Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Fla. Storm Drops to Tropical Depression
By MATT SEDENSKY
The Associated Press
June 02, 2007
Tropical Storm Barry weakened into a tropical depression as it moved toward Tampa Bay on Saturday. Forecasters discontinued the tropical storm warnings and watches issued for stretches of the Gulf Coast as Barry was about 100 miles north-northwest of Fort Myers.
The depression's sustained winds had slowed to near 35 mph and it was moving north-northeast at about 23 mph.
This is a breaking news update. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
MIAMI (AP) _ Tropical Storm Barry brought heavy rain to a parched Florida Saturday, along with strong winds and heavy surf along the state's Gulf coast.
At 8 a.m. EDT, Barry was centered in the Gulf of Mexico about 85 miles southwest of Tampa. It had sustained winds of about 50 mph near the center with higher gusts and was moving north-northeast at about 20 mph. Wind gusts of up to 47 mph were reported on the state's southern and eastern coasts Saturday morning.
Rain was falling throughout Florida, where droughts conditions have left Lake Okeechobee at its lowest recorded level and allowed an isolated brush fire on the Georgia-Florida border to burn for weeks. The storm was expected to drop 3 to 6 inches of rain on parts of the state Saturday. Isolated areas could get up to 10 inches of rain.
By Saturday morning, Barry had brought nearly 6 inches of rain to Melbourne and nearly 7 inches to West Palm Beach.
'It'll help a little bit, but everyone is so far below rainfall that we're still going to be under drought conditions,' said Kim Brabander, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. 'To really alleviate the drought conditions we're going to need anywhere from 30 to 40 inches of rain.'
The storm was not expected to strengthen into a hurricane, said Dave Roberts, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.
A tropical storm warning was issued from Bonita Beach on Florida's southwest coast northward to Keaton Beach, near the state's Big Bend area, as Barry was expected to make landfall on the Peninsula's central or northern Gulf coast by Saturday evening. A tropical storm watch was issued for the area between Keaton Beach west to St. Marks, south of Tallahassee.
The National Weather Service also issued a tornado watch for 26 Florida counties as Barry inched closer.
The storm's winds were forecast to weaken as it moves north, but Barry was expected to bring rain across the Atlantic seaboard, reaching North Carolina by late Sunday and New England by late Monday.
The storm developed Friday, the first official day of a hurricane season that forecasters have said they expect to be busier than normal. The National Weather Service said it expects 13 to 17 tropical storms, with seven to 10 becoming hurricanes and three to five in the strong category.
'There is no correlation at all between activity in the early part of the season and later parts,' said Lixion Avila, a hurricane specialist at the center.
The hurricane center said Barry threatened to bring dangerous battering waves, coastal flooding up to 5 feet. Tropical storm force winds extended outward up to 90 miles, forecasters said.
Barry formed more than three weeks after the first named storm of the year _ Subtropical Storm Andrea _ developed off Florida's eastern coast. Andrea skirted the southern Atlantic coast but caused minimal damage.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
it is hurricane season as of june 1 , 2007.
Scientists to Study Hurricane Forecasts
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (AP) - Scientists at a new research institute are studying ways to improve hurricane forecasts and protect the Gulf Coast's natural resources from storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The federally funded Northern Gulf Institute at...
MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Paul was gaining force Monday as it began curving toward the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.
Paul had maximum sustained winds of 110 mph and was moving northwest at about 5 mph. Forecasters predicted it would strengthen further and could hit Mexico's Pacific coast in the next few days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
A hurricane watch was issued for the tip of Baja California, a resort area that has been battered by two other hurricanes this season.
Click here to track Hurricane Paul at the NOAA Web site.
The storm was on a course that would bring it just south of the peninsula late Tuesday before plowing into Mexico's Pacific coast near the resort of Mazatlan.
The hurricane center said the storm could soon reach Category 3 status, which means maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph.
(Story continues below)
Advertise Here
Advertisements
RelatedStories
Tropical Storm Paul Forms Off Mexico's Western Coast Mexico was struck by two Pacific hurricanes last month. Hurricane John battered a remote section of Baja California, killing five people and destroying 160 homes, while Hurricane Lane hit the Sinaloan resort town of Mazatlan, causing relatively minor damage.
Click here to go to FOXNews.com's Americas Center.
Dozens Flooded Out of Homes in Texas
Email this Story
Oct 23, 11:05 AM (ET)
VIDOR, Texas (AP) - Floodwater surrounded dozens of homes and FEMA trailers in Southeast Texas on Monday after heavy rain sent the Neches River spilling over its banks.
The river was about 8 feet above flood stage Monday and was expected to remain at that level through Thursday, said Jeff Kelley, Orange County emergency management coordinator.
Kelley estimated about 40 homes had been destroyed.
The damage varied home to home because some had been built on stilts while others sit at ground level. In some cases, water was up to the roof lines.
The area had been hit hard by Hurricane Rita last year, and Kelley said a number of Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers were still in the area. The flooding, from water flowing down stream after last week's heavy rain, damaged homes in the communities of Lakeview, Connely Road and Four Oaks Ranch Road north of Vidor, about 90 miles east of Houston.
All Interstate 10 ramps between Beaumont and Vidor were closed, he said.
U.N.: Number of Ocean 'Dead Zones' Rise
Email this Story
Oct 19, 7:36 PM (ET)
By JOHN HEILPRIN
sponsored links
Voice Your Opinion - Take today's My Way Poll, featuring a new topic daily.
http://poll.myway.com
Play Free Online Games - Collapse, Bounce Out, Jigsaw, Crossword, Mah Jong and tons more.
http://games.myway.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists have found 200 "dead zones" in the world's oceans - places where pollution threatens fish, other marine life and the people who depend on them. The United Nations report Thursday showed a 34 percent jump in the number of such zones from just two years ago.
Pollution-fed algae, which deprives other living marine life of oxygen, is the cause of most of the world's dead zones that cover tens of thousands of square miles of waterways. Scientists chiefly blame fertilizer and other farm run-off, sewage and fossil-fuel burning.
Those contain an excess of nutrients, particularly phosphorous and nitrogen, that cause explosive blooms of tiny plants known as phytoplankton. When they die, they sink to the bottom, where they are eaten by bacteria that use up the oxygen in the water.
"The low levels of oxygen in the water make it difficult for fish, oysters and other marine creatures to survive as well as important habitats such as sea grass beds," U.N. officials said. "These areas are fast becoming major threats to fish stocks and thus to the people who depend upon fisheries for food and livelihoods."
By 2030, the world's rivers will pump 14 percent more nitrogen into seas and oceans than that found in the mid-1990s, according to new U.N. research released at a meeting in Beijing.
Researchers led by Robert Diaz, a marine scientist at Virginia's College of William and Mary, said they found new dead zones at the Archipelago Sea in Finland; Fosu Lagoon in Ghana; Pearl River estuary and Changjiang River in China; and Mersey River estuary in Britain.
Other new zones found were at the Elefsis Bay and Aegean Sea in Greece; Paracas Bay in Peru; Mondego River in Portugal; Montevideo Bay in Uruguay; and in the western Indian Ocean.
The United Nations marine experts said the number and size of oxygen-deprived zones has grown each decade since the 1970s.
