers, according to Carl Smith of the church.

Still, many people came just to size up the crowd.

Katarina Lukezic danced the afternoon away in a fuzzy, neon bunny top and matching sweat pants that showed off her pierced naval. "We should enjoy diversity," Lukezic said. "Not suppress it."


http://www.insidebayarea
.com/localnews/ci_3063044

How Silence Let Clergy Abuse Continue

How Silence Let Clergy Abuse Continue

Philadelphia Inquirer

For decades, as dozens of priests preyed on children throughout the Philadelphia Archdiocese, there was only silence.

For the victims, the consequences of this long embrace of secrecy were devastating - and, despite a series of church reforms, linger even now.

In at least four instances, an Inquirer review shows, church leaders quietly reassigned accused child abusers, who went on to victimize again - a pattern repeated in parishes all over the country.

"I was disgusted," said a former altar boy in Delaware County, who says he was abused by one of the alleged repeat offenders, the Rev. Joseph Gausch. "It was just too hideous to think that the church knew."

The years of silence gave a free pass to the predators, leaving almost all untouchable by police or civil courts.

Today, the Philadelphia Archdiocese, like others, has cracked down on sexual abuse.

But Cardinal Justin Rigali has declined to publicly name all abusers, to reveal the number of victims, or to discuss how the church came to give sanctuary to sexual abusers. He has declined repeated interview requests.

After three years of investigation, a Philadelphia grand jury is poised to issue an exhaustive report on the scandal. But the chilling extent of the abuse has become clear through an avalanche of lawsuits, a new willingness by victims to come forward, and a few bare-bones admissions by the church.

The record shows:

There were more than 50 abusers, stretching back to the 1940s. About half abused more than one child; one priest allegedly victimized at least 12. In all, there were more than 100 victims.

Children were assaulted in summer camps, Shore houses, schools, parish rectories, the seminary - even in churches themselves.

Abusers were in positions of power and trust. Six were principals of Catholic high schools.

The archdiocese for years enforced a rigid code of silence, keeping parishioners in the dark about predatory priests. "You're to keep your mouth shut," one priest was instructed by superiors.

After offenders left the church, the secrecy allowed some to resurface as teachers or in other jobs that put them in contact with children.

Even in the rare instances when priests were arrested, they went unpunished by their religious orders or church officials. In three cases, priests kept their collars after being charged with sex crimes.

No new charges

Drawing upon secret church files, as well as testimony from victims, top church officials, and abusing priests, the grand-jury report is said to be scorching in its language.

However, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham is not expected to bring a single new criminal charge.

The statute of limitations on the priests' crimes ran out long ago, and Abraham has decided not to seek a charge against the archdiocese itself, as prosecutors did in some other cities.

This infuriates critics.

"Mission accomplished. The church put a strategy together to keep them all out of jail," said John Salveson, a local leader of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

"They should be congratulating themselves," he said.

The decades of silence have had another consequence: Victims, who often waited years to speak, have no recourse in the civil courts.

A slew of lawsuits against the archdiocese and its priests have been tossed out because Pennsylvania's seven-year statute of limitations had expired.

Thus far, the archdiocese says, it has paid out only $200,000 in settlements. By contrast, the Boston archdiocese has paid $85 million.

Most of the abuse in Philadelphia took place during the three decades that Cardinal John Krol headed the archdiocese, though some assaults took place during the tenure of his successor, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, according to lawsuits and interviews.

Bevilacqua cracked down after taking office in 1988. He imposed a policy of "restricted ministry," in which accused priests were assigned to nursing homes or other places with little access to children.

Reforms

After the scandal broke nationwide in 2002, Philadelphia and other American dioceses made reforms.

In Philadelphia, the church created a special review board, assisted by a private investigator, to review complaints. It now tells police about all allegations of abuse.

But the secrecy persists.

Three dioceses - Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Tucson, Ariz. - posted the names of all accused priests on the Internet. Most, including Philadelphia, have balked at that kind of openness. Here, the church remains silent on many abuse cases and provides only sketchy information on others.

The Rev. Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit weekly America, said a full accounting would help heal the damage. "One, you protect future children from being abused, and second, you encourage other victims of these priests to come forward," Reese said.

The Inquirer, through interviews, lawsuits and other documents, has identified 42 priests accused of being abusers in Philadelphia and its four suburban Pennsylvania counties. Investigators have identified more than a dozen others.

That total represents about 3 percent of priests who served in the archdiocese during those years, a number similar to national figures. A recent survey for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found that 4 percent of priests nationwide had been accused of abuse since 1950.

The Philadelphia abusers often culled their targets from fatherless or dysfunctional homes. They lured them with alcohol, candy, presents and trips, and muzzled them with threats.

Victims had nowhere to turn. Nicholas Siravo, now 59, says that when he was a high school sophomore and was abused by a priest, he went to another priest for help. That priest abused him as well, Siravo said.

Sometimes the abusers preyed on families. One Philadelphia priest is accused of abusing three brothers; another, two sets of sisters; a third, three girls, all cousins; a fourth, two brothers and a sister.

Victims like Pat McMenamin, 53, remain haunted.

As girls in Northeast Philadelphia, she and her sister shared a bed. They say Msgr. Philip J. Dowling would crawl in and assault them.

"I can still hear my sister's voice telling him to stop," McMenamin says.

After The Inquirer published the sisters' account this year, the archdiocese removed Dowling from ministry.

Repeat offenders

While the Philadelphia Archdiocese apparently harbored no one as monstrous as Boston's John Geoghan, who attacked as many as 130 children, it had serial predators of its own.

The Rev. James J. Brzyski has been accused of assaulting at least a dozen children, many from St. Cecilia's Parish in Fox Chase. He was defrocked in June.

"I don't have any religious beliefs anymore, because of what he did to me," said John Delaney, a onetime altar boy who says Brzyski raped him during the 1980s. "I have no faith in anything anymore."

The Inquirer incorrectly reported in previous articles that the grand jury had failed to find episodes in which priests abused children after the church had ignored earlier reports about them.

In fact, the grand jury has found a number of such cases. The Inquirer has been able to identify four:

The Rev. Nicholas V. Cudemo, accused of being among the worst predators. He allegedly assaulted eight girls during the 1960s and 1970s.

He served in seven parishes and taught at St. John Neumann, the former Archbishop Kennedy, and Cardinal Dougherty High Schools.

Accusers said the attack took place at rectories at SS. Cosmas and Damian in Conshohocken, St. Titus in Norristown, and St. Helena in Blue Bell, as well as in the Cardinal Dougherty sanctuary.

Among his alleged victims: three cousins, including one who said she was raped when she was 10. Cudemo, 69, who declined to comment, was defrocked this year. He lives in Orlando, Fla.

The Rev. Raymond O. Leneweaver, who taught at Cardinal O'Hara High and served in five parishes from 1962 to 1980. He was defrocked by the church two weeks ago for "sexual misconduct involving minors." The archdiocese provided no details.

He apparently left the church but worked briefly as a Latin teacher in Radnor and in Millville, N.J. Leneweaver, 71, of Villanova, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Rev. Stanley Gana, whose alleged abuses include the rape of a 13-year-old boy. The boy said the sex, which went on for a decade, began when he went to Gana for counseling after he was assaulted by a family friend.

Gana's assaults took place in the 1970s and 1980s in the church and rectory, on a trip to Walt Disney World, and at Gana's farm in northeastern Pennsylvania, two victims said.

The priest allegedly abused children from Our Lady of Calvary and Ascension of Our Lord, both in Philadelphia.

After the two accusers reported Gana's abuse to the church in the early 1990s, the church limited Gana to serving as a chaplain in a monastery. After the national scandal broke in 2002, the church dismissed him.

Gana, now 63, could not be reached for comment.

The Rev. Joseph Gausch, who allegedly assaulted more than seven children over four decades.

In an interview, a 55-year-old Delaware County man said his parents immediately reported the abuse to the church. The man, who also testified before the grand jury, said the assaults took place when he was a 13-year-old altar boy at Our Lady of Peace in Folsom.

Gausch masturbated him and forced him to touch the priest's genitals, sometimes in the sacristy, the room near the altar where robes are kept, the man said.

The man, who asked not to be identified, said prosecutors told him that he was not Gausch's first victim. Previous reports had come in the 1940s and 1950s, he was told.

After the 13-year-old's parents reported the abuse, in 1963 or 1964, Gausch was moved.

He went on to molest other children at three parishes during the 1980s - St. Bridget's in East Falls, Queen of the Universe in Levittown, and Good Shepherd in Southwest Philadelphia, lawsuits charge.

Gausch died in 1999 at age 83. The church declined to comment.

The man who was abused as a 13-year-old said he was appalled to learn that the church could have stopped Gausch before he molested him and other children.

"They repositioned him," the man said. "It just infuriates me that there were others."


http://www.philly.com/mld/inqui
rer/living/religion/12637655.htm

FEMA Plans to Reimburse Faith Groups for Aid

Hog Trough Faith

As Civil Libertarians Object, Religious Organizations Weigh Whether to Apply

After weeks of prodding by Republican lawmakers and the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said yesterday that it will use taxpayer money to reimburse churches and other religious organizations that have opened their doors to provide shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

FEMA officials said it would mark the first time that the government has made large-scale payments to religious groups for helping to cope with a domestic natural disaster.

"I believe it's appropriate for the federal government to assist the faith community because of the scale and scope of the effort and how long it's lasting," said Joe Becker, senior vice president for preparedness and response with the Red Cross.

Civil liberties groups called the decision a violation of the traditional boundary between church and state, accusing FEMA of trying to restore its battered reputation by playing to religious conservatives.

"What really frosts me about all this is, here is an administration that didn't do its job and now is trying to dig itself out by making right-wing groups happy," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

FEMA officials said religious organizations would be eligible for payments only if they operated emergency shelters, food distribution centers or medical facilities at the request of state or local governments in the three states that have declared emergencies -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In those cases, "a wide range of costs would be available for reimbursement, including labor costs incurred in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and delivery of essential needs like food and water," FEMA spokesman Eugene Kinerney said in an e-mail.

For churches, synagogues and mosques that have taken in hurricane survivors, FEMA's decision presents a quandary. Some said they were eager to get the money and had begun tallying their costs, from electric bills to worn carpets. Others said they probably would not apply for the funds, fearing donations would dry up if the public came to believe they were receiving government handouts.

"Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer," said the Rev. Robert E. Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board. "We would never ask the government to pay for it."

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, religious charities rushed in to provide emergency services, often acting more quickly and efficiently than the government. Relief workers in the stricken states estimate that 500,000 people have taken refuge in facilities run by religious groups.

In the days after the disaster, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and other Republicans complained that FEMA seemed reluctant to pay church groups. "There are tons of questions about what is reimbursable, what is not reimbursable," DeLay said Sept. 13, noting that Houston alone had "500 or 600 churches that took in evacuees, and they would get no reimbursement."

Becker said he and his staff at the Red Cross also urged FEMA to allow reimbursement of religious groups. Ordinarily, Becker said, churches provide shelter for the first days after a disaster, then the Red Cross takes over. But in a storm season that has stretched every Red Cross shelter to the breaking point, church buildings must for the first time house evacuees indefinitely.

Even so, Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that federal reimbursement is inappropriate.

"The good news is that this work is being done now, but I don't think a lot of people realize that a lot of these organizations are actively working to obtain federal funds. That's a strange definition of charity," he said.

Lynn added that he accepts the need for the government to coordinate with religious groups in a major disaster, but not to "pay for their good works."

"We've never complained about using a religious organization as a distribution point for food or clothing or anything else," Lynn said. But "direct cash reimbursements would be unprecedented."

FEMA outlined the policy in a Sept. 9 internal memorandum on "Eligible Costs for Emergency Sheltering Declarations." Religious groups, like secular nonprofit groups, will have to document their costs and file for reimbursement from state and local emergency management agencies, which in turn will seek funds from FEMA.

David Fukitomi, infrastructure coordinator for FEMA in Louisiana, said that the organization has begun briefings for potential applicants in the disaster area but that it is too early to know how many will take advantage of the program.

"The need was so overwhelming that the faith-based groups stepped up, and we're trying to find a way to help them shoulder some of the burden for doing the right thing," he said, adding that "the churches are interested" but that "part of our effort is getting the local governments to be interested in being their sponsor."

A spokeswoman for the Salvation Army said it has been in talks with state and federal officials about reimbursement for the 76,000 nights of shelter it has provided to Katrina survivors so far. But it is still unclear whether the Salvation Army will qualify, she said.

The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Save America, an antiabortion group formerly known as Operation Rescue, said, "Separation of church and state means nothing in a time of disaster; you see immediately what a farce it is."

Benham said that his group has been dispensing food and clothing and that "Bibles and tracts go out with everything we put out." In Mendenhall, Miss., he said, he preached to evacuees while the mayor directed traffic and the sheriff put inmates from the county jail to work handing out supplies.

Yet Benham said he would never accept a dime from the federal government. "The people have been so generous to give that for us to ask for reimbursement would be like gouging for gas," he said. "That would be a crime against heaven."

For some individual churches, however, reimbursement is very appealing. At Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Ocean Springs, Miss., as many as 200 evacuees and volunteer workers have been sleeping each night in the sanctuary and Sunday school classrooms. The church's entrance hall is a Red Cross reception area and medical clinic. As many as 400 people a day are eating in the fellowship hall.

Suzie Harvey, the parish administrator, said the church was asked by the Red Cross and local officials to serve as a shelter. The church's leadership agreed immediately, without anticipating that nearly a quarter of its 650 members would be rendered homeless and in no position to contribute funds. "This was just something we had to do," she said. "Later we realized we have no income coming in."

Harvey said the electric bill has skyrocketed, water is being used round-the-clock and there has been "20 years of wear on the carpet in one month." When FEMA makes money available, she said, the church definitely will apply.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content
/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092601799_pf.html

FDA Commissioner Abruptly Steps Down

Bush gives pro-aborts what they want

FDA Commissioner 'asked to resign'

WASHINGTON -- Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Lester Crawford resigned unexpectedly yesterday, two months after he survived a tough Senate confirmation. Crawford told his staff that at 67, it was time to step aside.

President Bush appointed Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute, acting commissioner.

Sources familiar with his departure said Crawford was asked to resign.

Crawford's 3 ½-year tenure, first as interim, then permanent, FDA chief, was marked by increasing criticism and a particularly rocky final 12 months. The painkiller Vioxx was pulled off the market for safety problems, and the FDA was embarrassed last fall when its British counterparts shut down a supplier of U.S. flu vaccine for tainted shots. This summer, recalls of malfunctioning heart devices mounted.

Crawford was also accused before his confirmation of having an improper relationship with a female colleague, a charge independent investigators said both parties denied. The final report did note, however, some significant discrepancies between Crawford's testimony and that of others in the commissioner's office.

In August, morale at the agency plummeted after Crawford indefinitely postponed nonprescription sales of the emergency-contraception pill Plan B over objections of staff scientists who had declared the pill safe. The agency's women's-health chief resigned in protest.

The delay also angered Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who had allowed Crawford's nomination as commissioner to move forward only after getting a promise that a decision on Plan B would be made by Sept. 1. At the time, Murray said, "This is not only a broken promise to us, but another frightening example of politics trumping science at the FDA."

Yesterday, Murray hailed Crawford's resignation and called on Bush to nominate a replacement who will "show his commitment to putting science ahead of politics."

"Unfortunately, during his tenure, the FDA's reputation as the gold standard in public health has been tarnished."

Despite the controversy surrounding Crawford, the resignation, effective immediately, was a surprise.

A veterinarian who specialized in food safety, he was elevated by Bush from acting commissioner to the full job, in part because his experience was deemed important as the FDA tried to better safeguard the food supply against bioterrorism.

He had worked at the FDA on four occasions over 30 years, at the Agriculture Department and as an adviser to the World Health Organization.

Crawford gave a speech Monday in Washington, D.C., during which he betrayed no sign he was planning to leave.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt accepted Crawford's resignation "with sadness," said department spokeswoman Christina Pearson. Asked if Crawford was forced to resign, Pearson said she couldn't comment further on a personnel issue.

Crawford is the second high-ranking administration official to resign in the past two weeks. Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency Director Michael Brown resigned under pressure because of the agency's performance during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Von Eschenbach, tapped to be the FDA's acting chief, is a cancer survivor and urologic surgeon from Texas who was chief academic officer at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center before moving to the National Cancer Institute.

His tenure isn't immune from controversy, either: Von Eschenbach has said that he hopes by 2015 to make cancer a chronic disease that patients can live with instead of die from. While a laudable goal, many cancer specialists caution science isn't close to achieving it for most cancers.

In a brief farewell message to his staff, Crawford thanked Bush, Leavitt and "the extraordinary people of FDA for the honor of having served with them. ... After 3 ½ years as deputy commissioner, acting commissioner and finally as commissioner, it is time, at the age of 67, to step aside."

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a vocal critic of FDA policies and Crawford, welcomed the departure and said he hoped the new commissioner would reform the agency and take it in a new, and more consumer-oriented direction.

"FDA scientists and employees are by and large hardworking and committed to fulfilling the agency's mission," he said. "They deserve a commissioner who will reinvigorate the agency."

One consumer group lamented Crawford's departure, particularly the loss of his food-safety expertise.

"The agency has had so much turnover in the top spot, and turmoil throughout, that it could have benefited from a period of steady leadership," said Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "The country doesn't need a rudderless FDA."


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht
ml/nationworld/2002516990_fda24.html

Hurricane Rita Makes Landfall at Tex., La. Border

Rita Makes Landfall

BEAUMONT, Tex. -- Hearing the lessons of Katrina in the growling winds, hundreds of thousands of remaining residents of south Texas and southwestern Louisiana fled their homes or hunkered down for the duration before Hurricane Rita arrived in this gritty oil-patch region early Saturday morning.

The eye of the storm made landfall at about 3:40 a.m. Saturday just east of Sabine Pass, Tex., at the state border with Louisiana. It headed northwest, toward the Port Arthur-Beaumont area of Texas, which was battered through the early morning hours by Rita's outer bands and the eyewall, the fierce wall of winds surrounding the storm's center.

Weakened since its peak but still packing winds of 120 mph, Rita dumped torrential rains on coastal towns as it veered north from its path toward Houston. The National Hurricane Center warned of flooding dangers, noting that Rita will slow down after coming ashore and produce 10 to 15 inches of rain over eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Some areas could even see as much as 25 inches. Hurricane force winds extended out for up to 85 miles from the storm's center and tornado warnings in the area were also issued.

The Category 3 storm brought misery even before it hit land, inundating the battered city of New Orleans Friday with fresh floodwaters as levees weakened by Hurricane Katrina failed to hold off another assault.

Outside Dallas, as many as 24 elderly evacuees from the Houston area were killed Friday morning when their bus burst into flames. The driver and some passengers frantically tried to save others before oxygen tanks used by many of the riders exploded. The cause of the fire is unknown.

Nearly 3 million people are estimated to have fled the coastline of south Texas and southwest Louisiana in a two-day evacuation that caused monstrous traffic jams, which were worsened by hundreds of vehicles that ran out of gas. Although traffic had lightened noticeably by Friday afternoon, it was still bumper-to-bumper outside Houston as remaining residents headed north to Dallas and beyond.

Determined to avoid the sluggish response to Katrina that stranded thousands in New Orleans and battered President Bush in the polls, the administration readied thousands of federal troops and massive numbers of military vehicles for Rita. Bush flew on Friday to Northern Command headquarters in Colorado Springs in advance of the storm's landfall.

In Beaumont, Port Arthur and other refinery towns in the path of the storm, nearly all streets and homes were empty as authorities prepared for a storm surge as high as 20 feet and as much as 25 inches of rain.

Although a mandatory evacuation order had been issued for the area, authorities were not trying to force people from their homes. Some, despite the increasing urgency of radio and television reports, refused to believe they were in danger.

"You can't run from the good Lord," mused Eugene Henry, 62, as he sat sipping beer Friday with two friends on his stoop in Port Arthur. A few blocks from his house, a 14-foot levee was all that kept the water from the town.

But authorities estimated that almost all of the other quarter-million people living in Beaumont and Port Arthur had left. Hospitals and nursing homes were mostly empty. Inmates were taken from the sprawling, fenced-in prison complex south of Beaumont and put in a crowded -- but higher -- county jail.

"We don't have the resources to force people out of their homes," Beaumont police spokesman Crystal Holmes said. "But we have made it very clear to them that when we have to take shelter, all emergency services will stop. If people are trapped or if there is a fire in the city, no help will be coming. The consequences of staying could be death."

Police and rescue personnel settled for the night in fire stations and hospitals, although firefighters in Galveston battled a blaze that engulfed three buildings. Beaumont loaded hundreds of ambulances, firetrucks, dump trucks and police cars onto two troop transport ships to be ready for quick offloading after the storm.

Shrimp boats and tugboats that were caught by the shift of the storm's path retreated from the Gulf of Mexico to Sabine Lake and up a narrow shipping channel toward Beaumont, seeking refuge.

"You got storm surge. You got flooding. You got spinoff tornadoes, and you got hurricane winds coming," Beaumont Port officer Renee Utley said Friday. "You'll get a lot for your money with this storm."

Port Arthur, a town of about 56,000 boxed in by water on two sides, seemed otherwise deserted. All stores were closed Friday, buildings boarded. A Texas officer said a few law enforcement officers planned to ride it out in a local hotel.

By mid-afternoon, the skies had taken on a sinister tone, with dark gray clouds rolling to the horizon. The first rains pelted down, carried by gusts of wind, the precursors of the storm to follow.

"I've been through them before," said Brian Williams, 33, an officer with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, one of many agencies pressed into emergency service. "This is just another storm." He paused, then added, "Well, this might be bigger than that."

The Texas homeland security director, Steve McCraw, said some low-lying communities, such as Beaumont and Port Arthur, could be underwater for as many as seven days.

If the storm stalls after it makes landfall, and moves slowly, McCraw said, heavy rains and ensuing tornadoes could affect 80 counties and 11 million residents.

The Beaumont and Port Arthur area has a large number of petro-chemical and chemical plants. McCraw said companies worked with state officials to shut down and secure facilities, but not all are shuttered.

"Some plants need to stay open," he said, declining to provide details. "They're vital to national security."

On Friday, Texas disaster officials warned there would be little that they could do when Rita came ashore with its fullest impact. But Jack Colley, state coordinator for the Governor's Division of Emergency Management, said the state was taking advantage of the last few hours before the winds become too strong to move food and water into the Houston area.

"We are fully prepared for Hurricane Rita to strike this Texas coast," Colley said.

Colley also said it would be up to local officials to tell people when they can return to their homes. "That is at the discretion of local elected officials," he said. "The same elected officials who can order mandatory evacuations can decide when to let people back in."

Texas has called more than 10,000 National Guard troops to respond to Rita, out of a total of 20,000 soldiers and airmen. About 5,800 Texas National Guardsmen are deployed overseas.

Texas and Louisiana have also asked for a total of 25,000 active-duty troops, but a spokesman for Joint Task Force Rita said specific active-duty units had not yet been identified.

Army Lt. Gen. Robert Clark, head of Joint Task Force Rita, based at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, said military units are ready to move in as soon as conditions allow Saturday.

The task force's first priority will be search and rescue, particularly by air and executed by military as well as private and media aircraft. To keep the helicopters from flying into one another, the operation will use an airspace management system developed in the wake of Katrina.

"We really learned lessons in that operation, and we're applying them today," Clark said.

Hotels and shelters in Dallas were at or near capacity. All American Red Cross shelters were full Friday night, with 2,700 people housed in the convention center, Reunion Arena and three other facilities in the area. The city was housing evacuees at a former jail, which was also full.

Just as New Orleans was beginning to dry out, haul away debris and turn on the lights, the city was again deluged as water rushed over and through recently repaired levees, flooding the Ninth Ward neighborhoods that were submerged by Katrina.

Around 9 a.m. Friday, water began pouring over a 100-yard span of the temporary wall installed along the Industrial Canal. A hole about 30 yards wide then blew open. Water topped the temporary floodwalls in at least two other locations, creating an eerie rerun of the scenes of nearly one month ago when floodwaters submerged cars, trees and homes. By late Friday afternoon, the lower Ninth Ward appeared to have more than three feet of water rushing toward St. Bernard Parish.

"It's back to what you call ground zero," said Mark Castillon, an officer candidate with the Louisiana National Guard.

Army Corps engineers attempted to plug one smaller break but were unsuccessful. Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said helicopters will be used to drop sandbags again -- but not until the torrential rains and heavy winds stop.

With a full day of heavy rain and winds, the deserted city was again littered with tree limbs and downed power lines; many of the portable toilets brought in for Katrina were knocked over like children's building blocks.

To the west in Lake Charles, the city was almost empty as thousands fled in advance of Rita.

"There's nothing really to compare to this," said Sgt. Wendell Carroll of the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office in Lake Charles. "After Katrina, everybody's thinking about hurricanes has changed. At least now, hurricanes are being taken more seriously. We're ready and waiting."

The approach of Rita has also put a huge strain on Lafayette, La., a center of Cajun culture, where emergency officials scrambled to send Katrina evacuees to shelters farther north to clear space for the onslaught of Rita evacuees.

Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore, the federal Katrina chief overseeing Rita preparation efforts from Lafayette, told reporters that hundreds of troops are staging in Baton Rouge but that trucks and helicopters will not begin going into damaged areas until winds get below 40 mph.

"Pray," Honore advised the residents of southwest Louisiana. "A little prayer right now will work, hopefully."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte
nt/article/2005/09/24/AR2005092400354.html

Rita Causes New Flooding in New Orleans

Levees Broke Again

Hurricane Rita's steady rains sent water pouring through breaches in a patched levee Friday, cascading into one of the city's lowest-lying neighborhoods in a devastating repeat of New Orleans' flooding nightmare.

"Our worst fears came true," said Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard.

"We have three significant breaches in the levee and the water is rising rapidly," he said. "At daybreak I found substantial breaks and they've grown larger."

Dozens of blocks in the Ninth Ward were under water as a waterfall at least 30 feet wide poured over and through a dike that had been used to patch breaks in the Industrial Canal levee. On the street that runs parallel to the canal, the water ran waist-deep and was rising fast. Guidry said water was rising about three inches a minute.

The impoverished neighborhood was one of the areas of the city hit hardest by Katrina's floodwaters and finally had been pumped dry before Hurricane Rita struck.

Throughout Friday morning, water began rising again onto buckled homes, piles of rubble and mud-caked cars that Katrina had covered with up to 20 feet of water.

Sally Forman, an aide to Mayor Ray Nagin, said officials knew the levees were compromised, but they believe that the Ninth Ward is cleared of residents.

"I wouldn't imagine there's one person down there," Forman said.

Mitch Frazier, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said contractors were being brought in Friday morning to repair the new damage. The corps had earlier installed 60-foot sections of metal across some of the city's canals to protect against flooding and storm surges.

Forecasters say anywhere from 3 to 5 inches of rain could fall in New Orleans as Rita passes Friday and Saturday, dangerously close to the 6 inches of rain that Corps officials say the patched levees can withstand.

Another concern is the storm surge accompanying Rita, which could send water rising as much as 3 to 5 feet above high tide.

Already Friday morning, a steady 20 mph wind, with gusts to 35 mph, was blowing, along with steady rains.

Because of uncertain weather conditions from Hurricane Rita, the recovery of bodies was suspended but previous discoveries pushed the death toll from Hurricane Katrina to 841 in Louisiana, and at least 1,078 across the Gulf Coast.

As many as 500,000 people in southwestern Louisiana, many of them already displaced by Hurricane Katrina, were told to evacuate and many jammed roads north to escape.

In New Iberia, Glynn Stevenson, who swam out of his New Orleans house with belongings taped to his body, had just gotten settled into a trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency when the call came for him to uproot again.

"It's nothing to get mad about," he said. "Just keep a cool attitude and help your brothers."

As for those who refuse to leave, Gov. Kathleen Blanco advised: "Perhaps they should write their Social Security numbers on their arms with indelible ink."

Rita was headed for a Texas landfall but the massive storm threatened southwestern Louisiana as well, with tropical storm-force winds expected by noon and hurricane-force winds of 74 mph or higher by early Saturday. Flash floods were possible as 10 to 15 inches of rain was forecast.

National Guard and medical units were put on standby. Helicopters were being positioned, and search-and-rescue boats from the state wildlife department were staged on high ground on the edge of Rita's projected path. Blanco said she also asked for 15,000 more federal troops.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen said three days worth of food, water and other supplies for 500,000 people are ready and waiting around Louisiana, if needed after Rita.

A mandatory evacuation order was in effect for homes on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, and police said people in the city's Algiers section on the other side of the river would be wise to get out, too. But thousands stayed put.

"I'm sticking it out," said Florida Richardson, who sat on her front porch in Algiers, holding her grandson on her lap. "This house is 85 years old. It's seen a lot of tornadoes and a lot of hurricanes. You can't run from the power of God."

A traffic jam of evacuees extended from Houston and other Texas cities well into Louisiana, with Interstate 10 congested across southern Louisiana.

Billy Landry, a marina manager in Cypremort Point, wasn't going to stay for Rita. He planned to haul himself and thousands of soft-shell crabs to safety.

"Since Katrina, everybody seems a little nervous. They don't want to get pulled from rooftops," he said.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/HurricaneRita/w
ireStory?id=1152678&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

'Gay' gets 20 years in federal prison without parole for kidnapping a 10-year-old boy

'Gay' Gets 20 Years In Prison

OCALA -- The 42-year-old convicted sex offender who abducted a Dunnellon Elementary School boy earlier this year apologized to a federal judge on Thursday and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

"I'm sorry everything happened the way it happened. I really am," said Frederick Fretz, before Senior U.S. District Judge Terrell Hodges. The judge sentenced him for the Jan. 18 kidnapping of 10-year-old Adam Kirkirt, who is now 11.

Fretz picked up the boy from school, as he usually did, but that day he fled north. Three days later, police found Adam near Emerson, Ga., about an hour north of Atlanta. Fretz was found two days after that.

"I think everyone has recognized this is a very serious event," Hodges said. "I believe the kidnapping of a minor child is sort of like a homicide or any serious crime someone can commit."

Fretz pleaded guilty in May. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carlos Perez and Federal Public Defender Fletcher Peacock agreed that 20 years - the federal minimum for this kidnapping charge - is a proper sentence. By law, Fretz must serve at least 85 percent of the term.

The judge also sentenced him to five years of probation, including no contact with anyone under 18 and no Internet access. While in prison and afterward, Fretz must get mental health and sex-offender treatment.

However, Adam's mother, Dorraine Kirkirt, said she was disappointed by the sentence.

"I don't think it's enough. He's gonna get out and hurt another child," she said, crying, as she nervously smoked a cigarette outside of the Golden-Collum Memorial Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse. "They lied to me. They told me: 'We're the federal government. We don't make deals.'"

In 1991, Fretz was convicted of molesting a 10-year-old boy in Pennsylvania. He did not register as a sexual offender here.

In the beginning of this case, it was unclear whether or not Fretz would also be charged with sexual exploitation of a minor because of a statement made during an interview.

"The circumstances giving rise to the making of that statement were not reliable," Perez said. "In my legal analysis, I could not have brought a charge to the court."

Fretz looked like a different man at the hearing. He looked calm, and his short, badly dyed blonde hair was now longer and mousy brown.

Though his physical appearance has changed, Dorraine Kirkirt said she knows he hasn't.

"Sex offenders are never sorry. They're sorry they got caught," she said. She's grateful her son is all right.

"It could've ended worse. Everyday I think about it. I still can't sleep at night."


http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl
e?AID=/20050923/NEWS/209230344/1001/news01

Strippers help tease back New Orleans nightlife

Strippers back in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS -- In a sign that things may be returning to normal in New Orleans, strip shows are back in the city's famous French Quarter.

Erotic dancers and strippers are entertaining crowds of police, firefighters and military personnel instead of the usual audiences of drunken conventioneers and tourists in Bourbon Street's Deja Vu club, which reopened this week.

It's the first strip joint to resume business, three weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck in the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States.

"It's nice to get back to work, and all these men need some entertainment," Dawn Beasley, 27, a dancer at the club, said on Tuesday night. "They haven't seen anybody but their buddies for two weeks."

The crowd hooted and hollered as women peeled off their tops and gyrated, as customers tucked tips into their G-strings.

"This is our first time off the ship and it's great," said one young sailor as he left the club. He declined to give his name or say where he was stationed.

"It's good to see the businesses getting back up and bringing the city back," another sailor said.

New Orleans' strip clubs have long been a fixture of Bourbon Street, where marquees promise everything from "barely legal" dancers to transvestite divas. Photos of the seedy shows inside the clubs line the windows, next to scores of bars in the district that draws tourists from around the globe.

The city's dusk-to-dawn curfew failed to prevent the Deja Vu from staying open to the early hours, with blaring music and neon lights spilling out into the Quarter, most of which remained bathed in darkness in the aftermath of the storm.

"We were open till two last night, just long enough to get the testosterone flowing," Beasley said.

Only a handful of restaurants and bars in the Quarter have reopened in recent days, serving food and drinks -- usually without charge -- to rescue workers and military who stream through the mostly empty streets. The Deja Vu waived its cover charge, drinks were selling for $3 and a private dance was available for just $1.

For Deja Vu manager Brent Ardeneaux, reopening was a public service.

"It's a disaster zone. You got a lot of people in from out of town that need entertaining," he said as he unloaded supplies from the back of a pick-up truck.

The club even drew several women looking for a respite from their duties patrolling the city, but they resisted entreaties to join the others on stage and left after a few minutes.

One of them, a soldier, said: "We were just looking for any place open. We've been working hard."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/2005
0922/od_nm/katrina_strippers_dc

John Roberts’ Shocking Repudiation Of The Bible As The Standard For His Judging

Roberts Repudiates The Bible

Our 23rd nationally-syndicated, one-hour radio show, “The American View,” co-hosted by myself and “recovering Republican” John Lofton, was broadcast this past Sunday in 38 cities in 22 states.

On this program, we discuss John Roberts’ shocking, un-American repudiation of the Bible as his standard for judging and the shameful silence from so-called “Christian leaders” about this statement which alone disqualifies him from being a judge. We also discuss the abysmal ignorance and Constitutional illiteracy of so many of Roberts’ interrogators on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Also, please, if you would like to help us keep our program on the air — which is presently on stations in 37 cities in 22 states — send us a donation of $25, $50, $100 or more. Make your check or money order out to: “The American View” and send it to:

The American View
8028 Ritchie Highway
Suite #303
Pasadena, MD 21122

And do, please, continue to pray for the success of our program that it might glorify God. Because, as He says in Psalm 127:1: “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

Grand Jury Flays Archdiocese For Hiding Priest Sex Abuse

Grand Jury Flays Archdiocese

Cardinals were key to cover-up in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA -- The leaders of the Philadelphia Archdiocese — including two former archbishops — actively concealed sexual abuse by priests for decades, but no criminal charges can be brought against the church or its priests because of the constraints of state law, according to grand jury findings released Wednesday.

Following the nation's longest-running grand jury probe into priest abuse, the scathing report documents assaults on minors by more than 60 priests since 1945 — including 12 who served in the Lehigh Valley region at some time — and alleges that the former archbishops, Cardinals Anthony Bevilacqua and John Krol, covered up the abuse.

Read the entire grand jury report on the sexual abuse of minors by clergy

''To protect themselves from negative publicity or expensive lawsuits — while keeping abusive priests active — the cardinals and their aides hid the priests' crimes from parishioners, police and the general public,'' says the report, which contains sexually explicit details.

State laws, including legal time limits, prevented prosecutors from filing charges, the report says. The grand jury also explored the possibility of charges against the archdiocese, but said the organization could not be prosecuted because it is an unincorporated association rather than a corporation.

''Archdiocese leaders have endangered and harmed children in parishes and schools by keeping known abusers in ministry and transferring discovered abusers to assignments where parents and potential victims are unaware of the priests' sexual predations,'' the report says.

Cardinal Justin Rigali issued a measured response Wednesday, saying the church will do all it can to protect minors. In contrast, archdiocesan attorneys wrote a harshly worded 69-page rebuttal to the grand jury report, calling it a ''a vile, mean-spirited diatribe'' that was ''reminiscent of the days of rampant Know-Nothingism in the 1840s'' — a time of strong anti-Roman Catholic sentiment.

''The original intent behind the grand jury concept was to shield against abuses of power,'' the archdiocese said. ''In this case, the grand jury was used as a sword to attack the church and build support for insidious prejudgments.''

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham convened the grand jury in April 2002 amid a nationwide scandal following the disclosure of widespread abuse in the Boston Archdiocese.

In Lehigh County, District Attorney James B. Martin had declined to convene a grand jury to investigate allegations of abuse by priests in the Allentown Diocese, saying in May, ''It would be improper to use the grand jury for a fishing expedition.''

The 418-page report on the Philadelphia Archdiocese names 63 priests ''whose abusive behavior was well-documented in archdiocese files and by witnesses who testified'' before the grand jury. All had multiple victims, and many more abusers certainly exist, the grand jury concluded.

Rigali said 54 priests — nine fewer than named in the report — have been ''credibly'' accused of sexual assaults since the 1950s. Only one priest in the archdiocese has been indicted.

Juliann Bortz of Lower Macungie Township, co-chairwoman of the local chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, anticipates more victims of abusive priests will come forward after hearing about the Philadelphia report.

She wants Martin to convene a grand jury and expects that SNAP members today will discuss trying to meet with him.

Martin on Wednesday maintained his position against such a probe, saying the Allentown Diocese has cooperated fully and voluntarily with his office, which found no prosecutable cases among 23 it investigated three years ago.

Church officials in 2002 met with Martin and the top prosecutors in the four other counties that make up the Allentown Diocese about priests accused of molesting children. The district attorneys in Berks, Carbon, Northampton and Schuylkill reviewed dozens of cases and concluded that the allegations were too old to prosecute.

Of the 12 Philadelphia Archdiocese priests who at one time served in the Lehigh Valley region and were named in the grand jury report, four had served decades ago at churches in what is now the Allentown Diocese — the Revs. Gerard W. Chambers, Peter J. Dunne, Joseph P. Gausch and Charles J. Siegele.

Of those, Dunne had not been previously identified publicly.

Until 1961, the Allentown Diocese was part of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, which now includes Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties.

Abraham, the Philadelphia district attorney, said at a news conference, ''We should make one thing clear: When we say abuse, we don't just mean inappropriate touching. We mean child rape.''

The grand jury found that Krol and Bevilacqua knew that priests were molesting and raping children but conducted bogus ''non-investigations'' designed to avoid uncovering abuse. The cardinals and their aides also transferred known abusers to other parishes, according to the report, a decision determined by the risk of a scandal or lawsuit rather than a danger posed to the community.

Abraham said, ''The evidence is clear. This reaches the top — the very top of our archdiocese. Regrettably, the perpetrators of these crimes and the people that protected them will never face the penalties they deserve.''

Worst of all, the grand jury said, is that hundreds of children were molested, raped and subjected to a lifetime of despair because of the archdiocese's ''purposeful decisions, carefully implemented policies and calculated indifference.''

''In many cases … the victims believed God abandoned them,'' the grand jury said of the victim testimony.

Among the examples of abuse cited in the report:

An 11-year-old girl was raped and impregnated by a priest, who took her for an abortion.

A fifth-grade girl was molested by a priest inside a confessional booth.

A boy woke up intoxicated in a priest's bed to find the priest performing oral sex on him as three other priests watched and masturbated.

A priest falsely told a 12-year-old boy that the child's mother knew he was being raped repeatedly by the priest, and allowed it.

Several victims of clergy assault said they were disappointed no charges could be lodged against the abusers, but that they hoped the report would help abuse survivors heal.

''This shows everybody that the laws need to change and people who commit these kinds of crimes need to be held accountable,'' said John Delaney, 33, who was an 11-year-old altar boy at St. Cecilia Church in northeast Philadelphia when he was first abused.

He has filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese, contending that evidence of a cover-up might prompt the state Supreme Court to set aside the statute of limitations. He said he has suffered from drug and alcohol addiction as a result of the abuse, which went on for seven years.

''I was raped by the time I was 13 years old. It happened in the sacristy, it happened in the rectory, it happened in my parents' house,'' Delaney said. ''The archdiocese knows about these predators, and they let it go on.''

The archdiocese denied allegations of a cover-up and contended that prosecutors taking testimony from Bevilacqua — whom it referred to as ''inquisitors'' — sought to ''bully and intimidate'' him.

''Cardinal Bevilacqua's remarkable record of service belies the report's vicious treatment of him,'' the archdiocese said. ''This personal attack against a longstanding leader in our community was neither accurate nor necessary.''

The grand jury urged that Pennsylvania abolish its statute of limitations for sexual offenses against children, expand the offense of child endangerment to include caretakers and supervisors, and allow unincorporated associations to be subject to criminal prosecution just as corporations are.

Victims advocates and prosecutors said they would work together to push for the changes.

Amid the clergy abuse scandal nationwide, the statute of limitations in Pennsylvania for victims to lodge sexual abuse allegations was extended in 2002 to a victim's 30th birthday. Victims previously had only two years after their 18th birthday.

''At least for today, the archdiocese has beaten the system,'' said John Salveson, spokesman for the Philadelphia chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. ''But … we will not give up the fight. Our need for justice will not allow it.''