Not all the dead zones persist year-round; some return seasonally, depending on winds that bring nutrient-rich water to the surface.
"It seems like a big jump in two years," said Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, who was not part of the U.N. research. She said an important factor has been the huge increase in pollution from fast-developing countries.
Rabalais, who has studied the Gulf of Mexico's massive dead zone that is now the size of New Jersey, said marine creatures that swim fast enough can usually escape.
"The things that are left behind are the ones that usually can't survive," she said. When you consider the size of some of these areas, it's removing what's considered the essential habitat for fishes and crustaceans."
Other U.N. scientific findings released Thursday, however, raised hopes for the recovery of damaged coral reefs, which serve as the ocean's nurseries. It found that reefs bleached in the late 1990s by high surface sea temperatures are affected by how polluted the waters are.
"Coral reefs recovering faster are generally those living in marine protected areas and coastal waters where the levels of pollution, dredging and other kinds of human-induced disturbance are considered low," the U.N. said.
---
On the Net:
U.N. report: http://www.gpa.unep.org/bin/php/igr/igr2/supporting.php
Hawaii Quake Damages Special Telescopes
Email this Story
Oct 19, 1:40 PM (ET)
By AUDREY McAVOY
(AP) In this photo released by The W.M. Keck Observatory, Machinist Neil Felton shows what an earthquake...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Surplus Military Tents - Over 2,500 Tents In Stock US Mil. Surplus & Relief Goods
www.armytents.com
Hurricanes - Earthquakes - Find out what Nostradamus says about the years 2007 - 2012.
NostradamusOnline.com
HONOLULU (AP) - The massive jolt that rocked Hawaii damaged some of the world's most advanced equipment for gazing into outer space.
Scientists at many of the 13 telescopes atop Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island, are still examining their implements to gauge the extent of the problems. Many have suspended their celestial observations to inspect equipment for flaws.
Christian Veillet, executive director of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, said an encoder - a device enabling astronomers to keep track of what part of the sky they are looking at - had a chunk taken out of it when Sunday's magnitude 6.7 earthquake lifted his telescope up and down.
"That device has been smashed and crushed by the telescope at the time of the main shake," Veillet said. "It looks like you took some butter out of it with your knife, and it's really solid steel we are talking about."
Veillet said his crew is rebuilding an encoder assembly with spare parts. At the earliest, Veillet said his telescope would be operational again at the end of the week.
The Canada-France-Hawaii telescope's mirror and all of its optics emerge unscathed. Its digital camera - the biggest in the world - was also fine, he said.
Still, his team hasn't finished checking for damage and it's too early to say to what extent the telescope was affected by the quake, Veillet said.
Mauna Kea's ideal conditions for observing space have attracted some of the most technologically advanced telescopes on the planet to its slopes.
The mountain's 13,796-foot elevation gives the telescopes a clearer picture by lifting them above a great deal of weather. Mauna Kea's location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean also offers clear air because there are no nearby mountain ranges to disrupt the atmosphere.
Two of the more famous telescopes on the peak, at the W.M. Keck Observatory, also took hits in the jolt, the most powerful to strike Hawaii in 20 years.
The Keck telescopes' mirrors and optics are fine, but the radial pads and brakes that support the 300-ton structures on their mounts must be removed and replaced, said Laura Kinoshita, an observatory spokeswoman.
She said inspection showed the telescopes came down on the radial pads and brakes with about 100,000 pounds of force during Sunday's temblor.
Once these are replaced, the Keck's engineers will have to recalibrate both telescopes to account for the seismic shifts that moved the Keck I telescope more than 1/8 inch and the Keck II telescope more than one inch, Kinoshita said.
That's because the observatory relies on software to tell instruments where in the sky the telescope is pointed, based on the telescope's previous location.
"In astronomy, even a movement by a few nanometers makes a significant impact on the accuracy of our systems," Kinoshita said. "So we need to update our systems to factor in the new position of the telescope."
Like many of the telescopes on Mauna Kea, data obtained through the Keck's telescopes - the largest fully functional optical telescopes in the world - have significantly advanced astronomy.
Scientists using the Keck telescopes found a majority of known planets orbiting stars other than our sun. They also proved there is a black hole in the middle of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Peter Michaud, a spokesman for the Gemini Observatory, said his facility's biggest problem was testing the equipment to make sure the telescope survived the quake OK. Some have compared the task to setting up a new telescope.
So far, though, the Gemini Northern Telescope appeared to have no problems, he said.
The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility also appears to be in good shape.
Allen Tokunaga, its director, said his astronomers were able to operate their telescope normally when they tried it Tuesday.
---
On the Net:
Mauna Kea Observatories: http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/
Expert Sees Northwest Getting More Rain
Email this Story
Oct 19, 1:24 PM (ET)
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP
(AP) The marquee of a McDonald's restaurant is reflected in rain soaked 42nd St. Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Surplus Military Tents - Over 2,500 Tents In Stock US Mil. Surplus & Relief Goods
www.armytents.com
Hurricanes - Earthquakes - Find out what Nostradamus says about the years 2007 - 2012.
NostradamusOnline.com
SEATTLE (AP) - A climate researcher at the University of Washington says Pacific Northwest winters will be getting more gray and rainy over the next 50 to 100 years, due to a low-pressure system near the Aleutian Islands that is moving farther to the north and east.
Eric Salathe said weather that far in the future may not seem relevant to the average person, but the storms brought on by climate change will affect everyone paying for or designing a new bridge or roadway today.
Weather systems near the Aleutian Islands affect rain patterns in western Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska because the path of storms along the jetstream is affected by what happens in and above the Pacific Ocean, Salathe explained.
"The whole storm system in the north Pacific is tracking northward," but that's just half of the story, Salathe said. "Even though the storms are moving northward, they are becoming more intense."
He predicted a 5 percent to 15 percent increase in Washington and Oregon rain and a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in Alaska rain 50 to 100 years from now. The storms will be both more intense and more frequent, leading to more flooding, more water flow in rivers and erosion of salmon habitat.
"The problem is it's more water, but more water at the wrong time. We already have plenty of water in November," Salathe said.
When asked if this forecast could be good news for skiers, the researcher said it probably wouldn't be helpful to anyone but engineers and planners. Lower-elevation ski areas could see more rain than snow in future seasons because of a combination of global warming and increased precipitation, he said.
People who design infrastructures like bridges and stormwater systems with underground pipes or culverts depend on information like Salathe's report, which was published Oct. 13 in the online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"Often they plan these things based on what we've seen in the recent past. The future isn't going to look like the past," Salathe said. "The best thing is to factor in a little bit more margin of safety."
Salathe said computer technology improvements in the last five years have made this kind of precise climate predicting possible. His team of researchers, part of the university's Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans, took data gathered by other scientists around the world and analyzed it for the Pacific Northwest. The study was paid for by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
He said the Pacific Northwest's climate could eventually be modified if people act to halt or slow global warming and climate change, but previous policies and actions have already decided what will happen in the next 50 years.
"If we stabilized emissions, these scenarios have much less of an impact on the later half of the century," Salathe said, suggesting people drive less, use more efficient vehicles and influence developing economies like China to be more energy efficient than the United States has been. "The worst parts are still up to us."
Russia Launches Europe Weather Satellite
Email this Story
Oct 19, 9:07 PM (ET)
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
(AP) A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket with a European Space Agency weather MetOp satellite aboard rises ready to...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Home Solar Panels - Eliminate Electric Bills Forever. Call For A Free In-Home Evaluation!
SunPowerCorp.com/Residential
Solar Panels/Systems - Solar Panels/Systems/Components Solar Battery Chargers/Kits
www.onlineSolar.com/MrSolar
MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian booster rocket on Thursday successfully launched a European Space Agency weather satellite after a series of delays.
The MetOp satellite was launched atop a Soyuz 2 booster from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and reached a designated orbit, said Russian Federal Space Agency spokesman Igor Panarin.
"It was a perfect launch and the European Space Agency experts have established stable communications with the satellite," Panarin told The Associated Press.
The 8,800-pound satellite is intended to be the first in a series of three developed under a joint undertaking between ESA and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.
ESA spokesman Bernhard von Weyhe said that once in orbit, the satellite successfully deployed its solar panels. This was a critical step that ensures it will have electrical power - a relief for officials at the ground control center in Darmstadt, Germany.
"The power is on, the satellite is fully alive and stable," von Weyhe said. "You can say there is great joy and relief in the control room, and there was a moment of applause when we were able to orient the panels."
ESA will operate the satellite for the next three days, adjusting its orbit, before turning it over to Eumetsat, the European agency in charge of the weather satellite program.
The probe also is part of a new venture between the ESA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that will allow the two agencies' satellites to collect more data over a wider area.
The launch, originally expected on Tuesday, was postponed by one day due to a technical problem with the rocket, and then put off by one more day because of high winds that made the liftoff too risky.
The delays cost ESA some $250,000 per day, with some 200 experts in Baikonur and at observatories and other facilities around the world having to remain on alert. The costs are relatively small compared with the $3 billion cost of the entire three-satellite program.
The MetOp was originally scheduled to be sent into orbit in July but problems arose with the rocket's ground support system at the Baikonur facility and the launch was scrubbed just minutes before liftoff.
While Russia's manned space program is seen as a success - Russian rockets consistently and reliably shuttle crews and cargo up to the international space station - its efforts to expand into lucrative commercial satellite launches have seen several embarrassing failures.
---__
Associated Press Writer David McHugh in Berlin contributed to this report
California Presents Salton Sea Proposals
Email this Story
Oct 19, 5:25 AM (ET)
By CHRISTINA ALMEIDA
(AP) A dead fish lays on salt sediment next to a rusted car muffler in this April 10, 2001 file photo,...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Salton City Real Estate - View featured real estate listings, condos, land, and homes for sale
1palmspringshomes.com
Luxury hotel in El Centro - Your home away from home Affordable rates quality service
www.hojoelcentro.com
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A plan to save California's largest lake calls for possible fixes including laying in rocks and constructing berms to manage areas high in saline, according to an executive summary obtained by The Associated Press.
After two years of often intense debate and research, state officials have finished an environmental report with ideas for saving the 35-mile long Salton Sea. The lake lies just north of El Centro in Southern California.
The lake and its plant and animal life have been suffering from a drop in water levels and increasing salinity. The Salton Sea is a key North American stopover for several species of migrating birds, including several types of geese and the endangered Yuma Clapper Rail.
The 3,000-page report, prepared by the state departments of water resources and fish and game, is scheduled to be released Thursday.
(AP) Birds find refuge at sunset on the surface of the Salton Sea, one of the largest pit stops for...
Full Image
"We don't have all the answers. There is still a lot of uncertainty out there as far as water quality issues," said Dale Hoffman-Floerke, chief of the Colorado River and Salton Sea office for the Department of Water Resources. "But I think we've done a pretty good job ... with the information we have."
Suggestions, called "alternatives" in the report, include projected construction costs that range from $2.3 billion to $5.9 billion.
The alternatives include ways to isolate areas of high salt content to help bolster plant and animal life, fostering habitats along the shoreline and increasing air quality by preventing more of the shoreline from being exposed.
Studies have shown that if nothing is done, the lake could shrink by more than 60 percent in the next 20 years, exposing dusty shoreline in a farming region already plagued by worsening air quality.
"It's a huge public health threat," said Michael Cohen, senior associate with the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based think tank that has studied the lake. "Obviously we need to protect the birds that rely on the Salton Sea, but certainly people are a critical concern."
The Salton Sea, which stretches across the Imperial and Riverside county line, was created in 1905 when floodwaters broke through a Colorado River irrigation canal.
Today, it faces an uncertain future, largely because of agreements to transfer water from the area to more heavily populated San Diego. Experts say the lake, already dependent on water flows to balance high salinity, is on a perilous track.
Cohen, who sits on the Salton Sea Advisory Committee, praised the state for completing the report. But he expressed disappointment with the offered alternatives.
"None of them are really going to fit the bill," he said. "The way they are put together right now is not really the answer. But we could use the pieces and put them together in a different way, a way that is going to get local and environmental support."
One of the largest stakeholders in the water body is the Salton Sea Authority, which is comprised of local officials.
Its proposed alternative, which is included in the state report, would create a recreational portion in the north with key habitat areas in the south. It would also feature an 11,000-acre freshwater reservoir.
After a 90-day public comment period, a "preferred alternative" will be submitted to the state Legislature.
---
On the Net:
California Department of Water Resources' Salton Sea Web site: http://www.saltonsea.water.ca.gov/
Salton Sea Authority: http://www.saltonsea.ca.gov/
Pacific Institute's Salton Sea Web site: http://www.pacinst.org/reports/saltonsea/
Scientists Say Hawaii Hit by Two Quakes
Email this Story
Oct 19, 1:06 AM (ET)
By JAYMES SONG
(AP) Richard Horita looks at a sinkhole at his home, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006, in Paauilo that was...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Surplus Military Tents - Over 2,500 Tents In Stock US Mil. Surplus & Relief Goods
www.armytents.com
Hurricane Katrina Homes - Operation Blessing provides new homes for victims of Katrina.
www.OperationBlessing.org
HONOLULU (AP) - Scientists are investigating whether a magnitude-6.0 earthquake that rocked Hawaii within minutes of Sunday's 6.7 temblor was a separate quake and not an aftershock.
The lead scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcanoes Observatory and a seismologist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Wednesday they were two independent events. Others aren't so sure.
The 6.7-magnitude quake struck 12.5 miles northeast of the Big Island's Kona airport at a depth of 24 miles at 7:07 a.m. Sunday. Seven minutes later, the 6.0-magnitude quake struck 27 miles north of the airport at a depth of about 12.5 miles.
Jim Kauahikaua, the scientist-in-charge at the observatory, said the difference in depths establishes that the two are "independent."
(AP) Richard Horita looks at a sinkhole at his home, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006, in Paauilo that was...
Full Image
But Egill Hauksson, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology, said it's too early to categorize the magnitude-6.0 event.
Scientists still need to analyze the pattern of aftershocks in the coming months before determining whether the smaller event was an aftershock or a triggered earthquake, Hauksson said.
"There's more research to be done," he said.
Seismologist Vindell Hsu, of the tsunami center, said it's not uncommon for earthquakes to trigger others and it has happened in Alaska and at California's San Andreas Fault.
"A major earthquake may trigger or activate a neighboring fault and start another good-sized earthquake," Hsu said.