Joann Loviglio of The Associated Press and Morning Call reporters Pervaiz Shallwani and Romy Varghese contributed to this story.


http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-asep
22,0,3770955.story?track=mostemailedlink

The son of Margaret Sanger says 'abortion does involve morality'

Killer Says Abortion Does Involve Morality

BLOOMINGTON -- Pro-choice advocates need to join pro-life advocates in debating abortion in moral terms, argued the chairman of the International Planned Parenthood Council. Pro-choice arguments have been ineffective for 25 years because they have been based largely on women's rights and rights to privacy, Alex Sanger said Monday. While those are important arguments, they have allowed the pro-life side to focus on moral issues, and American public opinion on abortion hasn't changed in 30 years, he said.

Editor's note: The reason American public opinion hasn't changed in 30 years is because the first principle involving abortion is Murder, which is an essential truth avoided by those who hold a man-pleasing, feminine-mindset within various pro-life ranks. Yet, when we look at it from the proper prospective of the dead victims, we clearly see that abortion is not a "moral" issue, it is not a "religious" issue, and it is most certainly not a "health" issue -- abortion is the crime of Murder. The dead human bodies of aborted babies demand that abortion is Murder.

When we place the abortion people into a direct confrontation with the murder evidence of aborted babies by supporting and passing state laws that allow prosecutors to hunt down, arrest and punish the murderers, during that process, we will see three important social changes take effect:

First, because citizens will be exposed to the murder evidence, public opinion will change as people become more sympathetic toward the slaughtered babies.

Second, "pro-choicers" can not argue against the shear weight of evidence of the murdered corpses of aborted babies - they will always lose that argument. Always! Thus, the cadre of "pro-choice" government officials, news media, and born killers like Planned Parenthood's Alex Sanger, will flee from the light.

Third, over a short period of time, public outcry will demand this bloodshed be outlawed.

However, public opinion on abortion will never change as long as the Church continues to allow a man-pleasing feminine-mindset to determine its path.

--Jim Rudd

Teen's Abortion Prompts Lawsuit

Teen's Abortion Prompts Lawsuit

Abortion notification guideline in question

Anne Doe was three months shy of her 18th birthday when she walked into St. Paul's Planned Parenthood clinic the day after Christmas 2002 and — unbeknownst to her parents — aborted her pregnancy.

Although state law generally requires clinics to notify parents before performing abortions on minors, Planned Parenthood didn't do so in Anne's case. The clinic considered Anne an adult under the law because she had previously had a baby.

But Anne's parents were upset to learn about the abortion after the fact. They sued Planned Parenthood for violating Minnesota's parental-notification law, seeking damages of more than $50,000.

Ramsey County District Judge David Higgs will weigh arguments today before deciding whether to dismiss the suit or allow it to proceed.

The suit could be another skirmish in the debate over parental-consent laws for minors seeking abortions. Minnesota is one of 44 states with either a parental consent or notification law on the books, according to Planned Parenthood.

"We provided a safe and legal abortion to a legal adult," said Marta Coursey, Planned Parenthood's director of marketing communications. "She supplied documentation, a birth certificate, that she is legally an adult able to make her own health care decisions, including having an abortion. This appears to be a very sad case of a breakdown of communication among family members. Clearly, she was a legal adult and wanted to make the decision alone without notifying her parents."

The parents filed suit using pseudonyms for themselves and their daughter. The parents' attorney, David Angell, declined to comment about the suit or reveal the identities of his clients who, according to court filings, live in New Ulm, Minn.

In court papers, the Does argue that Minnesota's parental-notification law does not explicitly exempt minors who have previously given birth.

Under Minnesota's notification law, first enacted in 1981 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, "unemanicipated" minors need to notify both parents 48 hours before receiving an abortion or get a judge's permission. The statute does not define unemanicipated.

Planned Parenthood said they use a definition in a separate statute that states that any minor who has been married or has had a child "may give effective consent to personal medical, dental, and other health services, or to services for the minor's child, and the consent of no other person is required."

But Doe's parents argue that Minnesota courts have determined a child is emancipated, or is recognized as an adult, only on a case-by-case basis.

According to the Does, their daughter was financially dependent on them and still attending high school. They say they were involved in all aspects of her life, even though the 17-year-old had moved into her own apartment three months before the abortion.

"Neither Jane nor John Doe were informed of Anne's pregnancy that occurred in the winter of 2002/2003, nor were they involved in any decisions regarding the pregnancy," according to papers filed by the Does' attorney. "To the best of their knowledge, this is the only medical, dental or mental health issue about which they were not informed."

Leadership for Minnesota's oldest anti-abortion group — Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life — said Tuesday that they support parental-notification laws.

"The MCCL feels strongly that parental involvement laws work," said Bill Poehler, a spokesman for the organization. "The number of teen abortions last year was the lowest ever since abortion was legalized in 1973.

Poehler said they are aware of the Ramsey County case but were not involved in the suit.

The number of abortions in Minnesota in 2004 dropped to the lowest level in 30 years, according to a report published annually by the Minnesota Health Department. Minnesota doctors performed about 13,788 abortions last year. Five percent of the women undergoing the procedure were younger than the age of 18.


http://www.twincities.com/mld/twin
cities/living/health/12698501.htm

Lesbians Kill Paralyzed Roommate

Lesbians Kill Paralyzed Roommate

Domestic Partners Sentenced For Killing Paralyzed Roommate

ASTORIA, Ore. -- Two Astoria caregivers convicted of killing their paralyzed, wheelchair-bound roommate were sentenced Monday to prison. Domestic partners Theresa Beverage and Nicole Harris were found guilty of manslaughter in the death of 56-year-old Sharon Wilks.

Wilks' decaying body was covered with bedsores when it was discovered in February 2004 in her wheelchair at the bottom of a ravine near their apartment. Prosecutors say Beverage and Harris withheld food and medicine from the victim, who died from neglect 15 days before her body was found.

"And you did absolutely nothing. That's the crime you committed -- nothing," Wilks' sister, Pamela Shoop, said in court.

"I apologize from the bottom of my heart for my part in her death," Beverage said.

Beverage was sentenced to more than 14 years in prison. Harris received more than 11.

"If I had my way, you'd spend the rest of your days locked up, but there are laws on the maximum time. As for me and my family, we'll be doing life -- life without Sharon, life without mom, life without grandma," Wilks' daughter, Stacey Bue, told the women.

Beverage and Harris blamed their actions on their addiction to cocaine.

Related
Fatal case of neglect nets long prison terms for two women


http://www.koin.com/news.asp?RECORD_
KEY%5Bnews%5D=ID&ID%5Bnews%5D=4586

Abomination Businesses

Abomination Business

How many people have sold their souls by working for these damned God forsaken companies?

More US companies tolerant of gays, says group

WASHINGTON -- More large U.S. companies have fair-minded policies toward gays than ever before, continuing a trend that began in the 1990s, a gay rights group said on Tuesday.

Gay-inclusive policies, once concentrated in financial and high-tech firms on the east and west coasts, are permeating other industries including defense, chemicals, and oil and gas, the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign Foundation said.

The foundation released its fourth-annual Corporate Equality Index, grading 402 U.S. companies with at least 500 employees on their treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers.

This year 101 companies got a perfect score, close to doubling last year's group of 56 companies that received 100 percent. The top-rankers ranged from Dow Chemical Co. and Chevron Corp. to bankrupt building materials company Owens Corning and Walgreen Co. , the nation's largest drugstore chain.

Raytheon Co. became the first defense contractor to achieve a perfect score. This summer the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company become the first big military supplier to expand its equal opportunity employment policy to include transgender workers.

Transgender is a broad term that applies to people who express an innate sense of gender other than their birth sex; this includes transsexuals and cross-dressers.

Raytheon's chief diversity officer, Hayward Bell, said that while the defense industry as a whole was considered more conservative and less tolerant than other industries, Raytheon sought to be progressive.

"We have some excellent performers who happen to be transgender," he told Reuters. "Maybe without this policy, we wouldn't have them."

"Who knows who creates the next technology, or the next innovation, that's going to create a new market, solve a customer's problem or save a life," Bell said. The company's message to its employees was, "We don't care who you are, we care what you can do," he said.

Companies are ranked according to seven criteria for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index.

These include whether they have the words "sexual orientation" in their primary written nondiscrimination policy; have the words "gender identity" or "gender expression" in that policy; offer benefits to employees' same-sex partners; have gay employee support groups; offer diversity training that includes sexual orientation; market to the gay community; and have no anti-gay activities such as rescinding benefits or policies.

The campaign says that there are still some companies that actively resist equal treatment for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees.

"ExxonMobil has the dubious distinction of being the only U.S. company to roll back both benefits eligibility for its employees' domestic partners and a sexual orientation nondiscrimination policy," the Human Rights Campaign Foundation said in its report.

Mobil had offered benefits to domestic partners and included sexual orientation in its nondiscrimination policy, but Exxon did neither, the report said -- and when Exxon purchased Mobil in 1999, Mobil employees were brought under Exxon's policies.

An ExxonMobil spokesman said the company did not discriminate. "We continue to believe that we have a policy in place that prohibits discrimination," Russ Roberts said.


http://www.alertnet.org/the
news/newsdesk/N19657536.htm

Posted by Editor at 11:31 PM

Jailed Crack Dealer Granted Abortion

Feds Allow Crack Mom to Murder Baby

A federal magistrate judge on Monday authorized a crack dealer to be furloughed from jail to have an abortion.

The approval of a medical furlough for an abortion may be the first of its kind in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. No one familiar with the federal court system here could recall such a motion.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton approved the medical furlough at the request of defense attorney Kevin C. Angel.

Citing federal medical privacy laws, Guyton did not detail the "medical procedure" for which a furlough was sought. The judge sealed both Angel's motion for the furlough and his own order of approval.

Discussions about the request between Guyton, Angel and Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Cook were held in private in the judge's chambers.

However, the News Sentinel had obtained a copy of Angel's motion prior to the hearing and before Guyton ordered it sealed.

In the motion, Angel wrote that his client, Heather Natasha Marie Whitt, "learned after her incarceration" on a federal crack cocaine conspiracy indictment issued Aug. 17 that she was pregnant.

"The pregnancy is high risk in nature and could expose (Whitt) to serious health risks," Angel wrote. "(Whitt) has scheduled a procedure to terminate the pregnancy on Friday."

Whitt is accused along with Benjamin Gary of hawking crack in Anderson County from January 2003 to February of this year.

The government is not footing the bill for the abortion, records show. It's not known who is paying for the procedure.

If Guyton had refused to grant Whitt the furlough, taxpayers would be picking up the tab for whatever medical care a doctor deems necessary while she is jailed pending trial.

Guyton has authorized Whitt to be freed at noon Thursday. She is to return to jail at 10 a.m. next Tuesday.

"Obviously, Ms. Whitt, if you feel like you are in a condition to run away and you try to run away, the (U.S.) Marshals (Service) will find you straightaway," Guyton said.


http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/ar
ticle/0,1406,KNS_348_4093764,00.html

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline Clarifies Records Request

Kline: Names Not Needed In Abortion Probe

TOPEKA -- Attorney General Phill Kline said Thursday that his office does not need identifying information of the women whose abortion clinic medical records he is seeking.

But Kline continues to seek complete medical files — including identifying information, sexual history and mental health — so that a judge may review them as part of an investigation of abortion clinics and child predators. The difference is that Kline’s office doesn’t need all the identifying information itself.

Kline made the clarification in a motion filed with the Kansas Supreme Court on Thursday. The court is reviewing whether investigators should gain access to medical records of 90 women and girls who received late-term abortions at the Comprehensive Health clinic in Overland Park and the Women’s Health Care clinic in Wichita.

Kline says the records may contain evidence of crimes committed by predators or the clinics. Kline has said he is not investigating the women but whether the clinics performed illegal late-term abortions or failed to report evidence of child abuse, as well as evidence of child predators.

The clinics deny wrongdoing and maintain that Kline is engaging in a politically motivated attack on women’s privacy.

The clinics asked the Supreme Court to intervene after a Shawnee County judge issued subpoenas at Kline’s request. A ruling from the court is expected this fall.

Three-fourths of the records belong to women who were adults when they received the abortions. Kline said Thursday that since the women are not under investigation, his office does not need their identifying information such as names or addresses for the investigation.

But he said the Shawnee County judge who issued the subpoenas will need the identifying information because he — with help from a physician — will review the records and “cross-reference the files with records and evidence from other sources.” He would not say what the other sources are or what led him to seek specific medical records.

Kline’s office still wants identifying information of the young girls, because, he said, those details could determine whether the girls were impregnated by child molesters.

Also in the motion, Kline agreed to let a judge pick a physician to review the files. Previously, the physician would have been selected by Kline’s office.


http://www.kansascity.com/mld/ka
nsascity/news/local/12657467.htm

Storm-Relief Money Spent At Strip Clubs

Storm-relief money spent at strip clubs
Police in Houston find misuse of FEMA's $2,000 debit cards On the heels of a report earlier this week that Atlanta area Katrina victims were using $2,000 debit cards to purchase luxury items like Louis Vuitton handbags, Houston police yesterday discovered the cards, provided by FEMA and the Red Cross, being used at local strip clubs.

Corruption a Worry As Katrina Aid Flows
BATON ROUGE, La. -- The sudden flow of billions of dollars in hurricane relief aid into New Orleans has raised fears that some of it is going to be lost to graft and sticky fingers in a state with a long and rich history of corruption. A group of current and former state officials is calling for more safeguards, more transparency in spending and the appointment of independent analysts to avoid corruption and keep the state out of trouble.

Another Girl Raped By Hurricane Evacuees
The authorities have charged two evacuees at Camp Dawson in the alleged sexual assault of a 13 year old girl. That has raised questions about how many of the more than 300 evacuees there, may have criminal pasts. One West Virginia State trooper said "many" of the displaced citiznes have criminal backgrounds. He couldn't say exactly how many of them have records or what kinds of charges they've faced.

FEMA a disaster waiting to happen
As Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast three weeks ago, veteran workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency braced for an epic disaster. But their bosses, political appointees with almost no emergency management experience, didn't seem to share the sense of urgency, a FEMA veteran said.

Bush to Give Military Bigger Relief Role
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's push to give the military a bigger role in responding to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina could lead to a loosening of legal limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil. Pentagon officials are reviewing that possibility, and some in Congress agree it needs to be considered. Bush did not define the wider role he envisions for the military. But in his speech to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday, he alluded to the unmatched ability of federal troops to provide supplies, equipment, communications, transportation and other assets the military lumps under the label of "logistics."

Physician: Possible Long-Term Health Impact for Rescue Workers
Isaac Eliaz, MD is speaking out on the possible long-term health impact of Katrina for some folks. He is worried about survivors and workers wading through the sewage and absorbing toxic chemicals and metals, especially lead. He is donating heavy metal test kits to help people identify their individual exposure.

Where Will the Garbage Go?
D'IBERVILLE, Miss. — The Hurricane Katrina cleanup represents the biggest waste-disposal job in U.S. history, dwarfing in volume the debris carted off after the World Trade Center's twin towers fell in 2001, officials said. In the past few days, a loose network of contractors, government officials and out-of-work residents has sprung up to scoop, sort, grind and dispose of not just mountains of garbage, but whole mountain ranges of the stuff.

Phony Red Cross workers use Katrina to solicit money
Three people were arrested after posing as Red Cross workers collecting money for Hurricane Katrina victims. As early as Monday they had set up a table with a donation collection box outside a Best Buy store and displayed fliers that read "Help Now. American Red Cross Relief For Hurricane Katrina," said police Detective Matt Ferguson.

Controls on FEMA checks dropped
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has thwarted a plan by a probate judge to screen Hurricane Katrina evacuees for mental illnesses before they can have access to FEMA checks. Probate Judge Amy McCulloch on Thursday had issued the order in an effort to protect evacuees who might be suffering from mental illness, dementia or other disorders, according to Columbia Mayor Bob Coble. She revoked the order Friday after learning from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that the order could bring up civil rights issues and other problems, Coble said.

More Criminal Charges Coming

More Criminal Charges Coming
La. Drawing Up Charges for Flood Deaths
NEW ORLEANS -- The arrest of two nursing-home owners in the deaths of 34 people marked the beginning of what prosecutors said Wednesday is a large-scale investigation into whether New Orleans-area hospitals and other institutions neglected their patients during Hurricane Katrina's onslaught. The Louisiana attorney general's office said all of its investigators have been pulled from other tasks to work on the Medicaid Fraud Unit, the team whose work led to homicide charges Tuesday against the husband-and-wife owners of the flooded-out St. Rita's nursing home in Chalmette.

Feds to reimburse Texas for Katrina-related Medicaid costs
AUSTIN, Texas -- The federal government will pay the full cost of Medicaid coverage for Hurricane Katrina victims in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's office announced Wednesday. The federal government usually pays for 60 percent of the coverage with the state paying the rest. But the extraordinary circumstances of the hurricane prompted authorities to grant Texas a five-month waiver for services provided to evacuees only, officials said.

Katrina Death Toll Nears 800
The number of deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina rose to 792 Thursday, after Louisiana announced 558 deaths in the state alone. The death toll also included 218 deaths in Mississippi, two in Alabama and 14 in Florida. The death toll in Louisiana saw a rise of 84 over the number announced on Wednesday.

Rescuers Awed By Ruin Revealed As Water Recedes
NEW ORLEANS -- The putrid smell of toxic, mud-caked debris baking in the humid Southern heat wafted almost 200 feet above the ground. Trees that were once green and lush are now brown and in pieces, many bending to the awesome power of a Category 4 hurricane that pounced on this city and its surrounding parishes more than two weeks ago. Murky water as black as tar in some places and dull green in others still covered parts of the city. After hundreds of search-and-rescue missions on a UH1H or "Huey" air ambulance helicopter, Capt. Timothy Eaton of the Wisconsin National Guard 832nd Medical Company still can't get over the scope of Katrina's reach. "It's biblical," he said. "The devastation is so incredible. No one agency could guess what was needed. There are just no words to describe the damage."

Relief workers report grim conditions near New Orleans
Two Kalispell men helping with tree and debris removal near New Orleans say national news reports don't adequately describe the conditions there. The two men camped with evacuees along the way and heard harrowing stories from survivors. A couple of teenage brothers didn't know what had happened to their parents. They told the Longs about the days they spent at the New Orleans Convention Center, where they saw a woman get raped and a man get his throat slit in the chaos that followed the hurricane.

Hurricane survivor found after 16 days, but toll mounts
NEW ORLEANS -- A rescue team on Wednesday saved a man from his flood-stricken New Orleans home 16 days after Hurricane Katrina, officials said, but the death toll from the disaster kept mounting. A rescue team found 74-year-old Edgar Hollingsworth, unconscious and emaciated in his locked and darkened home on Tuesday. Doctors were amazed that he had survived so long.

Over 50 Katrina evacuees have died in Texas
HOUSTON -- At least 53 Hurricane Katrina evacuees from the New Orleans area have died since coming to Texas, medical examiners said Wednesday. In Harris County, which includes Houston, most of the 35 deaths were from natural causes, including several heart attacks and complications from cancer. Two refugees killed themselves since an estimated 240,000 Gulf Coast residents fled to Texas because of the Aug. 29 storm. There was one dead fetus, and ages of the adult dead ranged from 20 to 104. Many were elderly living in hospitals, hospice centers and nursing homes.

Why New Orleans? A Meditation on the Hurricane
Some of my fellow commentators have stepped into hot water by saying that God smote New Orleans with the hurricane to punish the city for its wickedness. As Exhibit A, they offer “Southern Decadence,” a mass homosexual street party (complete with activities that human beings shouldn’t do on the street) that had the enthusiastic approval of Mayor Nagin and other city authorities. After the hurricane, some made a halfhearted effort to hold the orgy anyhow. But for practical purposes, Katrina canceled the event. New Orleans is not the only city that encourages mass sodomy. Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco spring immediately to mind, and there are others. If God were to smite every American city where vice is openly practiced, there would be very few left standing.

Bush Vows Aid for Storm-Struck Gulf Coast

Bush: Taxpayers to Rebuild New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS -- President Bush promised Thursday night the government will pay most of the costs of rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen. "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again," the president said.

Standing in Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter, Bush acknowledged his administration had failed to respond adequately to Hurricane Katrina, which killed hundreds of people across five states. The government's costs for rebuilding could reach $200 billion or beyond.

"Four years after the frightening experience of Sept. 11, Americans have every right to expect a more effective response in a time of emergency," the president said. When the government fails to meet such an obligation, Bush said, "I as president am responsible for the problem, and for the solution."

Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to join in a comprehensive review of the government's faulty response. In addition, he told the Department of Homeland Security to undertake an immediate review of emergency plans in every major city in America.

He also said a disaster on the scale of Katrina requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces.