(AP) Ross Nakashimi stands near his home, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006, where it was posted for restricted...
Full Image
Kauahikaua expects several opinions.
"Some of these earthquakes get worked on for years. Different techniques come up. People have different points of view," he said. "This is our assessment within the first three days after the earthquake. If somebody can make a powerful argument the other way, fine."
Aftershocks are a series of smaller earthquakes that occur after the main shock and in the same geographic area. Aftershocks can rock a region for months or years. Generally, the bigger the main shock, the more intense the aftershocks will be.
Dozens of aftershocks have been recorded since the initial quake.
Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim, who served decades as the Big Island's civil defense chief, said the latest quakes came after a long stretch of seismic calm.
(AP) Ross Nakashimi looks at damage to his home, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006, in Paauilo on the island of...
Full Image
Kim said a third to half of the population had never experienced a quake of Sunday's magnitude.
Since 1960, the Big Island has been hit with 31 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 4.0. But Sunday's first earthquake was the largest recorded since a 6.7 occurred under the east flank of Mauna Loa Volcano on November 16, 1983.
The island also experienced a 7.2-magnitude quake on November 29, 1975,and an estimated 7.9 temblor on April 2, 1868.
The vast island - spread across more than 4,000-square miles of lava fields, rain forests and pasture lands - was formed by several volcanoes. Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, spewing lava and expanding the island's surface.
Preliminary damage estimates from the earthquake hit $73 million and President Bush declared a major disaster, ordering federal aid to help state and local recovery efforts.
Kim said one of the reasons the island didn't sustain more damage than it did was the strict building codes that have evolved over decades of natural disasters.
Buildings on the Big Island must meet the strictest level of any of the Hawaiian Islands. There are no buildings taller than 100 feet. There are also no highway overpasses.
---
Associated Press Writer Gillian Flaccus in Hilo, Hawaii, and AP Science Writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
prayer for this morning.
Help us to care and love each
other, O Lord, especially those we
think are unlovable __ for they
need love most of all. Amen
i remember the killing a mocking bird movie. it was sad too but good acting.
news today...hurricane might be heading toward mexico.
America's Anchorman...nov., 2006 elections.
Rush's "Cut-and-Run Conservatives" Moniker Shakes Up Scene;
Polls in Key Races Showing Movement in Republican Direction
i did watch it...how about this?
http://www.nosweatapparel.com
i do like good comments but not onesided ones.
Rice Says U.S. Ready to Defend Japan
Email this Story
Oct 18, 9:39 PM (ET)
By ANNE GEARAN
(AP) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left, shakes hands with Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Free Emergency Kit - Grab And Go 2 Person 3 Day Emergency Kit. Complete Survey.
LifeSecure.Leisure-Offer.com
Disaster Relief - Set Up Your Fundraiser the Right Way with Our Trusted Products.
www.fundraising.entertainmen
TOKYO (AP) - The United States is willing to use its full military might to defend Japan in light of North Korea's nuclear test, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday as she sought to assure Asian countries there is no need to jump into a nuclear arms race.
At her side, Rice's Japanese counterpart drew a firm line against his nation developing a nuclear bomb.
The top U.S. diplomat said she reaffirmed President Bush's pledge, made hours after North Korea's Oct. 9 underground test blast, "that the United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range - and I underscore the full range - of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan."
Rice spoke following discussions with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, the first stop on her crisis mission to respond to the threat posed by the North.
(AP) With a map of the Korean Peninsula behind him, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gestures during...
Full Image
Back home, President Bush told ABC News that if the U.S. learned North Korea was about to transfer nuclear technology to others, the communist nation would face "a grave consequence." He did not elaborate.
"I want the leader to understand - the leader of North Korea to understand that he'll be held to account," Bush said, referring to the country's ruler, Kim Jong Il.
There were continued signs Wednesday that North Korea might be readying for a second nuclear test, perhaps while Rice was in Asia this week.
China's president, Hu Jintao, apparently has sent a special envoy to North Korea, according to a former South Korean lawmaker, Jang Sung-min, citing diplomatic officials in Beijing. Rice planned to see the Chinese official, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, this week in Beijing.
There were reports North Korea had told China it was ready to conduct up to three more nuclear tests. At the State Department in Washington, spokesman Tom Casey said, "We certainly haven't received any information from them, from the Chinese, that they've been told by Pyongyang that another test is imminent."
(AP) Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the current council president, leaves a meeting of the...
Full Image
U.S. government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive situation, said there was no evidence to suggest a second test was imminent.
But given the underground nature of the testing, officials said, it could happen with little or no warning.
In Seoul, South Korea, the country's foreign minister - the incoming U.N. secretary-general - warned the North not to detonate a second nuclear test.
"If North Korea conducts an additional test, the response of the international community will be much more serious," Ban Ki-moon said.
Rice's reference to U.S. willingness to honor the "full range" of the nation's security commitments was meant to show that the United States does not want to see its allies on a nuclear arms race to protect themselves. It also was likely to be taken as a reminder to North Korea that, should it use nuclear weapons on a neighbor, the U.S. has powerful forces of its own and is pledged to defend its friends.
(AP) China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya speaks to the media after a meeting of the permanent members...
Full Image
The U.S. is concerned that Japan, South Korea and perhaps Taiwan may want to develop their own nuclear weapons programs to counter North Korea. Such moves would anger China, which has nuclear weapons, and raise tensions in Asia.
North Korea contends it needs nuclear weapons to counter U.S. aggression. The U.S. has said it does not intend to attack the North or topple its communist government.
North Korea has a standing army of about 1.2 million, with millions more in reserve, and a supply of missiles capable of reaching Asian cities. North and South Korea technically are still at war more than 50 years after the Korean conflict ended.
The U.S. has 29,500 troops in South Korea, plus other air and naval forces in range. While the U.S. has no land-based nuclear weapons in Asia, it does have submarines equipped with nuclear weapons.
Japan, home to more than 35,000 U.S. troops, was Rice's first stop on a four-day tour of Asia and Russia.
(AP) Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the Security Council president, speaks to the media after a...
Full Image
"The United States has no desire to escalate this crisis. We would like to see it de-escalate," Rice told reporters.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il made his first known public appearance since his country's recent nuclear test, attending a performance of songs praising him, the North's official media reported Wednesday. There was no mention of the nuclear test in the report.
The nuclear explosion has drawn strong international condemnation and U.N. penalties that the North has rejected. The North, in turn, has threatened further unspecified moves.
Even discussing the issue is sensitive in Japan, with its troubled military history and its experience as the only nation where nuclear weapons were used in wartime.
"The government is absolutely not considering a need to be armed by nuclear weapons," Aso said with Rice at his side. "We do not need to acquire nuclear arms with an assurance by Secretary of State Rice that the bilateral alliance would work without fault."
Later Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe insisted his government would not even discuss building a nuclear bomb.
"That debate is finished," Abe testily told reporters.
---
Associated Press writer Katherine Shrader in Washington contributed to this report.
Bush Goes on Base-Building Trip to N.C.