Unusual for a prime-time address, Bush stood tieless in a blue dress shirt. At his back, the famous palm tree-framed St. Louis Cathedral was brightly lit. Elsewhere in the famed city, workers were still pumping out flooded neighborhoods and collecting bodies left behind in the frantic evacuation.

Bush proposed establishment of worker recovery accounts providing up to $5,000 for job training, education and child care during victims' search for employment. He also urged legislation to provide education, small business help and health care. He proposed creation of a Gulf Opportunity Zone in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama offering tax breaks to encourage businesses to stay in the devastated region and new businesses to open.

In the speech, which lasted a bit over 20 minutes, he said he would ask Congress to approve an Urban Homesteading Act in which surplus federal property would be turned over to low-income citizens by means of a lottery to build homes, with mortgages or assistance from charitable organizations.

Other proposals, according to congressional officials briefed by the White House, include:

• A 100 percent reimbursement to states to cover their costs of health care for treating many evacuees through the end of next year.

• $1.9 billion to reimburse states for educating displaced students, including some money that could go to religious schools.

• Six-month forgiveness on student loan interest for affected areas, at an estimated cost of $100 million.

Bush repeated a hotline number, 1-877-568-3317, for people to call to help reunite family members separated during the hurricane. Moments later, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., criticized Bush, saying "Leadership isn't a speech or a toll-free number."

"No American doubts that New Orleans will rise again," Kerry said. "They doubt the competence and commitment of this administration." House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, in a joint statement, said, "We are concerned by Bush administration initiatives this week waiving wage protections, environmental safeguards and protections for veterans, minorities, women and the disabled."

Bush described the hurricane's aftermath as "days of sorrow and outrage," and he said the nation had "witnessed the kind of desperation no citizen of this great and generous nation should ever have to know." He deplored scenes of victims calling out for food and water, criminals who had no mercy, and bodies of the dead lying uncovered in the street.

He said the suffering of victims was tempered by acts of courage and kindness. To the hundreds of thousands of people forced from their homes, Bush said, "You need to know that our whole nation cares about you — and in the journey ahead you are not alone."

Promising better days ahead, Bush said, "The streets of Biloxi and Gulfport will again be filled with lovely homes and the sound of children playing. The churches of Alabama will have their broken steeples mended and their congregations whole.

"And here in New Orleans, the street cars will once again rumble down St. Charles, and the passionate soul of a great city will return."

Bush faced the nation at a vulnerable point in his presidency. Most Americans disapprove of his handling of Katrina, and his job-approval rating has been dragged down to the lowest point of his presidency also because of dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and rising gas prices. He has struggled to demonstrate the same take-charge leadership he displayed after the Sept. 11 terror attacks four years ago.

Across five Gulf Coast states, the death toll from Katrina climbed Thursday to 794, led by 558 in Louisiana.

Faulting the government's response, Bush said that Katrina "was not a normal hurricane — and the normal disaster relief system was not equal to it." State officials have blamed the federal government for failing to respond more quickly, and federal officials have pointed fingers at state and local officials.

Responding to charges that help would have been sent more quickly if most victims had not been poor and black, Bush noted that the persistent poverty, rooted deep in the Gulf region, was broadcast for all Americans to see.

"That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America," Bush said. "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."

Bush said the goal was to get evacuees out of shelters by mid-October and into apartments and other homes, with assistance from the government. He said he would work with Congress to ensure that states were reimbursed for the cost of caring for evacuees.

Bush called for new measures to protect New Orleans from flooding and said the Army Corps of Engineers would work with state and local officials. "Protecting a city that sits lower than the water around it is not easy, but it can and has been done," the president said.

"The work that has begun in the Gulf Coast region will be one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen," Bush said. He praised Americans for giving generously for disaster relief, saying the fund led by former Presidents Bush and Clinton had received pledges of more than $100 million.

Rebuilding across the devastated region is expected to cost $200 billion or more in the near term. The final tab could approach the more than $300 billion spent thus far on U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress has already approved $62 billion for the disaster, but that is expected to run out next month.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., speaking after the president's address, said the recovery programs would add to the nation's debt. GOP leaders are open to suggestions from lawmakers to cut government spending elsewhere, he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a
p/20050916/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_bush_32

Super Planned Parenthood Centers

Super Planned Parenthood Centers

by Jim Rudd

Once again Planned Parenthood has announced plans to build a new million dollar abortion center. This time it's in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Planned Parenthood is not getting smaller, they're getting bigger! While state and federal "abortion health regulations" are forcing small privately owned abortion clinics out of business, we see an increase of these Super Planned Parenthood Centers popping up across the nation to fill the void. Much like your regional Super WalMart, Planned Parenthood uses population demographics to determine its locations.

Just like your local county Health Department, Planned Parenthood receives state and federal taxpayer funding to comply to the state and federal "abortion health regulations."

With an underlying willingness to comply to incremental abortion regulations, we see Planned Parenthood incrementally becoming another arm of state and federal governments, while the State drives the privately owned competition out of business. In effect, Christians supporting the incremental "chipping away strategy" of passing "abortion health regulations" into state and federal laws, are, in fact, helping to institutionalize state and federal run Super Abortion Clinics around the nation.

As long as abortion-incrementalists like National Right to Life Committee and Americans United for Life lobby state lawmakers to codify abortion regulations into their state's multi-million dollar "health" budgets, pro-lifers will find it next to impossible to lobby the same lawmakers to outlaw the "procedure" they have spent millions of dollars to regulate.

The incremental "chipping away strategy" is not a failed strategy. Because it is the primary vehicle establishing abortion regulations throughout the United States, it's a strategy that is prolonging legalized abortion indefinitely.

Federal Judge Lawrence Karlton: "under God" in Pledge of Allegiance is Unconstitutional

Judge: "under God" in Pledge is Unconstitutional

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday in a case brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words "under God" was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

The Supreme Court dismissed the case last year, saying Newdow lacked standing because he did not have custody of his elementary school daughter he sued on behalf of.

Newdow, an attorney and a medical doctor, filed an identical case on behalf of three unnamed parents and their children. Karlton said those families have the right to sue.

Karlton, ruling in Sacramento, said he would sign a restraining order preventing the recitation of the pledge at the Elk Grove Unified, Rio Linda and Elverta Joint Elementary school districts, where the plaintiffs' children attend.

The decision sets up another showdown over the pledge in schools, at a time when the makeup of the Supreme Court is in flux.

Wednesday's ruling comes as Supreme Court nominee John Roberts faces day three of his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He would succeed the late William H. Rehnquist as chief justice.

Sandra Day O'Connor stepped down unexpectedly from the Supreme Court in July.

The Becket Fund, a religious rights group that is a party to the case, said it would immediately appeal the case to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the court does not change its precedent, the group would go to the Supreme Court.

"It's a way to get this issue to the Supreme Court for a final decision to be made," said fund attorney Jared Leland.

Newdow, reached at his home, was not immediately prepared to comment.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap
/20050914/ap_on_re_us/pledge_of_allegiance_4

Abortion a `settled precedent,' Roberts says

Abortion a `settled precedent,' Roberts says

Knight Ridder Newspapers Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts gave strong indications Tuesday that he'd be reluctant to overturn court precedents such as Roe v. Wade, and he voiced support for a right to privacy - which underpins court rulings on gay rights and other individual liberties - that's much broader than his previously known stance.

On the first day of questioning during his confirmation hearings for chief justice, Roberts bluntly described the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion as "settled precedent." He said he would apply a complicated set of criteria to any effort to overturn such a precedent. A judge's personal disagreement with precedent, he said, isn't enough to justify a vote to reverse it.

"I do think that it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent. Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness," Roberts said.

That view dovetails with Roberts' insistence that judges play a limited role, and that restraint, rather than activism, is his preferred approach to cases.

Roberts was even more effusive about the right to privacy, saying it's supported in several different clauses of the Constitution and tied to fundamental notions of liberty. That idea puts him at odds with many conservatives - including Justice Antonin Scalia, one of President Bush's favorites - who argue that no such right to privacy exists.

"The court has ... recognized that personal privacy is a component of the liberty protected by the due process clause," Roberts said in answer to a question from Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. "The court has explained that the liberty protected is not limited to freedom from physical restraint, and that it's protected not simply procedurally, but as a substantive matter as well."

Specter, a moderate conservative and the committee's first questioner, pushed Roberts on abortion and privacy issues. He tried several times to get Roberts to commit to upholding Roe and Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania, the 1992 case that upheld it.

But Roberts said he didn't feel comfortable commenting on specific issues that might come before the court.

Specter said he was satisfied with Roberts' answers.

"He did not give a definitive answer because obviously that question is going to be before the court again; it's going to be on the next term," Specter said. "But I think he - as they said in the old song, `Kansas City,' he went about as far as he could go."

Both liberal and conservative interest groups said Roberts' comments gave no definitive sense of what he might do on the court. Liberals said his statements weren't committed enough to the right to privacy or the right to abortion. Conservatives said he hadn't ruled out any action, particularly concerning abortion.

"He gave no assurance that he believes there is a right to privacy," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which supports abortion rights.

"He didn't give any answers," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "What else can you want out of a judge? He's not going to answer where he is. It's wrong to make him answer where he is."

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a staunch opponent of Roe, said Roberts' answers left him in the dark. "I don't know how to read him. I don't know what he's going to do. It just made me know that we don't know what he's going to do. I don't think the president knows what he's going to do.

Asked whether Roberts' answers could raise questions among religious conservatives about his stance on abortion, Sessions said: "They could misinterpret ... and believe that he was making some sort of commitment that I don't think he made. I'm not sure that I could disagree with much of what he said."

Roberts' comments came on a long day of interrogation by senators. It was mostly cordial, but at times got testy. Roberts gave lengthy answers to many questions and mostly maintained the calm, cool demeanor that's his mark in Washington, where, as a private attorney, he's argued 39 cases at the Supreme Court, winning 25.

His refusal to address some queries caused several senators to complain that he was being evasive. Specter cautioned Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., to let Roberts answer their questions before jumping in with commentary or new queries.

"His answers are misleading, with all due respect," Biden replied at one point after Specter tried to silence him.

"They may be misleading," Specter replied, "but they are his answers."

Roberts interrupted quickly. "With respect, they are my answers. And, with respect, they are not misleading. They're accurate."

Roberts also addressed dozens of other issues during the questioning - some with substantive answers, some with deft evasion and others with polite demurral.

Several times, he suggested that many of the memos he wrote as a young lawyer in Republican administrations were reflective more of presidential policies than his views. But Democratic senators were skeptical.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., zeroed in on a memo that Roberts wrote suggesting that a teenager whose teacher abused her couldn't sue school district officials who did nothing to help her.

Leahy noted that the court unanimously rejected the administration's position, and he asked Roberts whether the memo's intent was to suggest sexual harassment was OK.

"There was no issue about condoning the behavior," Roberts said. "I found it abhorrent then, and I find it abhorrent now." The issue was whether Congress has intended for victims to be able to sue, and the administration believed it hadn't, Roberts said.

Kennedy asked him about his writings on the Voting Rights Act in the early 1980s, which Democrats have said showed hostility to voter participation. As a lawyer in the Reagan White House, Roberts wrote a memo advising the administration to support the act, but not expand it to make it easier to prove voter discrimination in some states.

Ultimately, a congressional compromise accepted the expansion.

Roberts insisted that he believed voting rights were the Constitution's single most important liberty, calling them "preservative of all the other rights."

Then he said the memo was reflective of a different view from Kennedy's - not an indication of a lack of support for voting rights.

"I agreed that the Voting Rights Act should be extended," Roberts said. "There was never a dispute about the basic proposition."

Roberts addressed the question of support for civil rights more directly in response to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

"Opposition to quotas is not opposition to civil rights," Roberts said.

Sen. Herbert Kohl, D-Wis., asked Roberts whether some of the memos he wrote - some of which carried dismissive or acerbic tones - reflected a youthful arrogance that he's since outgrown.

"There are many areas where it appears I knew a lot more when I was 25 than I know now, when I'm 50," Roberts said. "I certainly wouldn't write everything today as I wrote it back then, but I don't think any of us would do things or write things today as we did when we were 25 and had all the answers."

Democrats tried to turn the tide of public opinion by tying Roberts' confirmation to the hurricane victims in New Orleans, saying his view of civil rights and the limited role of Congress and the courts in that area helps explain the plight of the people left behind.

"The question is whether judicial restraint is used as a stalking horse for a kind of quiet activism that seeks to restrict the application of laws designed by the legislature to address particular problems," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nation's largest group of civil rights organizations.

Still, no one's predicting that Roberts won't be confirmed. The only question is by what margin. Rehnquist was confirmed 65-33, the smallest margin for any chief justice. Republicans seemed to be lowering expectations on what Roberts' margin would be.

"If this guy with his qualifications and legal experience cannot get one Democrat to vote for him, we've lost our way," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.


http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwa
shington/news/nation/12636531.htm

Louisiana Charges St. Rita's Nursing Home Owners With Negligent Homicide

Facility Owners Charged With Murder
Louisiana Charges St. Rita's Nursing
Home Owners With Negligent Homicide
Louisiana's attorney general filed 34 criminal charges against the husband and wife who own St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, where 34 decomposing bodies were found after Hurricane Katrina swept through the state. Salvador A. Mangano and Mable Mangano surrendered to authorities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, today and are being charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide, Attorney General Charles C. Foti told reporters today at a news conference in Baton Rouge. Attorneys for the couple couldn't immediately be reached by Bloomberg News. ``Thirty-four people drowned in a nursing home when it should have been evacuated,'' Foti said. ``They didn't follow the standard of care of what a reasonable person would follow.''

Nursing Home Owners Face Charges
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- The owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, where 34 people drowned as Hurricane Katrina hit, have been charged with negligent homicide, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. said Tuesday. "They did not die of natural causes; they drowned," Foti told reporters. "Thirty-four people drowned in a nursing home where they should have been evacuated."

La. Nursing Home Owners Charged in Deaths
Baton Rouge, La. -- The husband-and-wife owners of a nursing home near New Orleans were charged Tuesday with negligent homicide in the deaths of 34 people during the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina. The case represents the first major prosecution to come out of the disaster. The owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home in Chalmette "were asked if they wanted to move (the patients). They did not. They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming," Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said. "In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these patients," Foti said.

Homicide charges filed in hurricane deaths
NEW ORLEANS -- Homicide charges were filed on Tuesday against the operators of a nursing home where 34 patients trapped by floodwaters died, as the death toll from Katrina, the third deadliest hurricane in U.S. history, hit 648. At another New Orleans facility, the owners of a medical center where 44 bodies were found said they were those of critically ill patients who died in stifling heat after power was cut off to the flooded building but before it could be evacuated.

Dozens Found Dead at New Orleans Hospital
NEW ORLEANS -- The bodies of more than 40 mostly elderly patients were found in a flooded-out hospital in the biggest known cluster of corpses to be discovered so far in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. The exact circumstances under which they died were unclear, with at least one hospital official saying Monday that some of the patients had died before the storm, while the others succumbed to causes unrelated to Katrina. The announcement, which raises Louisiana's official death toll to nearly 280, came as President Bush got his first up-close look at the destruction.

Bush appoints new FEMA chief
President George W. Bush named David Paulison, a top official in the Homeland Security Department, to replace Michael Brown on an acting basis as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Mr Bush moved quickly to put Mr Paulison in charge of FEMA after Mr Brown resigned the position under fire for the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina that killed hundreds and displace 1 million people. Mr Brown said: "Today I resigned as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "As I told the President, it is important that I leave now to avoid further distraction from the ongoing mission of FEMA."

Career Firefighter Named New FEMA Director
WASHINGTON -- President Bush has tapped a federal official with three decades of firefighting experience and a background in emergency management to be the new face of his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina and future natural disasters. Bush on Monday said he would name Miami native R. David Paulison as acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, replacing Mike Brown. Brown resigned Monday after days of criticism over what some said was a slow and ineffective response to Hurricane Katrina's devastation.

Katrina Educates World On Need For Owning Guns
Hundreds of New Orleans police officers had fled the city. Some took their badges and threw them out the windows of their cars as they sped away. Others participated in the looting of the city. "It was pandemonium for a couple of nights," said Charlie Hackett, a New Orleans resident. "We just felt that when they got done with the stores, they'd come to the homes."

Mayor: New Orleans will decide on reconstruction
Nagin: 'The city is bankrupt … We have no money'
BATON ROUGE -- Mayor Ray Nagin pledged Monday that he and other citizens of New Orleans rather than state and national officials would be the lead planners in rebuilding the Crescent City, even as the town copes with cash shortages and a dispersed population unsure of when or whether they will return. In a wide-ranging discussion at the state capitol with city council members and state lawmakers representing New Orleans, Nagin said the city had spent its last available cash last week on city employee payroll and was seeking bank loans, federal assistance and other means of financing to continue paying its bills and staff. "Technically today we’re out of cash," Nagin said. "The city is bankrupt … We have no money."

Governor Defends Louisiana's 'Exit Plan'
HOUSTON -- Louisiana had a "well thought-out exit plan" in the days before Hurricane Katrina, and many more lives would have been lost without it, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Sunday. "There was not a single individual taking a slow step in our state," Blanco said at the Reliant Center, where more than 2,000 evacuees are living after fleeing the devastation in New Orleans. City, state and federal governments have been criticized for delays in evacuations and delivery of supplies, widespread communication difficulties, and law enforcement breakdowns in New Orleans that led to looting and violence.

Autopsies Planned for Bodies Found in Hospital

Autopsies Planned for Bodies Found in Hospital

NEW ORLEANS -- Coroner said autopsies were planned for the bodies of at least 44 people found at a hospital.

The exact number of bodies recovered Sunday from the 317-bed Memorial Medical Center was unclear. A state official said the bodies of 45 patients were found; a hospital administrator said there were 44, plus three on the grounds.

The discovery of the corpses raised Louisiana's official death toll to nearly 280.

Steven Campanini, a spokesman for hospital owner Tenet Healthcare Corp., said some of the patients died before Katrina arrived, and none of the deaths resulted from lack of food, water or electricity to power medical equipment.

Dave Goodson, an assistant administrator at Memorial Medical Center, said patients died while waiting to be evacuated after Katrina struck, as temperatures inside the hospital reached 106 degrees.

Family members and nurses were "literally standing over the patients, fanning them," he said. "These patients were not abandoned."

Dr. Frank Minyard, the Orleans Parish coroner, said autopsies will be performed on the bodies.

During an appearance Tuesday on NBC, he said he thought the evacuation of the city was successful, considering that the death toll so far was much lower than expected. However, he noted that searches continued.

"There just may be a lot of people who are still down in those deep waters, and some of waters were 10-, 12-, 15-feet deep," Minyard said. "My biggest fear is that we will find something down there that is way out of proportion. Hopefully, it doesn't happen, but we worry."


http://www.foxnews.com/st
ory/0,2933,169219,00.html

I was wrong about Roberts

Supreme Court Politics

I was wrong about Roberts
John Roberts still has most conservatives buffaloed. They just can't believe George W. Bush would betray them so boldly. But he has. Even I, the ultimate skeptic, am just beginning to fathom the extent of the shell game that has been played on conservatives – most of whom are actively working on behalf of the confirmation of a new chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who will make Ruth Bader Ginsberg look like a moderate. That's right.

Waiting For A Second Name To Drop In Top Court Drama
Nobody was fooling anybody Monday in storied Room 325 of the Russell Senate Office Building or the media village in the adjoining marble halls. John G. Roberts Jr. will be confirmed as chief justice and both sides already, in the main, have moved on to thinking about the other vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Toothless Wolf To Question Roberts
For a gang that has the legitimate constitutional responsibility to give "advice and consent" to President Bush when he picks someone for the Supreme Court, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sure spent a lot of time Monday afternoon telling Chief Justice nominee John G. Roberts, Jr. that he didn't really have to answer the truly important questions everyone wants asked and answered before he gets to serve on the High Court.

Roberts Hearing A Warm-Up
Many already are focused on Bush's next choice, who
will fill the critical seat of swing vote O'Connor.
WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on President Bush's first Supreme Court nomination provided activists in both parties with a warm-up for a bigger court battle to come. The John Roberts hearings that began Monday are for a higher post, that of chief justice. But those deeply involved in the process of selecting justices are casting their eyes toward Bush's next decision, filling the seat of retiring swing-vote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Questioning Will Trigger Torrent Of Text Messages
Aides, experts poised to make salient points
WASHINGTON -- Ladies and gentlemen on both sides of the nation's judicial wars: Charge your BlackBerries. The first Supreme Court confirmation of the instant messaging era is about to begin. Ensconced behind the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are three dozen staff aides and legal counsels, ready to do their bosses' bidding. In the hands of many are BlackBerries, and at the other end of those e-mail retrieving devices are the front-line combatants of the first Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 11 years -- interest groups of the left, interest groups of the right, congressional staff experts, political party strategists, press aides.

Time for Supreme Court reality TV
You might say Judge John Roberts is history's first made-for-TV nominee for the Supreme Court. With his smooth, bland face and careful haircut, he seems to burst fresh from a barbershop or makeup room. He speaks in concise sentences. He rarely loses his sincere, benign smile. If this gig doesn't work out, he could get work as a TV anchorman. Roberts seems created for his star role this week as network TV cameras focus on his grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a conservative with the demeanor of a friendly scoutmaster. Barring edgy surprises, he will likely cool the red-state-blue-state furor and be drafted to be the youngest chief justice since 1806.

Roberts' Confirmation Is All But A Done Deal
There was no chanting outside the Russell Senate Office Building on Monday. There were no crowds of protesters. Placards and posters could not be found, either, as the Senate Judiciary Committee began to consider the nomination of John Roberts Jr. to be chief justice of the United States. But inside the ornate and historic Senate Caucus Room, senators tipped their hands, revealing what most people already believe: Roberts' confirmation as the 17th chief justice is all but a done deal. "Congratulations," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), shaking the hand of Roberts' wife, Jane.

No One's Kicking Dirt on "Umpire" Roberts Because He's Their Man
The nation's Capitol has given rise to a unique cottage industry -- line-sitters who get paid to queue up for important congressional hearings where the space is limited but the issues are paramount. Lobbyists and political activists pay top dollar to these folks, who put up with hours of boredom and bad weather so their well-compensated VIP clients can get a seat. Somewhat surprisingly, on Sept. 12, the line sitters were out of work despite weeks of frenzied buildup to the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts Jr., who President Bush has tapped to be the next Chief Justice. It may mark only the 17th time in the nation's history that a new Chief Justice is up for confirmation. But due in large part to a staid Senate Judiciary Committee long on civility and toned-down rhetoric, the first day of the Roberts hearings lacked any made-for-prime-time verbal fireworks.

Roberts calls justices "servants of the law"
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee John Roberts said yesterday that justices are servants of the law, playing a limited government role, as the Senate opened confirmation hearings on President Bush's choice to be the nation's 17th chief justice. "A certain humility should characterize the judicial role," the 50-year-old Roberts told the Judiciary Committee. "Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around."

September 12, 2005

Roberts Confirmation Hearings To Begin
WASHINGTON -- Less than three years after first donning a judge's robe, John Glover Roberts Jr. is on a path toward speedy confirmation for becoming, at age 50, chief justice of the United States. A turbulent week that included the funeral of William H. Rehnquist, his mentor and the man he hopes to replace, his renomination by President Bush for chief justice and controversy over the government's tardy response to Hurricane Katrina has not dampened Roberts' candidacy to join the Supreme Court.

Specter Won't Quiz Roberts on Abortion
WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he will not ask Supreme Court nominee John Roberts whether he would vote to overturn the infamous decision that legalized abortion. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., did say he planned to ask Roberts, the president's pick to succeed the late William H. Rehnquist as chief justice, whether there is a right to privacy in the Constitution. Roberts' confirmation hearings before the committee were to begin Monday.

A Profile In Moral Cowardice
Jay Sekulow Uses Pro-Life Issue to Raise Millions of Dollars
But Says John Roberts Must Not Be Asked About Abortion
In a disgraceful interview on the “700 Club” (8/25/05), Sekulow, complaining about those who want to make an issue of abortion, says Roberts must duck the abortion issue: “The fact is that John Roberts, as a Supreme Court nominee, when asked the question ‘how will you vote on Roe vs. Wade?,’ no matter how many times they ask him, he has to say the same thing.

Roberts' Situation Could Create Conflicts
WASHINGTON -- John Roberts is an appeals court judge with a multimillion-dollar portfolio, a spouse who is a successful lawyer and a broad roster of clients from his days in private practice. That means he probably will have to recuse himself from dozens of Supreme Court cases should he become chief justice. It is an situation that, while not unusual, would leave the nine-member court with a potential for tie votes.

September 09, 2005

Interview With A Bush/GOP/Roberts Cheerleader
It Did Not Go Well Once Austin Ruse
Realized I Was Not Also Cheering
Mr. Austin Ruse, president of the “Culture Of Life Foundation,” is one of the more enthusiastic cheerleaders for Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. So, I was eager to interview him thinking he might know something about Judge Roberts that I had missed. Here’s that interview in its entirety. It did not go well once he realized I was not joining in his cheers for the nominee.

Senate to Begin Roberts Hearings Monday
WASHINGTON -- The Senate will begin confirmation hearings next Monday for John Roberts to be the Supreme Court's chief justice, one week after President Bush selected him to replace the late William H. Rehnquist as the 17th leader of the nation's highest court. Senate leaders made the hearings announcement Tuesday as Rehnquist's body lay in repose across the street at the Supreme Court. Roberts, a former Rehnquist clerk, helped carry the flag-draped casket into the building for public viewing.

Bid to see Roberts memos renewed
WASHINGTON -- Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee renewed on Wednesday their push for access to legal memorandums written by Judge John Roberts Jr., sending a pointed letter of complaint to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who controls the records and who is himself a potential candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Senate expands focus of questions for Roberts as chief justice
WASHINGTON -- As the body of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist lay in repose Tuesday, senators vowed to expand their examination of John G. Roberts' qualifications to replace him, focusing not only on Roberts' legal views but also on the leadership style he'd bring to the nation's highest tribunal. President Bush, faced with a historic opportunity to fill two vacancies on the Supreme Court, said he'd take his time before naming a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who's retiring, and predicted that she'd still be on the bench when the court convenes in October.

Business frugal in Roberts support
Business interests so far have avoided direct spending to influence the brewing Supreme Court confirmation battles, despite their emergent involvement in state judicial races and chief justice nominee John Roberts’s pro-industry credentials. Both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), whose combined lobbying bills for the first half of this year topped $21 million, have officially endorsed Roberts but have made no plans to buy advertising promoting their support.

September 06, 2005

Senators Get Set for Fight over Roberts
President Bush's decision to nominate John Roberts as the nation's 17th Supreme Court chief justice raises the stakes of the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings, with lawmakers now asked to pass judgment on a man who could lead the nation's highest court for decades.

Democrats in ranks of Roberts supporters
WASHINGTON — Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, sounds like a swooning Republican when he talks about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. "I am impressed with his demeanor, his intelligence, his sense of humor, his modesty," Conrad said. "Absent some bombshell, which I don't expect, I think he will be confirmed and quite handily."

September 04, 2005

Bush Nominates Roberts For Chief Justice
USA Today
WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Monday nominated John Roberts to succeed William H. Rehnquist as chief justice and called on the Senate to confirm him before the Supreme Court opens its fall term on Oct. 3. Just 50 years old, Roberts could shape the court for decades to come. The swift move would promote to the Supreme Court's top job a newcomer who currently is being considered as one of eight associate justices. It would also ensure a full 9-member court, because retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has said she will remain on the job until her replacement is confirmed.

Bush Nominates Roberts as Chief Justice
FOX News
WASHINGTON -- Moving swiftly, President Bush on Monday nominated John Roberts to succeed William H. Rehnquist as chief justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate is expected to begin his confirmation hearings as chief justice either Thursday or next Monday. The opening of Roberts' previously scheduled confirmation hearings, for the position of associate justice, initially was to be Tuesday, but that was canceled until after Rehnquist's funeral on Wednesday.

September 04, 2005

Rehnquist's Death Throws Court Into Uncertainty
The Supreme Court will likely enter its next session with less than a full bench. The death of William H. Rehnquist presents President Bush with both opportunities and burdens. The chance to make two appointments to the bench and name a chief justice are extraordinary, but Bush must make his choices carefully in order to avoid strong political resistance and fill out the court expeditiously. Bush on Sunday promised to name a successor to Rehnquist shortly.

William Rehnquist: 1924-2005
In October 1971, Richard Nixon was meeting with his Attorney General, John Mitchell, and his domestic-policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, to discuss possible nominees to the Supreme Court. For political reasons, the President was considering appointing a woman, although he displayed grave doubts about women in power. "I don't even think women should be educated!" he sputtered, according to a transcript reprinted in Nixon aide John Dean's book The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist dies
After a courageous bout with cancer during which he continued to serve as U.S. Supreme Court chief justice, William H. Rehnquist died Saturday tonight at his Arlington, Virginia, home, surrounded by his three children.

Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies of Cancer
WASHINGTON -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who oversaw the high court's conservative shift and presided over the impeachment trial of President Clinton, died Saturday evening. He was 80 years old and had spent 33 years on the Supreme Court. Rehnquist's death opens a rare second vacancy on the nation's highest court and gives President Bush, whose election Rehnquist helped decide, an opportunity shape the makeup of the court for years to come. "The Chief Justice battled thyroid cancer since being diagnosed last October and continued to perform his duties on the court until a precipitous decline in his health the last couple of days," court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in announcing his death.

Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings of John Roberts

Roberts confirmation hearings

'A Day of Firsts, Overshadowed'

Yesterday's opening of the John Roberts confirmation hearings was a time for historic firsts.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) made 49 first-person references in a 10-minute statement that was, ostensibly, not about himself.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) showed exceptional emotional versatility, working a crossword puzzle during the hearing and then choking back a sob while making a prosaic statement about partisanship.

Roberts delivered what may have been the shortest opening statement by a modern Supreme Court nominee -- less than seven minutes, including the thank-yous and two baseball metaphors.

But in the end, the confirmation kickoff was anticlimactic: As word spread through the gallery midway through the session that FEMA Director Michael D. Brown had quit, reporters knew the Roberts story would, once again, be a sideshow. Roberts may well be confirmed as chief justice of the Supreme Court, but in the case before the court of public attention, in re: Katrina v. Roberts , the defendant doesn't have a chance.

With the nation distracted by the hurricane and flooding down south, neither left nor right nor middle displayed much energy. By 10:30 a.m., only 170 people had shown up for public tickets to witness the noon proceedings -- making unnecessary the plastic cordons and the queue signs leading almost all the way to Union Station. Outside the Russell Senate Office Building at 11 a.m., a grand total of 21 people demonstrated against Roberts, chanting: "Two-four-six-eight, separation of church and state!"

Even inside the storied Senate Caucus Room -- scene of the Teapot Dome, McCarthy and Watergate hearings -- some were preoccupied with Katrina.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the committee's ranking Democrat, led off with an observation that the hurricane was "a tragic reminder of why we have a federal government." Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, in one of three references, "Katrina tore away the mask that has hidden from public view the many Americans who are left out and left behind."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), opening the hearing, called the confirmation "perhaps the biggest challenge of the decade." But at times it appeared to be a swearing-in ceremony. Before the hearing, Kennedy shook the hand of Jane Roberts and said to the nominee's wife, "Congratulations."

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) seemed to be taking confirmation for granted when he listed a range of issues likely to come before the court and told Roberts, repeatedly, "You will rule on that." In the park across the street from the Russell Building, a modest but confident group of conservatives sipped from water bottles labeled "Roberts YES."

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who had the job of formally introducing Roberts to the committee, offered some advice to the nominee's playful young son, Jack: "You can wiggle a little bit. Don't worry."

As it happens, that was similar to the advice GOP members offered. In their 10-minute opening statements, they repeatedly urged him not to answer questions about his views.

"Don't take the bait," suggested Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said it is "patently false" that Roberts must provide answers. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) thought it could be "unethical."

Democrats were almost as uniform in the opposite view. "It is our duty to ask questions," Kennedy replied.

"It is not undignified to ask questions," submitted Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.).

"It is our obligation to ask and your obligation to answer," Schumer said.

Roberts sat still, shoulders slightly rounded, moving his head thoughtfully from side to side, and keeping a polite gaze on each speaking senator; after three hours of this, the nominee shamed the lawmakers with a brief speech blending jurisprudence and the national pastime. "I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat," he said.

Specter, determined to keep the proceedings on schedule, even cut himself off at the 10-minute mark, saying, "I'm down to 10 seconds . . . that's it."

But there were unscripted moments. Cornyn and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) spent a chunk of the afternoon whispering and joking. A woman in a 19th-century hat and dress sat in the back of the room wearing a "Women for Roberts" sticker. After Feingold predicted longevity for the 50-year-old nominee because he looks "healthy," Coburn, a doctor, said that cannot be predicted without a "physical exam or a family history" -- neither of which is on this week's hearing schedule.

A television camera behind Coburn caught the senator working a crossword puzzle. But Coburn went from detachment to emotional overdrive when it was his turn to talk; seconds after asserting that "a super-legislator body is not what the court was intended to be," he paused and wept.

Colleagues looked alarmed. One GOP committee aide put his hand to his mouth. It was the biggest Senate choke-up since Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) cried while opposing the nomination of the ambassador to the United Nations -- and Coburn has to get through three more days of hearings.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content
/article/2005/09/12/AR2005091200916_pf.html

'Katrina,' UnGodly, Un-Constitutional Outcry For Manna From FEMA

'Katrina,' UnGodly, Un-Constitutional Outcry For Manna From FEMA
AMERICAN VIEW -- On this program, we discuss “Hurricane Katrina” and the distressing, un-Godly, un-Constitutional, un-American clamor for manna from FEMA, for salvation from the Federal Government. Joining in this disgusting outcry were, among others, Pat Buchanan (!), Fox TV’s Bill O’Reilly, the national news media, many members of Congress and numerous state and local officials. But, this kind of thing was not always so. We discuss many previous disasters in America and how they were survived and areas rebuilt WITH NO FEDERAL AID.

Mass Murder in New Orleans Hospitals

Fear stricken doctors working in New Orleans hospitals murdered critically ill patients before they fled to safety, The Mail on Sunday reports. After receiving the evacuation notice, panicky doctors made the decision to give patients massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not evacuate the hospitals.

Mass Murder in New Orleans Hospitals

'We had to kill our patients'

Doctors Kill Patients Before They Fled To Safety

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana, and The Mail on Sunday is protecting the identities of the medical staff concerned to prevent them being made scapegoats for the events of last week.

Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.

'These people were going to die anyway'

The doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.

"I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul."

The doctor, who finally fled her hospital late last week in fear of being murdered by the armed looters, said: "This was not murder, this was compassion. They would have been dead within hours, if not days. We did not put people down. What we did was give comfort to the end.

"I had cancer patients who were in agony. In some cases the drugs may have speeded up the death process.

"We divided patients into three categories: those who were traumatised but medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying.

"People would find it impossible to understand the situation. I had to make life-or-death decisions in a split second.

"It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity.

"There were patients with Do Not Resuscitate signs. Under normal circumstances, some could have lasted several days. But when the power went out, we had nothing.

"Some of the very sick became distressed. We tried to make them as comfortable as possible.

"The pharmacy was under lockdown because gangs of armed looters were roaming around looking for their fix. You have to understand these people were going to die anyway."

Mr McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs, half an hour north of New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been 'put down', saying: "They injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died."

Mr McQueen has been working closely with emergency teams and added: "They had to make unbearable decisions."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.h
tml?in_article_id=361980&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ct=5

Companies with Bush ties snag Katrina reconstruction contracts

Firms with Bush ties snag Katrina deals
WASHINGTON -- Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast. One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Katrina Pushes Gas Price to All-Time High
LOS ANGELES -- Damage to Gulf Coast refineries and pipelines by Hurricane Katrina pushed retail gas prices to historic highs in the past two weeks, with self-serve regular averaging more than $3 a gallon for the first time ever, according to a nationwide survey released Sunday. The weighted average price for all three grades surged more than 38 cents to nearly $3.04 a gallon between Aug. 26 and Sept. 9, said Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country.

Feds Drop Media Ban on Katrina Recovery
NEW YORK -- Challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed on Saturday not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims. The government won't, however, permit photographers to join them in boats or helicopters during the mission to recover bodies from flooded homes. CNN filed suit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency in U.S. District Court in Houston late Friday, concerned about two statements made by government officials that day. The officials said they didn't believe it was right for the news media to show pictures of Katrina victims.

General: Feds Won't Enforce Evacuation
WASHINGTON -- The commander of active duty troops involved in hurricane relief efforts said Sunday his soldiers will not enforce New Orleans' order for residents to evacuate the flooded city. Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore said military units are continuing to provide food and water and other aid despite the order, which he indicated is the responsibility of state and local authorities to enforce. "Federal troops will not be involved in the direct evacuation in any way, of any one, from their home. That is a local and state law enforcement task not to include federal troops," Honore told CNN's "Late Edition."

Disarray Marked Path From Hurricane To Anarchy
'Does anybody in this building know anything about buses?'
The governor of Louisiana was "blistering mad." It was the third night after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, and Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco needed buses to rescue thousands of people from the fetid Superdome and convention center. But only a fraction of the 500 vehicles promised by federal authorities had arrived. Ms. Blanco burst into the state's emergency center in Baton Rouge. "Does anybody in this building know anything about buses?" she recalled crying out.

La. Senator Rips Bush Hurricane Response
WASHINGTON -- Louisiana's senior senator on Sunday escalated the Democrats' rhetoric against the Bush administration's hurricane response, accusing the White House of a "full court press" to blame state and local officials for the initial sluggish rescue effort. The government's emergency managers came under fire from the lone black senator, Democrat Barack Obama, who said they were clueless about the inner-city in New Orleans when they failed to plan for the evacuation of poor people.

Brown is merely a symbol of the problems at FEMA, experts say
WASHINGTON -- Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, who on Friday was sent back to Washington, is the poster boy for what's gone wrong with an agency once lauded for its lightning reflexes. The nation's federal disaster agency has been politicized and dismantled over the past four years and Brown is a symptom of that transformation, said disaster- and government-efficiency experts.

States Welcome Evacuees Who May Never Come
In Iowa, blankets and pillows gather dust at the state fairgrounds, waiting for victims of Hurricane Katrina who may never come. Illinois volunteers jump each time they're told a planeload of evacuees is on the way — first at 2 p.m., then 4 p.m., then 11:45 p.m., and then maybe not at all. Medical volunteers rush to a hangar in Charleston, S.C., after getting word of incoming evacuees — only to learn the flight actually is bound for Charleston, W.Va. Across the country, many states that cleared space and readied supplies to take in thousands of those left homeless by Katrina now don't know when — or if — those evacuees will arrive. And many of the displaced complain they don't know where they're being sent until they are already airborne.

Katrina May Cost U.S. as Much as Two Wars
WASHINGTON -- One storm could end up costing almost as much as two wars. Although estimates of Hurricane Katrina's staggering toll on the treasury are highly imprecise, costs are certain to climb to $200 billion in the coming weeks. The final accounting could approach the more than $300 billion spent in four years to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Analysts inside and outside government agree that the $62 billion that Washington has spent so far was merely the first installment of perhaps an unparalleled sum.

Fishing Industry Harmed, Barrier Islands Shredded; Devastating effects on wetlands
Hurricane Katrina severely disrupted the Gulf Coast's natural landscape by sweeping away barrier islands, polluting waterways and ripping up wetlands vital to shrimp, crabs and oysters. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared a widespread failure of the $700 million-a-year Gulf Coast fishing industry because habitats and fishing boats were ruined. "Louisiana is known for its seafood - oysters, shrimp and fish - and all of this could be severely affected by this event," said Harry Roberts, director of coastal studies at Louisiana State University. "This storm is going to have a long-term impact on the environment here." "It's the most damage I've ever seen from any storm," said Abby Sallenger, a USGS oceanographer who examined the coast from an airplane after the storm. "What happened to the Chandeleur Islands was catastrophic; they were almost completely destroyed."

As Support Blossoms for Katrina Evacuees, Homegrown Problems Wait
ST. PAUL -- Even as people across the country pour out support for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, advocates for the poor say they hope the catastrophe won't obscure homegrown needs. For instance, as many as 3 million Americans already were homeless at some point during the last year, before Katrina hit.

New Orleans Airport Opens to Cargo
New Orleans began to show signs of returning to normal today as commercial cargo flights returned to the city's airport and crews continued restoring power to much of the hurricane-damaged region. Reopening Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport will allow construction workers and rebuilding supplies to stream into the area, said Roy Williams, director of aviation at the airport. The airport will begin accepting passenger flights on Sept. 13, and business travelers are expected to return to help industries get back on their feet, he said.

Durel: No permit for Southern Decadence Parade

Sodomites Denied Parade Permit

Police are prepared to arrest anyone who attempts to parade in Lafayette today, City-Parish President Joey Durel said.

The Southern Decadence celebration and parade in New Orleans, an annual celebration of the gay community, was canceled because of Hurricane Katrina. Organizers planned on relocating to Lafayette with a parade and pub crawl beginning at 5 p.m. today. But Durel said they have no permit and will be arrested if they attempt to parade.

“If they break any laws they will be dealt with like anybody else,” he said.

Even if the group applied for a parade permit, it probably would not be issued at this time, not because the parade involves gays, Durel said.