Email this Story
Oct 18, 9:19 PM (ET)
By NEDRA PICKLER
(AP) President Bush greets fifth grader Ta'Kyria Woodard during a visit Waldo C. Falkener Elementary...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
George Bush Bill Clinton - Who's Done More For America? Vote Now To See Who's Winning!
www.popularq.com
Are You Hot? - Does Your Personality Make You Hot? Take the Test and Find Out!
www.ruhotquiz.net
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - President Bush took a day off from the politics of national security Wednesday and went on a Southern charm offensive that included time with children, NASCAR drivers, devoted Republicans and sweet tea.
Bush's return to his "compassionate conservative" roots came during a base-building trip to North Carolina, a state he won easily in both his presidential races. But even in the conservative South, many voters have grown unhappy with Bush's leadership with Iraq under continuing violence.
Bush did not mention those troubles while visiting with voters three weeks before Election Day, instead focusing on his education agenda and old-fashioned politicking with plenty of local flavor. He visited an elementary school and a camp for sick children and dropped in on diners at a barbecue restaurant.
Noticeably missing on Bush's North Carolina itinerary were campaign stops with Reps. Charles Taylor and Robin Hayes, a pair of veteran Republicans facing spirited Democratic challenges that could help tip the balance of power in the House. He didn't go near their districts but raised $900,000 for the Republican National Committee at the home of Louis DeJoy, CEO of New Breed Inc., where no media coverage was allowed.
(AP) President Bush waves as he arrives on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday,...
Full Image
Rep. Howard Coble, who represents the district that includes the children's camp, told the News & Record of Greensboro this week that he wasn't sure what the political value of the visit would be.
"I'm not uncomfortable having him here," Coble told the newspaper. "I don't know that it helps. But it doesn't hurt and it might help. There are a lot of his supporters who are simply not happy with Iraq. I'm not happy about it. But that doesn't mean I dislike my president."
Bush greeted lunchtime diners at Stamey's, chatting into a cell phone that one man thrust into his hand. Then he ate a classic North Carolina lunch of barbecue pork and chicken, cole slaw, hush puppies, sweet tea and peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.
At Waldo C. Falkener Elementary School, Bush drew excited gasps from fifth grader Ta'kyria Woodard when he entered her classroom, and he leaned over and whispered in her ear to calm her. Then he went to the third grade computer lab and threw a presidential glare to silence some rambunctious boys. Turning to the cameras, Bush's face softened into a smile and he said, "Reminds me of my days in the class."
His speech in the school's multipurpose room was the third event in as many weeks focusing on the classroom. Those speeches come as a series of school shootings in recent weeks has unnerved parents across the nation.
(AP) President Bush speaks about "No Child Left Behind" at Waldo C. Falkener Elementary School in...
Full Image
Bush's signature education bill, No Child Left Behind, is up for reauthorization next year. Congressional Democrats helped hand him a bipartisan victory with that law five years ago. But the politics have changed and a Democratic majority on Capitol Hill could make it tougher for Bush to get the law reapproved without increased funding and other work.
Bush said the school is an example of why No Child Left Behind should be renewed. He said the percentage of third graders reading at grade level increased from 46 percent to 76 percent in four years.
"I think it would be a huge mistake for the United States Congress not to reauthorize this important piece of legislation," Bush said. "And the reason I say that is because it's working. We have achieved concrete results."
Later, Bush visited Victory Junction Gang Camp for critically ill children. The camp was created by NASCAR driver Kyle Petty and his wife, Pattie, in memory of their son Adam. Adam Petty was killed six years ago in a racetrack crash at 19.
The kids aren't at the camp during the week in the fall, but four children came in for photo opportunities with the president - fishing and repairing a mock-up NASCAR. Bush also posed for pictures with the NASCAR drivers who came in - Kyle and Richard Petty, Michael Waltrip and Jimmie Johnson.
An Elon University poll last month showed slightly more disapprove than approve of the president in the state, 49 percent to 45 percent.
While Bush has expressed complete confidence that Republicans will keep control Congress, Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that the GOP will hold the Senate and has "a good shot at holding the House."
White House spokesman Tony Snow said any suggestion that Cheney's confidence has diminished was "over-parsing."
---
Associated Press writer Tim Whitmire contributed to this report.
Bush: U.S. Will Stop N. Korea Nuke Moves
Email this Story
Oct 18, 9:39 PM (ET)
(AP) President Bush makes remarks on the No Child Left Behind program during a visit to Waldo C....
Full Image
Google sponsored links
WaterAid - International charity dedicated to the provision of water.
www.wateraid.org
UN, NGOs, Non-Profit Jobs - 4100 Recruiters and 9500+ jobs/year 960 jobs taken up: Value Membership
www.devnetjobs.org
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Wednesday the United States would stop North Korea from transferring nuclear weapons to Iran or al-Qaida and that the communist regime would then face "a grave consequence."
Bush refused to spell out how the United States would retaliate. "They'd be held to account," the president said in an ABC News interview.
In light of North Korea's Oct. 9 test detonation of a nuclear bomb, Bush warned that any transfer of nuclear material elsewhere in the world by the North would be considered a grave threat to the security of the United States. He previously used "grave threat" in relation to Iraq's Saddam Hussein, whose government was toppled in the U.S.-led war in 2003.
"If we get intelligence that they're about to transfer a nuclear weapon, we would stop the transfer, and we would deal with the ships that were taking the - or the airplane that was dealing with taking the material to somebody," the president said.
Asked how he would retaliate, Bush would not be specific, "You know, I'd just say it's a grave consequence."
"The leader of North Korea to understand that he'll be held to account. Just like he's being held to account now for having run a test," Bush said.
The United States repeatedly has said it does not intend to attack the North. But the Bush administration also has refused to take any military option completely off the table.
Shifting to Iraq, Bush said intensifying violence now might be compared with the Tet offensive in Vietnam beginning in 1968. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies undertook a series of attacks that shook America's confidence about winning the war and eroded political support for President Johnson.
"There's certainly a stepped up level of violence, and we're heading into an election," Bush said. But he added, "My gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave. And the leaders of al-Qaida have made that very clear."
Bush said al-Qaida was very active in Iraq. "They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence.
"They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw," he said.
The military said Wednesday that 11 U.S. troops died in combat amid a security crackdown in Baghdad, putting October on track to be the deadliest month for American forces since the siege of Fallujah nearly two years ago.
Bush said the news of casualties "breaks my heart" but said it is surrender "if you pull the troops out before the job is done."
for those on social security...
Social Security payments will rise 3.3% in 2007, less than this year
Posted 10/18/2006 8:47 AM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this
By Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Social Security checks for nearly 49 million Americans are going up 3.3% in 2007, a smaller percentage than this year, the government announced Wednesday.
The cost of living adjustment will translate into an average monthly increase of $33 for the typical retired worker, pushing the average monthly benefit from $1,011 currently to $1,044.
The cost of living adjustment (COLA) announced Wednesday by the Social Security Administration will go to more than 53 million people. Nearly 49 million receive Social Security benefits and the rest Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments aimed at the poor and disabled.
The average retired couple, both receiving Social Security benefits, will see their monthly check go from $1,658 to $1,713.
The standard SSI payment will go from $603 a month for an individual to $623, and from $904 to $934 for a couple.
The average monthly check for a disabled worker will go from $947 to $979.
The government also announced Wednesday that 11 million taxpayers will pay higher taxes next year because the maximum amount of Social Security earnings subject to the payroll tax will rise from $94,200 to $97,500. In all, an estimated 163 million workers will pay Social Security taxes in 2007.