“I don’t think anybody would get a parade permit now,” he said. “There’s enough of a strain on our police department.”

Mark Money, who organized a tribute Sunday to honor his late friend and Lafayette native Mike Evers, said he had no plans for a parade in Lafayette. But Ambush magazine posted on its Web site that the parade was moved to Lafayette, and the event took on a life of its own.

“We’re not sponsoring any kind of parade,” Money said. “A group may walk from the Sound Factory to Jules.”

Money said he spoke with a police captain who said as long as the event involves pedestrians who stay on the sidewalk and do not impede the flow of traffic, they can proceed.

Asked about loosening permit restrictions to allow the hurricane evacuees a sense of normalcy, Durel said, “I don’t consider anything that’s got the word decadence in it to be normalcy.

“If they want to have some semblance of normalcy, I would expect them to respect the normalcy of the community of Lafayette,” he said.


http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A
ID=/20050907/NEWS05/50907008&SearchID=73219735539940

Mexican Troops Enter U.S.

Mexican Troops Enter U.S.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- A Mexican army convoy of nearly 200 people crossed the border into the United States on Thursday to bring aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina, becoming the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846. The Mexican government already was planning another 12-vehicle aid convoy for this week. It has sent a Mexican navy ship toward the Mississippi coast with rescue vehicles and helicopters. In 1846, Mexican troops briefly advanced just north of the Rio Grande in Texas, which had then recently joined the United States. Mexico, however, did not then recognize the Rio Grande as the U.S. border. But when American forces quickly beat back the Mexican invasion during the Mexican-American War they got the message.

Bush surrounds Louisiana with armed Mexican troops
As the White House unsuccessfully insists on seizing control of the Louisiana National Guard to institute full-blown martial law in New Orleans, it has brought in foreign troops moving on the Western and Eastern borders of the state. Washington Post/AP Thursday, September 8, 2005; 4:31 PM is peddling the government line that the soldiers are unarmed, but does note that the Mexican Navy has brought hardware to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Alex Jones is reporting from several sources the troops in Texas are armed! From PrisonPlanet.com : Two separate credible sources known to Alex Jones have reported that armed combat ready Mexican troops have entered Texas. The Associated Press reported today that unarmed Mexican troops were being escorted by the US army to help relief efforts for hurricane Katrina. However, the report was only specific to one convoy. The convoys reported to Alex Jones are said to be fully armed with Heckler & Koch German assault rifles.

Alert Southerners Buy Firearms At Rapid Pace
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Gun sales across the South boomed after the first reports surfaced of armed looters roaming the streets of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Gun store owners say they're being flooded by a demand for guns--particularly in Southern states and others where many of the hurricane victims are being relocated. Mostly, they say, the demand is being fueled by "good people" wanting to protect their families and property. That includes some who might not otherwise purchase such weapons, they add.

Flood Survivors Cuffed As Evacuation Begins
ARMED police have begun to handcuff hurricane survivors who refuse to leave their homes in New Orleans. As many as 10,000 people have stayed put in the devastated city despite orders to evacuate. Many are now said to be going voluntarily, but others are being detained and taken to evacuation centres. The job of carrying out Mayor Ray Nagin's forcible evacuation order has been left largely to the 1000 or so remaining members of New Orleans' police force.

Durel: No permit for Southern Decadence Parade
Police are prepared to arrest anyone who attempts to parade in Lafayette today, City-Parish President Joey Durel said. The Southern Decadence celebration and parade in New Orleans, an annual celebration of the gay community, was canceled because of Hurricane Katrina. Organizers planned on relocating to Lafayette with a parade and pub crawl beginning at 5 p.m. today. But Durel said they have no permit and will be arrested if they attempt to parade. “If they break any laws they will be dealt with like anybody else,” he said.

FEMA Dumps Brown As Katrina Relief Chief
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration dumped FEMA Director Michael Brown as commander of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts Friday, then abruptly scrapped plans to give $2,000 debit cards to displaced storm victims as it struggled to get a grip on the recovery operation. Brown, who had come to personify a relief operation widely panned as bumbling, will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen. Allen had been in charge of relief, recovery and rescue efforts for New Orleans.

Katrina Head-scratchers
Why did FEMA block Wal-Mart shipments of water to the New Orleans area?
Why did FEMA block fuel shipments to the New Orleans area?
Why did FEMA cut emergency communication lines from the New Orleans area?
Why wouldn't FEMA let the Red Cross deliver food to the New Orleans area?
Why wouldn't FEMA let the people in downtown New Orleans leave?
Why wouldn't FEMA let others come in to deliver relief supplies or transportation out from New Orleans?
Why did it take the government 5 days to give a "yes" to airlines who had asked to ferry refugees out of New Orleans for free, immediately after the storm?

Quote of the Day
"We have now seen what to expect from civil government in a major crisis, even one for which there was advanced warning. There is a lesson here that only the politically blind will miss, and undoubtedly will: to the extent that you become dependent on some tax-funded bureaucracy to save you in a disaster, to that extent you become vulnerable to that disaster and also poorer because of the expense of the government's protection.

"FEMA needs to have every dime of its funding cut and all of its employees fired. It doesn't need a house cleaning. It needs a house burning. If Katrina had taken out FEMA as "collateral damage," the loss of New Orleans would have been worth it (though not the loss of life). No such luck. We have lost New Orleans, we will lose the tax money to rebuild it, and FEMA's budget will grow." --Gary North

Three FEMA Contractors Arrested For Looting
Three Texas truck drivers under contract with the federal government to bring in storm relief supplies for Plaquemines Parish have been arrested for allegedly looting toys, dolls, women’s lingerie and other merchandise from a Belle Chasse Family Dollar store, authorities said. Booked late Wednesday night with one count each of looting were Gerald W. Thomas, 47, of Tyler, Texas; Thomas Sherman, 39, also of Tyler; and Lasharon Lemons, 36, of Dallas, said Major John Marie with the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff’s Office.

FEMA Attempts Media Black Out in New Orleans
As hurricane clean-up efforts kick into gear in New Orleans and the surrounding storm-ravaged areas, federal government officials have been taking action seemingly to prevent the news media from accurately reporting on the tragic human toll Hurricane Katrina has taken so far. Top among the decrees is a request by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that news agencies refrain from photographing dead bodies.

Katrina Damages Estimate Upped to $125B
NEW YORK -- Hurricane Katrina caused at least $125 billion in economic damage and could cost the insurance industry up to $60 billion in claims, a leading risk assessment firm said in updated estimates released Friday. That's significantly higher than the previous record-setting storm, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which caused nearly $21 billion in insured losses in today's dollars.

Crude Oil Supplies Overwhelm Refineries
The US and Europe are releasing more emergency crude oil than refineries in the Gulf of Mexico can handle, reinforcing suspicions that governments are using the crisis triggered by Hurricane Katrina to cap record oil prices. US refineries will on Friday begin to bid for the 30m barrels of crude oil that the US government is releasing from the its emergency reserves but, with many refineries disabled, analysts say the additional supply may not be needed. “I will not be surprised if they don't bid for all the barrels,” said Katherine Spector, of JPMorgan in New York.

Death Toll May Be Far Less Than Expected
NEW ORLEANS -- Dire predictions of as many as 10,000 dead in New Orleans may have been greatly exaggerated, with authorities saying Friday that the first street-by-street sweep of the swamped city revealed far fewer corpses than feared. ``Some of the catastrophic deaths that some people predicted may not have occurred,'' said Col. Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security chief.

Special Report: Washing Away

Special Report: Washing Away
Before you believe the government's "official word" that nobody could predict the Army Corps of Engineers' hurricane levee system would be breached, read this incredible 5-part report from The Times-Picayune titled Washing Away. (Note that it was published back in June of 2002.)

Police Begin Confiscating Firearms as Water Recedes

Police Begin Confiscating Firearms

NEW ORLEANS -- Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.

No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

Nearly two weeks after the floods began, New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm. No arrests were made on Wednesday night or this morning, and the police received only 10 calls for service, a police spokesman said.

The city's slow recovery is continuing on other fronts as well, local officials said at a news conference. Pumping stations are now operating across much of the city, and many taps and fire hydrants have water pressure. Tests have shown no evidence of cholera or other dangerous diseases in flooded areas, though health officials have said the waters contain unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria and lead.

Efforts to recover corpses have also started.

But there were still signs of confusion and uncertainty over government plans. FEMA's director, Michael D. Brown, had said his agency would begin issuing debit cards, worth at least $2,000 each, to allow hurricane victims to buy supplies for immediate needs. More than 319,000 people have already applied for federal disaster relief, and many evacuees began lining up at the Astrodome, in Houston, early today in hope of getting cards.

"The concept is to get them some cash in hand," Mr. Brown had said, "which allows them, empowers them, to make their own decisions about what they need to have to restart their lives."

But this afternoon, FEMA announced that it no longer planned to issue the cards. An agency spokesman, David G. Passey, said that he did not know why the program was scrapped but that now "we believe that our normal methods of delivery - checks and electronic funds transfer - will suffice."

In Washington, the House an Senate overwhelmingly approved $51.8 billion for relief efforts, the second disbursement since the storm devastated the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. The funds include $50 billion for FEMA, $1.4 billion for the Department of Defense and an additional $400 million for the Army Corps of Engineers. The request follows a $10.5 billion package that President Bush signed on Friday and that is intended to address the immediate needs of survivors.

Hundreds of miles to the east, Ophelia, a tropical storm off the Florida coast, was upgraded to hurricane status this afternoon after its winds reached speeds of 75 miles per hour. Forecasters have predicted that Ophelia will turn east into the Atlantic Ocean during the next few days, although its path remains unclear.

With pumps running and the weather here remaining hot and dry, water has receded across much of New Orleans. Formerly flooded streets are now passable, although covered with leaves, tree branches and mud.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, Dan Hitchings, said 37 of the city's 174 permanent pumps were working this afternoon, removing about 11,000 cubic feet of flood water per second. The city's 174 pumps have the capacity to remove about 81,000 cubic feet of water each second when they are all operational.

While Mr. Hitchings would not try to quantify how much the water level in the city had dropped, he did say that "it's going down."

The Army Corps of Engineers continues to try to plug two levee breaks, Mr. Hitchings said, on London Avenue, and at the end of the Harbor Navigation Canal.

Many neighborhoods in the northern half of New Orleans remain under 10 feet of water, and Mr. Compass said today that the city's plans for a forced evacuation remained in effect because of the danger of disease and fires.

Mr. Compass said he could not disclose when New Orleans residents might be forced to leave en masse, but other police officers and law enforcement officials said the city planned to start as early as tonight.

The city's Police Department and federal law enforcement officers from agencies like the United States Marshals Service will lead the evacuation, Mr. Compass said. Officers will search houses in both dry and flooded neighborhoods, and no one will be allowed to stay, he said.

Many of the residents still in the city said they did not understand why the city remained intent on forcing them out.

"I know the risks," said Renee de Pontchieux, as she sat on a stool outside Kajun's Pub in the working-class Bywater neighborhood east of downtown. "We used to think we lived in America - now we're not so sure. Why should we allow this government to chase us out and allow people from outside to rebuild our homes? We want to rebuild our homes."

But Ms. De Pontchieux said she was resigned to being evacuated if the police insisted. "It would be foolish" to fight, she said.

This afternoon, President Bush announced a series of measures intended to make it easier for evacuees to receive state and federal assistance, like Medicaid and food stamps, to make the aid as "simple as possible to collect."

"There will be many difficult days ahead, especially as we recover those who did not survive the storm," he said, adding that he was declaring Sept. 16, next Friday, a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance.

Vice President Dick Cheney, accompanied by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff, surveyed damaged neighborhoods in the Gulf Coast region today, and pledged that the federal government would help rebuild the devastated area.

Mr. Cheney visited Gulfport, Miss., and New Orleans, where flood waters are growing increasingly fetid and thousands of people are still insisting on staying, despite the evacuation order.

"The president asked me to come down to take a look at things, and to begin to focus on the longer term, in terms of making certain obviously that we're getting the search-and-rescue missions done and all those other immediate things," Mr. Cheney said after touring a neighborhood in Gulfport. "The progress we're making is significant."

Mr. Cheney's visit follows a visit earlier this week by President Bush, his second since the storm hit, following much criticism last week that the administration and federal agencies had been slow in responding to the disaster.

An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people remain inside New Orleans more than a week after Hurricane Katrina hit, many in neighborhoods that are on high ground near the Mississippi River.

But the number of dead still remained a looming and disturbing question.

In the first indication of how many deaths Louisiana alone might expect, a spokesman for the State Department of Health and Hospitals, Robert Johannessen, said on Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had ordered 25,000 body bags. The official death toll remains under 100.

In Washington, House and Senate leaders announced a joint investigation into the government's response to the crisis. "Americans deserve answers," said a statement by the two top-ranking Republicans, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader. "We must do all we can to learn from this tragedy, improve the system and protect all of our citizens."

Democratic leaders, however, said they would not participate, citing a preference for an independent inquiry.

The government continued its efforts to help evacuees. At the Astrodome in Houston, where an estimated 15,000 New Orleans evacuees found shelter over the weekend, the number had dwindled to only about 3,000 on Wednesday as people were rapidly placed in apartments, volunteers' homes and hotels that had been promised reimbursement by FEMA.

With the overall death toll highly uncertain, Mr. Brown, the FEMA director, said in Baton Rouge that the formal house-to-house search for bodies had begun at midmorning. He said the temporary mortuary set up in St. Gabriel, La., was prepared to receive 500 to 1,000 bodies a day, with refrigeration trucks on site to hold the corpses.

"They will be processed as rapidly as possible," Mr. Brown said.

As it worked to remove the water inundating the city, the Corps of Engineers said that one additional pumping station, No. 6, at the head of the 17th Street Canal, had started up, and that about 10 percent of the city's total pumping capacity was in operation. But the corps added that it was dealing with a new problem: how to prevent corpses from being sucked to the grates at the pump inlets.

"We're expending every effort to try to ensure that we protect the integrity of remains as we get this water out of the city," said John S. Rickey, chief of public affairs for the corps. "We're taking this very personally. This is a very deep emotional aspect of our work down there."

Officials emphasized that as testing of the flood waters continued, substances in addition to E. coli bacteria and lead were likely to be found at harmful levels, especially from water taken near industrial sites.

"Human contact with the floodwater should be avoided as much as possible," the environmental agency's administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said.

A spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said state and local officials had reported three deaths in Mississippi and one in Texas from exposure to Vibrio vulnificus, a choleralike bacterium found in salt water, which poses special risks for people with chronic liver problems.

At a news conference this morning, officials in New Orleans cautioned people to decontaminate themselves as best as possible when entering homes after wading through the floodwater.

Among the authorities, though, some confusion lingered about how a widespread evacuation by force would work, and how much support it would get at the federal and state level. Mayor C. Ray Nagin told the police and the military on Tuesday to remove all residents for their own safety, and on Wednesday, the police superintendent, Mr. Compass, said state laws give the mayor the authority to declare martial law and order the evacuations.

"There's a martial law declaration in place that gives us legal authority for mandatory evacuations," Mr. Compass said. "We'll use the minimum amount of force necessary."

But because the New Orleans Police Department has only about 1,000 working officers, the city is largely in the hands of National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers.

State officials said Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco could tell the Guard to carry out the forced removals, but they stopped short of a commitment to do so. In Washington, Lt. Gen. Joseph R. Inge, deputy commander of the United States Northern Command, said regular troops "would not be used" in any forced evacuation.

The state disaster law does not supersede either the state or federal Constitutions, said Kenneth M. Murchison, a law professor at Louisiana State University. But even so, Mr. Nagin's decision could be a smart strategy that does not violate fundamental rights, Professor Murchison said.

When police officers came to Billie Moore's 3,000 square foot Victorian to warn her of the health risks of remaining in the city, she pushed her identification tag from the hospital where she works as a nurse through slats in the door.

"I guess you know the health risks then," the officer said as he walked away.

Ms. Moore and her husband, Richard Robinson, who do not drive and use bicycles for the 5-mile ride to their jobs at the still-functioning Ochsner Hospital in suburban Jefferson Parish, have no plans to leave. Their circa-1895 home, on the city's southwest flank, suffered virtually no damage in the hurricane or its aftermath. They have been lighting an old gas stove with a match to cook pasta and rice, dumping cans of peas on top for flavor.

"We try to be normal and sit down and eat," Ms. Moore, 52, explained as she showed off the expansive, well-kept home where they have lived for 10 years. "I think that's how we'll stay healthy is if I keep the house clean."

Ms. Moore said she had not worked since the hurricane because there are few babies left at the hospital, but that she remains on standby; her husband has been on duty the past five days.

"I don't want to go, I don't want to lose my job," she said. "Who's going to take care of the patients if all the nurses go away?"


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/national/nationalspecial/08cnd-
storm.html?ex=1126843200&en=3848efb32682ed57&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Bill requires pharmacies to supply `morning-after' pill

California Passes Abortifacient Bill

SACRAMENTO -- A measure intended to ensure that pharmacists do not deny women emergency contraception won final legislative passage Thursday and was sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The governor hasn't taken a position on the proposal that was among scores of measures being debated into the night as legislators pushed to wrap up their chores for the year -- one day early. Partisan divisions marked much of the debate as frazzled members girded for the November special election called by the governor.

The bill came in response to widely publicized cases in which pharmacists -- citing moral objections -- refused to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception known as ``morning after'' pills. The medication is most effective if taken within 72 hours, so a refusal by a pharmacist could create a delay that could lead to an unwanted pregnancy.

The bill, SB 644, by Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, passed 22-14 in the Senate. The bill would allow a druggist to refuse dispensing a prescription -- but only when the pharmacist has previously told his employer that he would object on moral or religious grounds. But the employer would still be required to ensure the prescription was filled in a timely manner.

Ortiz said the measure ``respects the moral, religious or ethical objections a pharmacist may have to dispensing specific medicines, while ensuring that those beliefs to do not interfere with a patient's right to have prescriptions filled in a timely manner.''

It was backed by abortion rights groups. Among the opponents was the California Family Alliance, which said the bill does not contain the necessary safeguards to protect pharmacists with sincerely held religious beliefs.

Diet supplement bill to governor

Among other legislation debated Thursday:

• A measure, SB 37 by Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, was sent to the governor's desk that would bar students from playing high school sports unless they agreed not to use performance-enhancing dietary supplements.

Last year, Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill at a time he was receiving $1 million a year as editor of Muscle and Fitness magazine, which was heavily dependent on the supplement industry for advertising. This summer, he severed his ties to the magazine, and his office indicated a willingness to work with Speier on the legislation.

• Final passage was given to a bill, SB 60, by Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, to extend driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The measure would clear the way for California to create a distinct driver's license, with a unique design and color, for people who cannot prove legal citizenship in the United States. Richard Costigan, the legislative secretary for Schwarzenegger, said late Thursday that the governor will veto the bill.

• SB 586 by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, sent to the governor, would allow special education students in the class of 2006 to request an exemption from being required to pass the high school exit exam. The bill would settle a class-action lawsuit brought by the Oakland-based Disability Rights Advocates on behalf of students.

• Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez announced a bipartisan agreement on a controversial proposal to provide tax credits to Hollywood studios. Under the agreement, the speaker said, tax credits would be included in next year's state budget as a way of preventing productions from being filmed elsewhere in the nation.

Solar panel bill debated

But the fate of a key part of the governor's environmental agenda was up in the air Thursday night. The measure, SB 1 by Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, is aimed at placing solar panels on 1 million roofs.

Bill Maile, a spokesman for the governor, said, ``Our door will be open until the gavel bangs the session to a close.''


http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mer
curynews/news/politics/12599421.htm

30 Bodies Found In Nursing Home

30 Bodies Found In Nursing Home
More bodies discovered as relief funding
increases after Hurricane Katrina
Horrible evidences of Hurricane Katrina's atrocity began to emerge Thursday, as over 30 corpses were reportedly discovered in a nursing home in suburban New Orleans, Louisiana. According to reports of CNN, the bodies were found in St. Rita's Nursing Home in lower St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans, one of the areas hardest hit by the storm and flooding as Katrina struck US Gulf Coast on Aug. 28. So far there have been over 250 confirmed deaths in Katrina's wake, including 83 in Louisiana, as of Wednesday, but the final number is expected to be much more higher, given the fact that over 20,000 are still missing. In New Orleans, National Guard troops and local policemen are going house to house to search for survivors and recover the dead.

Once A Nursing Home, Now A House Of Horror
EVEN now, after the team of white-suited undertakers has finished its gruesome task and left, St Rita’s nursing home remains a dark cavern of horror. Nobody knows why about 30 elderly residents were left to die in the rising floodwaters, but the signs of their final, terrified struggle to survive can be seen in every mud-smeared room and corridor. Over the front window, a table nailed to a window and wedged in place by an electric wheelchair shows that some desperate soul tried in vain to keep the storm at bay.