The 3.3% increase for 2007 compares with a 4.1% rise in monthly benefits for 2006, which had been the biggest increase in 15 years. Starting in 1975, benefit payments have been adjusted each year to keep up with inflation.
The COLA amount is based on the rise in the consumer price index in the July-September quarter this year compared with the same quarter in 2005. The Labor Department announced Wednesday that consumer prices fell 0.5% in September, reflecting a big drop in energy prices.
While energy prices jumped sharply at the beginning of the year, because of rising Mideast tensions, they have recently retreated to a level where they are little changed from this time a year ago, when prices surged after Hurricane Katrina knocked out oil production along the Gulf Coast.
Rice: World United Against North Korea
Email this Story
Oct 17, 2:52 AM (ET)
By KATHERINE SHRADER
(AP) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talks to reporters at the State Department in Washington,...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Free Disaster Supplies - Support Supplies For 2 People. Just Fill Out Survey And It's Yours
Emergency.Leisure-Offer.com
Disaster Relief - Set Up Your Fundraiser the Right Way with Our Trusted Products.
www.fundraising.entertainmen
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. spy agencies confirmed North Korea's nuclear test on Monday, even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that U.N. sanctions prove the world is united in opposing Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
Such strong opposition should be a warning to Iran, too, said Rice, who is leaving Tuesday morning for an Asian trip that is expected to be dominated by the nuclear issue. She will visit Japan, South Korea, China and Russia.
Providing the government's first definitive confirmation that North Korea detonated a nuclear device one week ago, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte's office said in a statement that air samples collected on Wednesday showed evidence of radioactivity. That verified North Korea's claims.
"The explosion yield was less than a kiloton," the statement said, smaller than many experts had expected.
Each kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tons of TNT. An intelligence official said the North Korean device was believed to be roughly the equivalent of 200 tons of TNT, suggesting to analysts that it was probably a partial failure. Experts in and out of government had anticipated a detonation of at least several thousand tons.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive situation with Pyongyang.
At the State Department, Rice said the world "has responded calmly and firmly" to the test.
"North Korea cannot endanger the world and then expect other nations to conduct business as usual in arms or missile parts," Rice said, previewing her message for the Asia trip. "It cannot destabilize the international system and then expect to exploit elaborate financial networks built for peaceful commerce."
She said Iran - another government accused of running an illicit nuclear program - should pay attention to the global reaction. That would include the U.N. Security Council's sanctions adopted on Saturday, aimed at making life difficult for the North Korean government and its weapons proliferation business.
"The Iranian government is watching, and it can now see that the international community will respond to threats from nuclear proliferation," said Rice, who added that she believes the Security Council will begin working on a sanctions resolution against Iran this week. "The Iranian government should consider the course that it is on."
The United States, North Korea and seven other nations are now believed to have nuclear arms. Yet North Korea's unpredictable behavior and its history of trading weapons and components makes its nuclear advancements particularly worrisome to its neighbors and the international community.
The U.S.-sponsored United Nations resolution on North Korea demands that Pyongyang eliminate nuclear weapons. But it also rules out military action against the country, as the Russians and Chinese demanded.
It calls on countries to block North Korea from receiving equipment or materials to build weapons of mass destruction and other advanced weaponry. It also would clamp down on travel for North Koreans involved in the weapons program and freeze many of the international assets of people or businesses connected to that program.
After the resolution was unanimously passed, North Korea's U.N. ambassador accused council members of a "gangster-like" action that neglects the nuclear threat posed by the United States.
Rice acknowledged international concerns of escalating the crisis and said she would address that on her trip. Countries in the region worry that the collapse of North Korea's government could send millions of refugees streaming toward their borders. South Koreans also worry about a conventional attack by their neighbor.
"We have no desire to ratchet up conflict," Rice said. "But we'll have some discussions on precisely how this will be carried out."
While China has been inspecting cargo trucks headed for its communist ally, its U.N. ambassador indicated its inspectors will not board ships to search for suspicious equipment or material, raising questions about how strictly it and South Korea will enforce the U.N. resolution. Both countries have significant trade relations with North Korea, whose economy is perpetually on the verge of collapse.
"Actions are more powerful than words, and we expect the actions will be powerful," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
Many in the U.S. government would not be surprised if North Korea were to attempt a second nuclear test sometime soon. The decision to test is considered a political one, and officials say North Korea will be monitoring action at the United Nations and elsewhere.
Rice said a new test "would further deepen the isolation of North Korea."
A key clue on the nature of North Korea's nuclear detonation - its first - came from air samples collected by the Air Force's WC-135 Constant Phoenix, a jet designed to collect particles and gases after a nuclear test. Samples are rushed back to labs in the United States for study before they lose their radioactive properties.
The first reading last Tuesday was negative, but a test on a second sample collected Wednesday was positive, according to the intelligence official.
When scientists evaluate air samples, they are looking for the presence of certain materials and gasses such as xenon, which is released after the fission of uranium or plutonium.
While xenon is one indicator, "you'd like to get a leakage where you have many more fission products - mixed in with plutonium or highly enriched uranium," said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security and a former U.N. weapons inspector.
U.S. intelligence has concluded that the North Korean device likely used plutonium.
Albright, who has followed North Korea's program for two decades, believes its scientists are trying to miniaturize a nuclear device to put it atop a missile. While the test was likely a partial fizzle, those scientists may not have been after a large nuclear blast, he said.
"It doesn't mean that it failed by any means," Albright said. "If it failed, you would see no yield at all."
Pentagon to Resume Anthrax Inoculations
Email this Story
Oct 16, 4:57 PM (ET)
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Google sponsored links
Emergency Supplies - Visit iPrepare.com for a great selection of Emergency Supplies
www.iprepare.com
Free Disaster Supplies - Support Supplies For 2 People. Just Fill Out Survey And It's Yours
Emergency.Leisure-Offer.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon said Monday it will once again begin requiring anthrax vaccinations for troops heading into dangerous regions, reinstating a program that has been challenged repeatedly over possible health risks.
Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the vaccinations will begin in 30 to 60 days, and will involve troops and civilian Defense Department personnel and contractors who are serving in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Korean Peninsula.
"This is a safe and effective vaccine," Winkenwerder said in a conference call with reporters. He said the move to reinstate the vaccine does not suggest there is any new or elevated threat but the possibility of an anthrax attack is "very real and it has not gone away."
Opponents of the program promised a fresh challenge. Mark S. Zaid, one of the lawyers who previously sued to stop the mandatory program, said he would file a new lawsuit "as soon as needles start going into arms." Other groups who have opposed the program also criticized the new requirements.
"This is a vaccine that is unproven, unnecessary and has the potential to jeopardize the health of a service member where little benefit will be derived," Zaid said. "It's always been a public relations program and nothing more."
He questioned why the Pentagon is inoculating troops in the Middle East when the 2001 anthrax attacks that left five people dead and sickened 17 took place in the United States.
Winkenwerder said the vaccine has been thoroughly reviewed by the federal Food and Drug Administration and several independent groups and deemed safe.
He said anyone who refused the vaccine would be reminded of its importance and safety. Then, if needed, their supervisor would get involved and the matter would be resolved "like any other refusal to follow a lawful order."
He said that while significant numbers of troops refused the vaccine in 1998-99, very few have objected to taking it since then. About 10 people were discharged for refusing the vaccine in 2004, but he said he did not know how many may have refused and gotten other punishments. He was unsure what would happen if a civilian employee or contractor refused the vaccine.
The drug has been at the center of a multiyear lawsuit that began when six members of the military challenged the mandatory vaccination program.
Since 1998, at least 1.2 million troops have been vaccinated against anthrax in six-shot regimens. Hundreds of service members had been punished or discharged for refusing them until U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in December 2004 suspended the vaccinations after he found fault in the FDA's process for approving the drug.
Several months later Sullivan said the Pentagon could resume vaccinations on a voluntary basis. Then, last December the FDA affirmed its earlier finding that the vaccine was safe and effective.
According to Winkenwerder, there is enough vaccine to inoculate the several hundred thousand troops that will be deploying to Iraq, Afghanistan and other dangerous locations.
Pentagon officials are also working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine if at least one of the six initial shots can be eliminated. The vaccine also requires an annual booster shot.
Other groups questioned the vaccine's safety.
"The (Defense Department) has a moral duty to fully disclose anthrax vaccine risks, as well as benefits, to soldiers and allow them to make an informed, voluntary vaccination decision," said Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the nonprofit National Vaccine Information Center.
The center has launched the Military and Biodefense Vaccine Project to inform the public and service members about potential illnesses, disabilities and deaths that may be associated with the vaccine.
---
On the Net:
Defense Department vaccine data: http://www.vaccines.mil/anthrax
Military Vaccine Resource Directory: http://www.mvrd.org
Military and Biodefense Vaccine Project:
http://www.military-biodefensevaccines.org
these below can be seen at
http://news.myway.com/index/id/cabinet|ap.html
U.S. Offers to Take in Burundi Refugees
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. is offering to permanently resettle up to 10,000 refugees from a 12-year civil war in the African country of Burundi, the State Department said Tuesday. The refugees would be brought to the United States over the next two years with refugee status, and will be given the...
U.S. Urges China to Rethink N. Korea Aid photo
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights is urging China and South Korea to rethink aid policies to North Korea, saying unmonitored assistance could prop up a "criminal regime" and suggesting that the North's nuclear ambitions are linked to its poor treatment of its citizens....
Rice: World United Against North Korea photo
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. spy agencies confirmed North Korea's nuclear test on Monday, even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that U.N. sanctions prove the world is united in opposing Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. Such strong opposition should be a warning to Iran, too, said Rice, who...
Rebel Head Said Plotted to Keep Hostages
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government said Monday that a top Latin American rebel leader plotted to keep three Americans hostage and use them as political bargaining chips after their plane crashed in Colombia. But the defense portrayed Ricardo Palmera as a tangential sympathizer of the leftist FARC...
Review: Prisoner Flights Are Expensive
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pricey contracts and empty seats plague government flights that move U.S. prisoners to new jails and deport illegal immigrants, a Justice Department review concluded Tuesday. Additionally, the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transport System does not always have large enough crews to...
Liberia Leader Discusses Gains in Nation photo
WASHINGTON (AP) - Liberia's president looked back Tuesday on nine months as Africa's first elected woman president and spoke of significant political development, some economic advances but potential perils lurking. Liberia has 2 million people living in a relatively small country, Ellen Johnson...
Court Rules Against Israeli Extremists
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government had sufficient basis to designate an Israeli extremist group a foreign terrorist organization, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The State Department "reasonably found" in 2003 that the group Kahane Chai made death threats against Israeli police and...
Correction: Army-Bribery Story
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) - In an Oct. 12 story about a former Army Corps of Engineers employee convicted of taking almost $50,000 from a Kuwaiti real estate agent, The Associated Press erroneously described the plea agreement by Gheevarghese Pappen. He pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gratuities, not...
cabinet news Oct 17, 7:50 pm (ET)
Rice Tries to Head Off Nuclear Arms Race photo
ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AP) - North Korea's nuclear test could set off an atomic arms race in Asia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday as she sought to reaffirm U.S. obligations to defend two nations most at risk. In addition to settling nerves among allies, Rice's Asia...
Commander: Mistakes Made in Afghanistan photo
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan failed to follow through as it should have after ousting the Taliban government in 2001, setting the stage for this year's deadly resurgence, the NATO commander in the country said Tuesday. The mistake consisted of adopting "a peacetime...
U.S. Population Passes 300 Million Mark photo
WASHINGTON (AP) - Maybe there will be a bigger party when the population hits 400 million. Save the date: 2043. America's official population passed the 300 million mark Tuesday, fueled by a growing number of immigrants and their children. The moment, recorded at 7:46 a.m. EDT, passed with little...
Bush Supports Croatia Membership in NATO
Email this Story
Oct 17, 4:56 PM (ET)
(AP) President Bush shakes hands with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in the Oval Office of the...
Full Image
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush gave a boost Tuesday to Croatia's aspirations to join NATO, saying it should be admitted to the Western alliance within two years.
Bush said he would recommend the 2008 timetable when he attends a NATO summit next month in Riga, Latvia. He also said he supports Croatia's membership in the European Union.
The president expressed his views during an Oval Office meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader. "I consider the prime minister a friend; I consider Croatia a friend, as well," Bush said.
The president said he has heard Croatia is one of the most beautiful places on Earth and that he would like to visit sometime. "About the only question we disagreed was whether Croatia or the United States had the most beautiful coastline," Sanader said.
(AP) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right, meets with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader at the...
Full Image
One problem facing Sanader is opposition at home to NATO membership, with opinion polls showing 30 percent of the population against it. Some Croatians claim being a part of NATO would make it a terror target.
While prospects that Croatia eventually will join NATO look good, its hopes of admission to the European Union are less promising.
Sanader said this month he wants EU membership to be fast-tracked and feels his country will be ready for membership by 2008.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said there could be no more EU enlargements after Romania and Bulgaria join Jan. 1 until the union has resolved the future of its stalled constitution.
---
On the Net:
European Union: http://europa.eu/
Bush Signs Bill on Terror Prosecution
Email this Story
Oct 17, 6:23 PM (ET)
By NEDRA PICKLER
(AP) President Bush is seen after signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which sets new standards...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Military Ringtone - Send this ringtone to your phone right now!
RingRingMobile.com
Veterans benefits - $150k loan for $381/month Save $1000's - Apply Now!
Refinance.Low.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of the most notorious names in the war on terror are headed toward prosecution after President Bush signed a law Tuesday authorizing military trials of terrorism suspects.
The legislation also eliminates some of the rights defendants are usually guaranteed under U.S. law, and it authorizes continued harsh interrogations of terror suspects.
Imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and awaiting trial are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged would-be 9/11 hijacker, and Abu Zubaydah, who was believed to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many al-Qaida cells.
"With the bill I'm about to sign, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people will face justice," Bush said in a White House ceremony.
(AP) President Bush, second from right, speaks in the East Room, of the White House in Washington,...
Full Image
The Pentagon expects to begin pre-trial motions early next year and to begin the actual trials in the summer.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that trying detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law, so Bush urged Congress to change the law during a speech on Sept. 6 in the White House East Room attended by families of the Sept. 11, 2001, victims. He also insisted that the law authorize CIA agents to use tough - yet unspecified - methods to interrogate suspected terrorists.