Hurricane Hell 25,000 Bodybags
Finding all city's dead will take 90 days
A GRIM consignment of 25,000 bodybags has been sent to New Orleans as the task of recovering the dead gets under way. The official death toll from Hurricane Katrina stands at 83 in the city, including 30 elderly people found in a flooded nursing home. Officials estimate the final figure will top 10,000, but there are fears that it will be much higher. The body count will only emerge when the long process of pumping out the stagnant floodwater is finished in about 90 days.

Hard-hit St. Bernard Parish struggles to dig out
CHALMETTE, La. -- You have to dunk your boots in disinfectant to enter the St. Bernard Parish emergency operations center. They're afraid of disease here. In its crowded hallways, rescuers were being immunized for communicable diseases Thursday, and parish President Henry Rodriguez Jr. guesses there aren't 10 homes still habitable left in Chalmette, its most populous town. To complicate recovery efforts, a 4-foot gash in a Murphy Oil Co. tank drained 200,000 gallons of heavy crude over the town's west side and surrounding bayous. St. Bernard's official death toll is 67, and responders have barely started looking for bodies in Chalmette's ruined homes.

Katrina Death Toll Still A Question
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Estimates of the death toll from Hurricane Katrina have run as high as 10,000 but the actual body count so far is much lower and officials who feared the worst now hope the dire predictions were wrong. The recovery of Katrina's victims speeded up in the last two days. As of Thursday, Mississippi had recorded 201 deaths and Louisiana 118, while other affected states had much lower numbers. Searchers are now going door-to-door in New Orleans neighborhoods where the water has fallen enough for a look inside flooded homes. In Mississippi teams have been recovering bodies since hours after the storm struck on Monday last week.

Congress Passes $51.8B Katrina Relief Bill
WASHINGTON -- Acting with extraordinary speed, Congress approved an additional $51.8 billion for relief and recovery from Hurricane Katrina on Thursday. President Bush pledged to make it "easy and simple as possible" for uncounted, uprooted storm victims to collect food stamps and other government benefits. "We're not asking for a handout, but we do need help," said Sen. Trent Lott — whose home state of Mississippi suffered grievously from the storm — as lawmakers approved the bill just a day after Bush requested more aid on top of the $10.5 billion already provided. The measure includes $2,000 debit cards for families to use on immediate needs.

Feds thought about invoking the Insurrection Act
As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis. To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.

Some Urge Greater Use of Military in Major Disasters
The breakdown of local and state agencies that tried to respond to Hurricane Katrina has spurred fresh debate about whether disasters of such magnitude ought to be turned over to the U.S. military and other federal authorities to manage at the outset. National plans developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks rest on the notion that police, fire and other emergency groups are best positioned to serve as first responders. Federal agencies are supposed to function as backup to state and local ones, and military forces are meant to play a largely supporting role to civilian authorities.

EPA: Contaminated Floodwater Dangerous
WASHINGTON -- Floodwaters in New Orleans contain levels of sewage-related bacteria that are at least 10 times higher than acceptable safety limits, endangering rescue workers and remaining residents who even walk in it, federal officials said. Results of the first round of testing by the Environmental Protection Agency were no surprise, but reinforced warnings that everyone still in the city take precautions to avoid getting the water on their skin — especially into cuts or other open wounds — much less in their mouths. "Human contact with the floodwater should be avoided as much as possible," said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.

Pump Poison into Lake or River?
EPA Chief Had Hard Choice in New Orleans
WASHINGTON -- The decision to pour heavily contaminated floodwaters from New Orleans streets into Lake Pontchartrain was a difficult one and could pose new environmental problems in the years ahead, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. "We were all faced with a difficult choice," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in an interview with The Associated Press. "The choice was, we have to get the water out of New Orleans for the health and safety of the people and we need to put it someplace." The other option was to pour it into the Mississippi River, where it eventually would move into the Gulf of Mexico, said Johnson. "Our collective judgment was to put it into Lake Pontchartrain."

City Awash In Toxic Waters, But Long-Term Impact Is Murky
The dark waters now covering New Orleans constitute a nasty brew of toxic chemicals and harmful bacteria, but the long-term environmental effects of the city's inundation by Hurricane Katrina remain unclear, scientists say. Certainly, the Mississippi Delta and its environs hardly made up a pristine Eden before the hurricane. The region supported one of the great oil and gas extraction and petrochemical refining complexes on the planet, and pollution has long been a hot-button issue there.

Holdouts on Dry Ground Say, 'Why Leave Now?'
NEW ORLEANS -- Ten days ago, the water rose to the front steps of their house. Four days ago, it began falling. But only now is the city demanding that Richie Kay and Emily Harris get out. They cannot understand why. They live on high ground in the Bywater neighborhood, and their house escaped structural damage. They are healthy and have enough food and water to last almost a year. They have a dog to protect them, a car with a full tank of gasoline should they need to leave quickly and a canoe as a last resort. They said they used it last week to rescue 100 people. "We're not the people they need to be taking out," Mr. Kay said. "We're the people they need to be coordinating with."

Floods Can Cause Damage To Structure
The prognosis for many houses, which have been buried in water as high as 10 feet for as many as 10 days, is not good, structural engineers say. The longer houses are under water and the higher the water rises, the more damage they suffer, and the harder it is to save them from the wrecking ball. "I'll be surprised if any of the houses submerged to the ceiling will be able to be salvaged," says Jim Wiethorn of Haag Engineering.

Katrina Rips Bush A New One
Hurricane Katrina did not simply destroy physical infrastructure, social fabric, and countless lives on America’s Gulf Coast. It blew away the ground rules that had defined post-9/11 American politics and protected the most polarizing administration in recent history — one that failed to articulate a coherent domestic agenda, tossed gasoline on the smoldering culture wars, and dragged the country into a divisive and very likely disastrous war in Iraq. All the elements that George W. Bush and Karl Rove had exploited for political gain — a timid and kowtowing mainstream media, a deafening silence about America’s growing underclass, the fear that criticizing the White House in the era of Al Qaeda was tantamount to treason, and Bush’s can-do, cowboy image — were shattered by the same winds and rains that savaged casinos in Biloxi and homes in Jefferson Parish. What emerged from the rubble — with the nation’s collective psyche now a toxic stew of shock, shame, fear, and anger — were the hard truths about our society’s frightening inequities and our government’s horrifying incompetence.

Feds: No Photos of the Dead

Feds: No Photos of the Dead
FEMA accused of censorship
WASHINGTON -- When U.S. officials asked the media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, they were censoring a key part of the disaster story, free speech watchdogs said on Wednesday. The move by the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in line with the Bush administration's ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war, media monitors said in separate telephone interviews. "It's impossible for me to imagine how you report a story whose subject is death without allowing the public to see images of the subject of the story," said Larry Siems of the PEN American Center, an authors' group that defends free expression.

"The notion that, when there's very little information from FEMA, that they would even spend the time to be concerned about whether the reporting effort is up to its standards of taste is simply mind-boggling," said Rebecca Daugherty of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "You cannot report on the disaster and give the public a realistic idea of how horrible it is if you don't see that there are bodies as well."

CDC says 5 die from floodwater bacteria after Katrina
WASHINGTON -- As many as five people have died from bacterial infections caused by the dirty water that Hurricane Katrina drove ashore last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The patients, evidently evacuees, appear to have been infected with Vibrio vulnificus bacteria, a water-borne pathogen that is related to the bacteria that cause cholera and is common in water off the Gulf of Mexico. Vibrio vulnificus was one of the bacteria that health officials were expecting to find in the floodwaters left by Katrina. It is related to Vibrio cholera, which causes cholera but which is not commonly found in U.S. waters.

Memos: Oil Companies Spiking Gasoline Prices
Memos purportedly show refiners sought
to limit ops to spike price of gasoline
A consumer group is publicizing a series of memos marked "highly confidential" alleging major oil companies – including Mobil, Chevron and Texaco – intentionally limited their refining capacity in order to raise gasoline prices and increase profits. The revelation comes as Americans have seen a major spike in prices at the pump in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while "the oil industry blames environmental regulation for limiting number of U.S. refineries."

Using the threat of force, police step up
efforts to clear holdouts from New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS -- Using the unmistakable threat of force, police and soldiers went house to house Wednesday to try to coax the last 10,000 or so stubborn holdouts to leave storm-shattered New Orleans because of the risk of disease from the putrid, sewage-laden floodwaters. "A large group of young armed men armed with M-16s just arrived at my door and told me that I have to leave," said Patrick McCarty, who owns several buildings and lives in one of them in the city's Lower Garden District. "While not saying they would arrest you, the inference is clear."

Katrina 'Will Cost 400,000 Jobs'
WASHINGTON -- Hurricane Katrina will have a greater economic impact than previous killer storms, though the energy price spikes, slower growth and job losses will not be enough to push the country into a recession. The CBO predicted the aftermath of Katrina would see job losses of 400,000 in coming months, a reduction in growth of as much as a full percentage point in the second half of this year and that September gas prices will average about 40 percent higher than before the storm.

Pat Robertson's Cozy Relationship with FEMA
In a distasteful show of insensitivity and partisanship, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has called for cash donations be paid to Operation Blessing, a charity front for Pat Robertson’s right-wing Christian fundamentalist TV operation, The 700 Club, and his other corporate schemes. In a press release published on its website on August 29th, FEMA urged those who wish to donate funds to give cash to the Robertson organization and provided a link and a 1-800 telephone number.

Faith Groups Upset Over Red Cross Response
ATLANTA -- Several local ministers and activists on Monday criticized a Red Cross they say has been unresponsive, unconnected and unhelpful to the hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees adrift in the city more than a week after the disaster. Even as they begged the agency to ease the bureaucracy and stress for the weary transplants, some seemed resolved to rely on the efforts of their churches and individuals in the community to offer immediate assistance to desperate victims. "Churches have resources, but they're not getting millions," said the Rev. Darryl Winston, president of the Greater America Ministerial Association and pastor of The Church of Greater Works in southwest Atlanta. "With the Red Cross, the money is coming in, but nothing is coming out," he said.

Schwarzenegger Vows to Veto Sodomite Marriage Bill

Arnold to Veto Sodomite Bill

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday he will veto a bill that would have made California the first state to legalize same-sex marriage through its elected lawmakers.

Schwarzenegger said the legislation, approved Tuesday by lawmakers, would conflict with the intent of voters when they approved an initiative five years ago. Proposition 22 was placed on the ballot to prevent California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries.

"We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote," the governor's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said in a statement. "Out of respect for the will of the people, the governor will veto (the bill)."

Proposition 22 stated that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The bill to be vetoed by Schwarzenegger would have defined marriage as a civil contract between "two persons."

A veto override in California requires a two-thirds vote in both the Assembly and Senate. The Assembly approved the bill 41-35, while the Senate voted 21-15.

In Massachusetts, recognition of gay marriages came through a court ruling.

Massachusetts voters could get the chance to change that. A proposed 2008 ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage passed a key hurdle Wednesday when the state attorney general ruled it could be permitted if supporters gathered enough signatures. A separate proposal to ban gay marriage but create civil unions faces a vote in the Legislature next week. If approved, it would go on the ballot in 2006.

In California, gay rights advocates accused Schwarzenegger of betraying the bipartisan ideals that helped get him elected in the 2003 recall.

"Clearly he's pandering to an extreme right wing, which was not how he got elected," said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, one of the bill's sponsors. "He got elected with record numbers of lesbian and gay voters who had not previously voted for a Republican, and he sold us out."

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Schwarzenegger missed "a golden opportunity to stand on history and do something that was noble and appropriate."

Newsom, a Democrat, sanctioned same-sex marriages in the city in 2004, but the state Supreme Court later voided the unions.

"It disappoints me greatly, and it will disappoint literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans, not to mention millions of people across the country," Newsom said.

The governor has until Oct. 9 to issue the veto.

Despite his promise to do so, Schwarzenegger "believes gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against based upon their relationship," Thompson's statement said. "He is proud that California provides the most rigorous protections in the nation for domestic partners."

The Republican governor had indicated previously that he would veto the bill, saying the debate over same-sex marriage should be decided by voters or the courts.

A state appeals court is considering appeals of a lower court ruling earlier this year that overturned Proposition 22 and a 1978 law that first formally defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Meanwhile, opponents of same-sex marriages are planning ballot measures similar to that proposed in Massachusetts to ban gay marriage in the state Constitution.

Schwarzenegger's announcement dampened a celebratory mood among the bill's supporters, who only the night before cheered, hugged and kissed as the state Assembly narrowly sent the bill to the governor's desk.

Democratic Assemblyman Paul Koretz had called bans on gay marriage "the last frontier of bigotry and discrimination."

The bill passed the Legislature through the persistence of its author, Assemblyman Mark Leno, a San Francisco Democrat and one of six openly gay members in the California Legislature.

Leno's original bill failed in the Assembly by four votes in June, but he linked it to another bill in the Senate and it won approval last week. The Assembly passed it Tuesday by a bare majority, with the winning margin provided by four Democrats who didn't vote on the measure in June.

Leno said he requested a meeting with the governor Wednesday to argue his case but said Schwarzenegger's office did not respond.

"The Legislature has done the hard work of picking up the issue of the day, holding public hearings, having public debate and making a decision," Leno said. "(A veto) would be an enormous disregard for the deliberation of both houses and the millions of people who wish him to sign the bill."

The vote that sent the bill to the governor made the California Legislature the first legislative body in the country to approve of same-sex marriage. As in Massachusetts, civil unions in Vermont were granted through court rulings.

"I'm encouraged that the governor is going to stop the runaway Legislature, and he's going to represent the people," said Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute, a Sacramento group that lobbied against the bill.

"I think Assembly member Leno wanted to rally everyone on his side and he's done exactly the opposite. He's forced his agenda on the rest of us," she said. "But in California the votes of the people do matter."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050908/a
p_on_re_us/gay_marriage_22&printer=1

Gas, Taxes, and Middle East Policy

Gas, Taxes, and Middle East Policy

by Rep. Ron Paul, MD

My constituents in the Texas gulf coast are very concerned about the price of gasoline, especially in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Katrina has left nine gulf coast refineries inoperable, and reduced capacity at four. This will mean the loss of 20 to 40 million barrels of oil in coming months, and prices at the pump well over $3.

Congress can help immediately by suspending federal gas taxes, which alone add 18.4 cents to the cost of every gallon. The state of Texas adds another 20 cents per gallon in taxes. Citizens are always asked to sacrifice during crises; why are governments never expected to do the same? Immediate, short-term relief for every American at the pump could be a reality when Congress returns to Washington this week. Congress should pass, and the president should immediately sign, a bill suspending the federal gas tax. This would create pressure for states to do the same. This is the simplest, fastest, and soundest way to drop gas prices and ease the financial impact of Katrina. Wouldn’t it be better to leave that money in the pockets of the American public at least temporarily, especially as we’re all being asked to provide financial help to hurricane victims?

Many people are upset with oil companies, which is understandable given the frustrations of steadily rising gas prices. But the fundamental problem is not a lack of regulation or price gouging, but rather the lack of price competition between oil companies. The maze of regulatory and environmental rules makes it nearly impossible for would-be competitors to explore new domestic sources of oil or build new refineries. When was the last time you heard of a new start-up oil company? This is because of too much government regulation, not too little. History proves time and time again that the best way to provide any good is too allow markets to operate freely.

The bulk of our refining capacity is concentrated along the gulf coast, leaving the nation’s gas supply vulnerable to annual hurricanes. Without new oil exploration and new refineries, our domestic capacity is fixed. As demand rises with the growth of the U.S. population, we find ourselves increasingly dependent on oil-rich nations-- many of which have questionable governments. With worldwide demand for oil increasing, and our domestic supply fixed, we face a new era. We must increase domestic production, pure and simple. We cannot afford to be held hostage by unrealistic environmental rules that threaten to strangle our economy. Existing refineries cannot carry the nation if we hope to maintain reasonable gas prices.

Turmoil in the Middle East demonstrates that we cannot depend on OPEC nations to make up for our lack of domestic production. As recently as 2002, before we went into Iraq, oil cost less than $20 per barrel. Now it’s nearly $70 per barrel. Before the war, many predicted that a renewed flow of cheap Iraqi oil would benefit American consumers. The opposite has taken place. Iraqi oil production has come to a halt, and OPEC prices have risen steadily over the last few years.

Consider this: Iraqis can buy gas for as little as five cents per gallon, courtesy of American taxpayers! We’re talking about imported refined gas, because Iraqi refineries are not operating. Iraqi officials, using American tax dollars, buy this fuel from the Saudis or other OPEC nations at market rates. This subsidy to Iraq cost us nearly $3 billion in 2004 alone. What kind of foreign policy justifies using your tax dollars to subsidize gas prices in an oil-rich nation, while prices skyrocket in the U.S.? We must change our priorities and focus our resources on the American people. We cannot count on using military or political influence in the Middle East to keep gas prices low.

It is easy to call for drastic government action in the emotional aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but we must not ignore history, logic, and basic economics. The Nixon administration imposed price controls on gasoline, but the result was shortages and long lines at the pump. The price mechanism is necessary to create an incentive for oil companies to increase the amount of refined gasoline available. Price controls also discourage the development of alternative fuels. When President Reagan later lifted price controls, worldwide oil production increased dramatically and gas prices plummeted.

Electric, hybrid, and alternative fuel vehicles may be the future, but for the foreseeable future the American economy will continue to depend on oil. We must face this reality and increase the number of domestic refineries, while considering immediate tax relief at the pump. Long term, we must rethink our foreign policy to focus on the interests of American citizens rather than spending billions on nation-building exercises. We are spending more than one billion dollars every week in Iraq, and thousands of National Guard soldiers are assigned there. Those dollars and that manpower are sorely needed in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.


http://www.house.gov/paul/
tst/tst2005/tst090505.htm

California Legislature Passes Sodomite Marriage Law

Calif. Passes Sodomite Bill

Sodomite legislation goes to Governor Schwarzenegger

California lawmakers sent a bill legalizing gay marriage to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the first state legislature in the U.S. to pass such a law.

The state Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, passed the bill by a vote of 41 to 35 after rejecting a similar measure in June. The bill passed the state's Senate last week in a 21-15 vote.

Same-sex weddings have been a political issue around the U.S. since February 2004 when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed city officials to issue marriage licenses to hundreds of gay couples. During last year's campaign, President George W. Bush called for a Constitutional amendment banning gay weddings and voters in 11 states passed similar measures in November.

``This is the most important civil rights issue of the day,'' said Assembly Mark Leno, a San Francisco Democrat and the author of the bill.

Schwarzenegger's spokeswoman Margita Thompson said the legislature shouldn't be involved in deciding whether gay marriages are legal in California given that voters in 2000 passed a ballot initiative defining marriage as between a man and a woman. That measure passed by 61 percent of the state's voters.

``Millions of Californians stood up and said marriage is between a man and woman,'' said Jay La Suer, a Republican from San Diego. ``They stood up and said homosexual marriage is not OK. By voting for this we are betraying the people of California.''

Contract

Leno's bill amends state law to define marriage as a civil contract between two people. The current law defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

``California shouldn't discriminate in providing the rights and responsibilities of civil marriages based on the sex of one partner,'' state Senator Deborah Ortiz said in a statement prior to the vote. ``Nor should the state ignore the changing dynamics of society and of the family.''

State Judge Richard Kramer in March struck down the 2000 ballot initiative, saying the law was unconstitutional. His ruling is on hold pending appeals. The California Supreme Court earlier last month declined to immediately take up the review.

Massachusetts became the only state in the country to legalize gay marriage following a ruling last year by the state's Supreme Court.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ne
ws?pid=10000103&sid=aOJe.fgb78AA

New Orleans Toxic Timebomb

Toxic Timebomb
Water Pollution a Concern in New Orleans
WASHINGTON -- Four people may have died of a waterborne bacterial infection circulating in Hurricane Katrina's flood waters, and health officials took steps Tuesday to stem spread of a diarrhea-causing virus among refugees in Houston's Astrodome. The deaths appear to have been caused by Vibrio vulnificus, a germ common in warm Gulf Coast waters that's usually spread by eating contaminated food but that can penetrate open wounds, too. The deaths one a hurricane refugee evacuated to Texas, the other three in Mississippi were attributed to wound infections, said Tom Skinner, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which received the reports from officials in the two states.

New Orleans Mayor Orders Forced Evacuation
NEW ORLEANS -- As flood waters receded inch by inch Tuesday, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin authorized law enforcement officers and the U.S. military to force the evacuation of all residents who refuse to heed orders to leave the dark, dangerous city. Nagin's emergency declaration released late Tuesday targets those still in the city unless they have been designated by government officials as helping with the relief effort.

Toxic Soup Threatens an Environmental Disaster
The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has created a vast toxic soup that stretches across south-eastern Louisiana and Mississippi, and portends the arrival of an environmental disaster to rival the awe-inspiring destruction of property and human life over the past week. The full extent of the danger is unknown and unknowable, but the polluted waters are known to contain human and animal waste, the bodies of people and animals, household effluence, and chemical and petrochemical toxins from the refineries that dot the Gulf coast in and around New Orleans. "We're talking about a mass of decomposing dead bodies and animals. This is going to produce a horrible festering of unknown consequences," said Harold Zeliger, a chemical toxicologist and independent consultant based in New York State.

E. Coli Bacteria Detected In Floodwater
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- Floodwater in New Orleans is contaminated with E. coli bacteria, a city official told CNN Tuesday. The official in Mayor Ray Nagin's office declined to be identified. The failures of the levee system after Hurricane Katrina's onslaught left about 80 percent of the city flooded with water up to 20 feet deep -- water that became a toxic mix of chemicals, garbage, corpses and human waste.

Female Survivors Urged to Flash Breasts For Help
Female survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were urged by government rescuers to flash their breasts in order to receive help in the immediate aftermath of the storm. That according to English tourists who are now just returning to the United Kingdom, relating their horror stories to British media.

US Labor Secretary: Rebuilding New Orleans Will Create 'New Jobs'
WASHINGTON -- The flooded city of New Orleans will see an unparalleled building boom, US Labor Secretary Elaine Chao confidently predicted after ordering the creation of 25,000 temporary jobs for evacuees. She said that while Hurricane Katrina was devastating to the immediate region, it was too early to gauge the storm's impact on the US economy. But America's fabled jazz capital will bounce back, Chao insisted after some voiced doubts over whether the costs of rebuilding the flood-prone city would be worth it. "Well, certainly in the short term, the regional devastation is very significant. But as for the national impact, we are not quite sure yet," she told the CNBC network. "But what will happen -- and I have seen this in previous catastrophes and hurricanes -- there is a bright spot in that new jobs do get created," Chao said. "And in the rebuilding: New Orleans, for example, is going to see one of the biggest construction booms that they have ever seen. "So in the aftermath and the rebuilding of a devastated area, there will be a tremendous array of new jobs that are being created. And that is going to help the economic development." President George W. Bush promised Friday that out of the ruins of the coastal city, celebrated for its historic French Quarter and the Mardi Gras festival, "is going to become that great city again".

One million without power after Katrina
NEW YORK -- Nearly 1 million electricity customers remained without electricity eight days after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the U.S. Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi, according to area utilities and the U.S. Department of Energy. More than half the customers in Louisiana, or 588,000 homes and businesses, were still without power, while Mississippi had about 382,000 customers with no service.

Katrina Economic Impact May Top $100B
WASHINGTON -- The economic hit from Hurricane Katrina keeps growing, with experts now saying it's likely to top $100 billion and could go much higher. And while the epicenter of the damage is on the Gulf Coast, consumers around the country — already dealing with record-high gas prices — also may end up paying more for everything from lumber to coffee because of disruptions wrought by the storm. The government has yet to put an overall price tag on Katrina, but there is general agreement the hurricane will be the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. Paul Getman, chief executive officer of Economy.com, estimates the economic loss from the hurricane that devastated New Orleans and a swath of communities along the Gulf Coast will total around $175 billion.

Bush to Seek $40B for Next Katrina Phase
WASHINGTON -- President Bush intends to seek as much as $40 billion to cover the next phase of relief and recovery from Hurricane Katrina, congressional officials said Tuesday as leading lawmakers and the White House pledged to investigate an initial federal response widely condemned as woefully inadequate. One week after the hurricane inflicted devastation of biblical proportions on the Gulf Coast, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the total tab for the federal government may top $150 billion. At the same time, senators in both parties said they suspect price gouging by oil companies in the storm's aftermath.

Katrina: First Responders & Large-Scale Crisis
As a result of the deadly and catastrophic events occurring in Louisiana and Mississippi, this appears to be a good time to look at what steps were taken by the Homeland Security Department prior to Hurricane Katrina.

The Cavalry can't get past FEMA
Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish on Meet the Press
The guy who runs this building I'm in. Emergency management. He's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said. Are you coming. Son? Is somebody coming? And he said yeah. Mama. Somebody's coming to get you.. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday. And she drowned Friday night. And she drowned Friday night. Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For god's sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.

The Potemkin Photo Op
I was tuning in and out of Bush's massive photo op on the Gulf Coast yesterday, and everything at the time seemed just a little too pat for me. From the 'briefing' that went on in a hangar full of helicopters to his walking down a street in Biloxi and having three regular citizens walk up to him for comforting to the last press availiability of the day when he announced that the Convention Center was secure and the levees were being repaired, it was clear that the game plan from the White House was for Bush to go to the region, look decisive, comfort a few citizens, and announce at the end of the day that all was well.

New Orleans 'completely destroyed'

In Small Town, Huge Morgue Takes Shape
ST. GABRIEL, La. -- After the wind, after the flood, after countless bodies are fished from muddy bayous or lifted off street corners or carried down from roofs or attics, the road ends here. At a warehouse next to the modest city hall in this ragged town just past where the sprawl of Baton Rouge gives way to farmland, refrigerated trucks on Sunday began the task of bringing what is expected to be thousands of bodies to the temporary mortuary set up to process victims of Hurricane Katrina. All day long on Monday, trucks bearing equipment and supplies and sometimes victims clattered down the narrow street just over the railroad tracks to what is called the Disaster Portable Mortuary Unit. There a staff of 100 workers - morticians, forensic pathologists, anthropologists, medical examiners, coroners, fingerprint technicians, radiologists, dental technicians and others - will identify bodies and prepare them for burial. No one knows how long it will take or how many bodies to expect.

September 05, 2005

Police: New Orleans 'completely destroyed'
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- Saying the city was "completely destroyed," the New Orleans deputy police chief on Monday urged remaining residents to get out because there is no power, drinkable water or supply of food. Deputy Chief Warren Riley told reporters that a week after Hurricane Katrina struck, thousands of people insisted on remaining in "a hazard." "We advise people that this city has been destroyed. It has been completely destroyed," Riley said. "We are working with them to try to convince them that there is no reason -- no jobs, no food -- no reason for them to stay."

La. Locals See Homes; 10,000 Feared Dead
METAIRIE, La. -- One week after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region, miles-long lines of vehicles crawled into Jefferson Parish on Monday as residents were allowed to return to salvage what was left of their homes. New Orleans' mayor warned that 10,000 people may have died.

Many of the Dead Never to Be Identified
NEW ORLEANS -- They died on flooded city streets in the Big Easy and in country homes in Mississippi. One survived seven months of combat in Iraq only to die near his boyhood home. An 80-year-old woman died sitting in a bedroom chair when a tree crashed through the roof. One man was killed when he went out to his car to charge his cell phone during the storm. Most of the dead from Hurricane Katrina don't have names yet. Many will never be identified because their bodies decomposed in the floodwaters and heat before they were found.

September 01, 2005

Bodies, gunfire and chaos in New Orleans' streets
NEW ORLEANS -- Rotting bodies littered the flooded streets of New Orleans on Thursday and escalating violence threatened all-out anarchy as thousands of survivors of Hurricane Katrina pleaded to be evacuated, or even just fed. Police units, rescue teams and even hospital workers came under fire and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded for urgent help in getting thousands of evacuees to safety. "This is a desperate SOS," he said.

House Speaker Hastert: Rebuilding New Orleans doesn't make sense
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city. "It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in editions published today. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask." Hastert's comments came as Congress cut short its summer recess and raced back to Washington to take up an emergency aid package expected to be $10 billion or more.

New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes
NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration, fear and anger mounted, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history. New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

Police Say Storm Victims Being Raped, Beaten
Police say storm victims are being raped and beaten inside the New Orleans Convention Center. About 15,200 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass says he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob. Compass says, "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten." He says tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.

Lawlessness, Chaos, and Desolation Challenges Relief Effort
NEW ORLEANS — Violence and chaos disrupted the evacuation efforts in New Orleans Thursday as thousands of National Guard troops poured into the Crescent City to boost security in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "This is a desperate SOS," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and he and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing — no food, no water, no medicine.

August 31, 2005

Mayor: Katrina May Have Killed Thousands
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina probably killed thousands of people in New Orleans, the mayor said Wednesday — an estimate that, if accurate, would make the storm the nation's deadliest natural disaster since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. "We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Governor: Everyone Must Leave New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS -- Army engineers struggled without success to plug New Orleans' breached levees with sandbags, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was worsening and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city. "The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole." As the waters continued to rise in New Orleans, four Navy ships raced toward the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies. Officials said the death toll from Hurricane Katrina had reached at least 110 in Mississippi, while Louisiana put aside the counting of the dead to concentrate on rescuing the living, many of whom were still trapped on rooftops and in attics.

August 30, 2005

Hurricane Katrina kills hundreds, floods U.S. Gulf
BILOXI, Mississippi -- Helicopters plucked frantic survivors from rooftops of inundated homes on Tuesday and officials said hundreds of people may have died in Hurricane Katrina's attack on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which sent a wall of water into Mississippi and flooded New Orleans. The economic cost of the hurricane's rampage could be the highest in U.S. history, according to damage estimates. "The devastation is greater than our worst fears," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told a news conference. "It's totally overwhelming." She spoke after an overnight breach in New Orleans' protective levee system allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain to flood most of the city.

Katrina Kills Over 55 in Miss.
Announcing itself with shrieking, 145-mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans on Monday, submerging entire neighborhoods up to their roofs, swamping Mississippi's beachfront casinos and killing at least 55 people. Jim Pollard, spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations center, said 50 people were killed by Katrina in his county, with the bulk of the deaths at an apartment complex in Biloxi. Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said.

Officials Tell Evacuees: Stay Put
One expert says New Orleans
residents would face 'wilderness'
Louisiana officials Monday urged the hundreds of thousands of people in the state who fled Hurricane Katrina to stay where they are. "It's too dangerous to come home," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said at a late afternoon news conference in Baton Rouge.

New Orleans Facing Environmental Disaster
As Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on Monday, experts said it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries. Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.

Katrina Evacuees Get News That Looters Struck Their Home
HOUSTON -- Some of the evacuees from Hurricane Katrina will call Houston hotels home for the next few nights. Many people say they drove over 15 hours to get to a safe area. The parking lot at the Holiday Inn on Bell Street was completely full. There are some problems are already being reported from back home. Some evacuees received disturbing phone calls from the security alarm companies saying that people were looting their homes.

August 29, 2005

Katrina Rips Gulf Coast With Wind, Floods
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina plowed into the Gulf Coast at daybreak Monday with shrieking, 145-mph winds and blinding rain, submerging entire neighborhoods up to the rooflines in New Orleans, hurling boats onto land and sending water pouring into Mississippi's strip of beachfront casinos. Katrina weakened overnight to a Category 4 storm and made a slight turn to the right before coming ashore at 6:10 a.m. CDT near the Louisiana bayou town of Buras. It passed just to the east of New Orleans as it moved inland and later dropped to a 105-mph Category 2 storm, sparing this vulnerable below-sea-level city its full fury.

Hurricane Katrina Rips La., Miss. Coasts
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina plowed into this below-sea-level city Monday with howling, 145-mph winds and blinding rain that flooded some homes to the ceilings and ripped away part of the roof of the Superdome, where thousands of people had taken shelter. Katrina weakened overnight to a Category 4 storm and turned slightly eastward before hitting land about 6:10 a.m. CDT east of Grand Isle near the bayou town of Buras, providing some hope that this vulnerable city would be spared the storm's full fury.

Katrina's Worst May Not Hit New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina turned slightly to the east before slamming ashore early Monday with 145-mph winds, providing some hope that the worst of the storm's wrath might not be directed at this vulnerable, below-sea-level city. Katrina, which weakened slightly overnight to a Category 4 storm, turned slightly eastward before hitting land, which would put the western eyewall — the weaker side of the strongest winds — over New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina Makes Landfall in La.
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore early Monday and charged toward this low-lying city with 150-mph winds and the threat of a catastrophic storm surge. Katrina edged slightly to the east shortly before making landfall near Grand Isle, providing some hope that the worst of the storm's wrath might not be directed at the vulnerable city. Martin Nelson, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, said the northern part of the eyewall came ashore at about 5 a.m. central time.

Monster Hurricane Claims First Victims
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- Hurricane Katrina has claimed its first victims in Louisiana as it neared landfall, dumping torrential rain on the southern state and other parts of the US Gulf of Mexico coast and threatening death and massive destruction. Although slightly weaker, the monster storm forced tens of thousand of residents from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi, to flee the low-lying city and seek refuge on higher ground. But for three elderly people, evacuation from New Orleans to Baton Rouge proved fatal, officials said. State police spokesman Markus Smith said the people were "indirect" victims of the storm, which has been downgraded to category four but is still packing a powerful punch. "It may have been dehydration-related," Smith said in a telephone interview on Monday.

Hurricane Katrina Bears Down on Gulf Coast
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina edged slightly to the east early Monday as it bore down on the Gulf Coast, providing some hope that the worst of the storm's 150 mph winds might not directly strike this low-lying city. Katrina, which weakened slightly overnight to a strong Category 4 storm, turned slightly eastward as it closed in on land, which would put the western eyewall — the weaker side of the strongest winds — over New Orleans.

Hurricane Could Leave 1 Million Homeless
When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries. Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.

Hurricane Katrina Heads for Gulf Coast
Winds whipped downtown New Orleans and blasts of thunder were heard early Monday as a monstrous Hurricane Katrina charged toward the Gulf Coast and threatened to swamp this low-lying city under an unprecedented storm surge. Katrina, which weakened slightly overnight to a strong Category 4 storm with 150-mph winds, had earlier prompted residents to flee in bumper-to-bumper traffic or huddle in the Superdome for safety.

Oil surges past 70 dollars as
Hurricane Katrina hits Gulf of Mexico
SINGAPORE (AFP) - Oil prices hit new record highs after crossing 70 dollars a barrel as powerful Hurricane Katrina threatened the crude-producing Gulf of Mexico region in the United States.

Katrina Upgraded to Category 4


NEW ORLEANS - Coastal residents jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, which grew into a dangerous Category 4 storm early Sunday as it headed for New Orleans and the Louisiana coast.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test. This is the real deal," New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said at a news conference. "Board up your homes, make sure you have enough medicine, make sure the car has enough gas. Do all things you normally do for a hurricane but treat this one differently because it is pointed towards New Orleans."

Dallas Theological Seminary, molestation victim reach settlement

Seminary Reaches Molestation Settlement

On the eve of what could have been an emotional trial, Dallas Theological Seminary reached a out-of-court settlement with a Trophy Club resident who blamed the seminary for his abuse by one of their graduates.

Jury selection was set to begin Monday in Tarrant County's 17th District court in Aaron Babb's lawsuit against the seminary, where a man now imprisoned for molesting Babb graduated in 1992.

But attorneys for Babb and the seminary said Monday the case was settled late Friday, with all terms to remain confidential.

"Our client is pleased with the terms of the settlement," said Babb's attorney, Thomas McElyea. "He was prepared to go to trial, but we believe it is in the best interest of all parties to solve the lawsuit amicably."

Thomas Brandon Jr., who represented the 80-year-old nondenominational seminary, agreed.

"The matter was settled to the satisfaction of all parties involved," Brandon said. "My personal hope is that this will help promote healing for Mr. Babby and for the seminary."

The seminary previously reached an out-of-court settlement with another victim of Jon Gerrit Warnshuis, the seminary graduate who is serving 40 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2001 to sexually molesting Babb.

Babb contended that the seminary was partly to blame for his abuse because they did not alert authorities after being told in 1988 that he had molested another boy.

Instead, the seminary allowed Warnsuis to graduate in 1992, said Babb, now 22-year-old security guard. Warnsuis was later hired by Oak Hills evangelical Free Church in Argyle, where Babb was attending when he was molested in 1996.


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/states/texas/northeast/12507180.htm

Killings Of 2 Sex Offenders May Be Vigilante, Police Say

Vigilante Kills 2 Sex Offenders

BELLINGHAM — Last Friday night, a man claiming to be an FBI agent dropped in on three Level 3 sex offenders living together, supposedly to warn them of an Internet "hit list" targeting sex offenders.

The man was not an FBI agent, but he may have been enforcing a hit list of his own creation.

Two of the roommates were found dead early Saturday of gunshot wounds, and Bellingham police are investigating a crime that authorities say may be one of the nation's most serious cases of vigilantism aimed at sex offenders.

The killings also highlight a potential problem about Washington's 1990 law requiring sex offenders to register their addresses so the public can keep track of them.

Bellingham Police Chief Randall Carroll said it is too early to conclude that Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68, were killed because they were sex offenders. Police released a sketch of the suspect, who is still at large.

But Carroll noted that their address — and descriptions of their crimes — were posted on the city's Web site, and if someone used that information to target Eisses and Vasquez, it could have a broad impact.

"Certainly if sex offenders were targeted and attacked because of their offense, the Legislature could decide they could repeal our sex-offender notification law," Carroll said.

Eisses owned the house where the killings took place, and had rented rooms for the past three years to Vasquez and James Russell, 42.

Russell was there the night the suspect showed up, but he soon left to go to work. When he returned about 3 a.m., he told police, he found his roommates dead. Based on their estimated time of death, and the fact that Russell was at work, he is not considered a suspect, according to police. Results of an autopsy are expected later this week, Carroll said.

Vasquez was convicted in 1991 of molesting several relatives. According to court documents, his victims endured regular abuse, sexual and otherwise. He was on Department of Corrections supervision at the time of the murder.

Russell was convicted in 1994 of molesting a 3-year-old girl, and released from DOC supervision about three weeks ago after serving 5 ½ years in prison.

While the public is understandably concerned about sex crimes, Kit Bail, a DOC official, said the three men have been quiet, law-abiding offenders while living together. None of the three had violated supervision conditions, she said, and none had reoffended.

"In a sense, they are a success story," said Bail, the DOC's field supervisor for Whatcom County. "These guys were doing fine. They were employed. They were living according to the conditions."

The killings, she said, should "not be the basis on which we change the laws on registration, but if it is a vigilante act, it gives one pause. It gives me concern about other Level 3 sex offenders living responsibly — or even irresponsibly — in the community. Murder is not the response anywhere."

A fake FBI agent

Eisses was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison in 1997 for raping a 13-year-old boy at his home in Sumas, near the Canadian border. He was released from DOC supervision about two years ago, Bail said.

He bought a blue house with a white picket fence in Bellingham's Columbia neighborhood — about a half-mile from a middle school — with the help of Theodore Kingma. In a brief interview, Kingma said he met Eisses at church. "He confessed his sins, and he lived right with God and the neighbors," said Kingma. "That's all I know."

It is unclear how Eisses met Russell and Vasquez. One of Russell's relatives said Russell's sex-offender status made it difficult to find a place to live until he moved in with Eisses.

According to police, Russell said a man wearing a blue jumpsuit and a hat with an FBI logo dropped by at about 9 p.m. on Friday to warn the trio of the alleged "hit list."

There were no FBI agents in the neighborhood that day, prompting the bureau to open an investigation of impersonation, said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs. The case does not qualify for federal hate-crime prosecution because the law does not appear to cover sex offenders, she said.

Too much information?

In response to a series of vicious sex crimes against children, Washington became the first state to require sex offenders to register their address upon release from prison. Level 3 offenders like Eisses, Vasquez and Russell, considered the most likely to commit a new crime, must register for life.

Since then, most states and the federal government have passed similar mandatory-notification laws.

A searchable, statewide database maintained by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs provides block-specific addresses for Level 2 and 3 offenders. Other municipalities — including Bellingham — go further by giving exact addresses.

That information has led some to take the law into their own hands. In 1993, Joseph Gallardo planned to move into his family's home in Lynnwood after serving about three years for the statutory rape of a 10-year-old girl.

The home was burned after neighbors heard of Gallardo's plan. He then planned to move to New Mexico but encountered fierce protests there. He returned to Lynnwood, where he still lives. He has not been convicted of another crime.

John La Fond, a lawyer who fought the notification law on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, said posting sex offenders' addresses "almost becomes a confession by the state that they cannot keep the society safe from harm, and invites society to take matters into its own hands."

In researching a 2005 book on notification laws, he found dozens of assaults and harassment against sex offenders. Eisses and Vasquez, he said, may be the first deaths.

Don Pierce, head of the police-chiefs association, said the case will renew the debate on publishing sex offenders' addresses.

"I think there are risks and this may prove to be an example of one of those risks," said Pierce. "I also think the public and Legislature have said there's a risk to the general public if they don't know with specificity where a sex offender lives."


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ocalnews/2002456680_sexoffender30m.html