Six weeks later, after a highly publicized dispute with key Republicans over the terms of the bill, Bush signed the new law "in memory of the victims of September the 11th."
"It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives," Bush said. "I have that privilege this morning."
Civil libertarians and leading Democrats decried the law as a violation of American values. The American Civil Liberties Union said it was "one of the worst civil liberties measures ever enacted in American history." Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said, "We will look back on this day as a stain on our nation's history."
(AP) President Bush signs the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006, in the East...
Full Image
"It allows the government to seize individuals on American soil and detain them indefinitely with no opportunity to challenge their detention in court," Feingold said. "And the new law would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and even allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death."
The legislation, which sets the rules for court proceedings, applies to those selected by the military for prosecution and leaves mostly unaffected the majority of the 14,000 prisoners in U.S. custody, most of whom are in Iraq. It does apply to 14 suspects who were secretly questioned by the CIA overseas and recently moved to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
The swift implementation of the law is a rare bit of good news for Bush as casualties mount in Iraq in daily violence. Lawmakers are increasingly calling for a change of strategy, and political anxieties are jeopardizing Republican chances of hanging onto control of Congress.
Bush has been criticizing Democrats who voted against the law, called the Military Commissions Act of 2006, during campaign appearances around the country. He has suggested that votes against the law show that Democrats would not protect the country from another terrorist attack.
Republican House leaders, in a tough battle to maintain their majority, echoed those criticisms Tuesday in an attempt to get some political points out of the legislation they supported. "The Democratic plan would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans' lives," House Speaker Dennis Hastert said.
(AP) Demonstrators protest in front of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006, as...
Full Image
Bush noted that the law came amid dispute.
"Over the past few months, the debate over this bill has been heated, and the questions raised can seem complex," he said. "Yet, with the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously? And did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?"
A coalition of religious groups staged a protest against the bill outside the White House, shouting "Bush is the terrorist" and "Torture is a crime." About 15 of the protesters, standing in a light rain, refused orders to move. Police arrested them one by one.
The legislation says the president can "interpret the meaning and application" of international standards for prisoner treatment, a provision intended to allow him to authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts. Bush said such measures have helped the CIA gain vital information from terror suspects and have saved American lives.
After Bush signed the law, CIA Director Mike Hayden sent a note to employees saying it gives them "the legal clarity and legislative support necessary to continue a program that has been one of our country's most effective tools in the fight against terrorism."
(AP) President Bush, left, speaks prior to signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Tuesday, Oct....
Full Image
"We can be confident that our program remains - as it always has been - fully compliant with U.S. law, the Constitution and our international treaty obligations," Hayden wrote.
The White House has said that disclosing the techniques that are used would give the enemy information to resist those techniques. White House press secretary Tony Snow said Bush would probably eventually issue an executive order that would describe his interpretation of the standards, but those documents are not usually made public.
Snow rejected the idea that Americans should be able to see and judge the standards for themselves, particularly in the aftermath of illegal abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.
"The only way accountability doesn't exist is if you believe that the military is not committed to it," Snow said.
---
On the Net:
http://www.whitehouse.gov
Google sponsored links
VA Veteran Home Loans - Our site explains all procedures & guidelines for Veteran Home Loans.
www.VALoans.com
Military Ringtone - Send this complimentary ringtone to your phone right now!
BestRingDownloads.com
Assisted Living -Veterans - The VA has benefits available for Vets & Spouses, Find out how much.
www.veteransfinancial.com
other president, white house, and advisor news
• Bush Signs $532.8B Defense Spending Bill
• Bush Signs Bill on Terror Prosecution
• Cheney Unsure of GOP Control of Congress
• Bush Supports Croatia Membership in NATO
• Bush Pledges to Keep U.S. Troops in Iraq
• Bush Honors Muslims Aiding in Terror War
• U.S. Expects China's Backing on N. Korea
• Man Allegedly Climbs White House Fence
• Bush: U.N. Action Sends Clear Message
• Bush Keeps Revising War Justification
email this page to a friend
N. Korea Apparently Preparing Nuke Test
Email this Story
Oct 17, 6:00 PM (ET)
By BO-MI LIM
(AP) In this image made from North Korean television, a woman broadcaster reads out a Foreign Ministry...
Full Image
Google sponsored links
Big Oil's Nightmare - Is suddenly an investor's dream. Get the full story.
www.investmentu.com
Chavez Denounces Bush - Attacks US Foreign Policy at UN Global Issues - Read more online
DiversityInc.com
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Satellite images indicate North Korea appears to be getting ready for a second nuclear test, officials said Tuesday, as the defiant communist regime held huge rallies and proclaimed that U.N. sanctions amount to a declaration of war.
China, the North's longtime ally and biggest trading partner, warned Pyongyang not to aggravate tensions. The U.N. has condemned the Oct. 9 atomic blast, and U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill told reporters in Seoul on Tuesday that another nuclear explosion would be "a very belligerent answer" to the world.
As the White House acknowledged that the isolated nation might try a second test, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched a diplomatic drive to persuade Asian allies and Russia to intensify North Korea's isolation by enforcing sanctions that the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved on Saturday.
Concern over a second test stems partly from new satellite imagery showing increased activity around at least two other North Korean sites, a senior U.S. defense official said.
(AP) With a map of the Korean Peninsula behind him, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gestures during...
Full Image
The activity, started a number of days ago, included ground preparation at one site and construction of some buildings and other structures, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it involved intelligence gathering. He said that although the purpose of the structures is unclear, officials are concerned because North Korea has left open the possibility of another test.
A senior South Korean official told foreign journalists that despite signs of a possible second test, it was unlikely to happen immediately.
"We have yet to confirm any imminent signs of a second nuclear test," the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
In North Korea, the nation marked the 80th anniversary of the "Down-with-Imperialism Union" - a political platform on which the ruling party was built. North Koreans held parades across the country along with an enormous gathering at a central square in Pyongyang.
In the capital, hundreds of women in brightly colored costumes sang and held bunches of flowers, including some named for Kim Il Sung, the country's first leader and the late father of current leader Kim Jong Il.
(AP) Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the current council president, leaves a meeting of the...
Full Image
The regime slammed the U.N. measures with a stream of bellicosity in a Foreign Ministry statement released on the official Korean Central News Agency.
"The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war" against the North, the statement said.
The North also said it "wants peace but is not afraid of war," and that it would "deal merciless blows" against anyone who violates its sovereignty.
It said it wouldn't cave in to "the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state."
South Korean nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo said the North's reaction wasn't surprising, and was full of "the usual rhetoric."
(AP) China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya speaks to the media after a meeting of the permanent members...
Full Image
China warned Pyongyang against aggravating tensions.
"We hope North Korea will adopt a responsible attitude ... and come back to resolving the issue through dialogue and consultation instead of taking any actions that may further escalate or worsen the situation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a press briefing in Beijing.
But now that the U.S. has confirmed that last week's blast was indeed nuclear, North Korea can be expected to use its new position as a confirmed atomic state to press for direct talks and concessions with Washington - as it did in March 2005, a month after Pyongyang first asserted it had a nuclear weapon.
Hill, the U.S. envoy, said the North was falsely assuming it would win more respect with atomic explosions.
"The fact of the matter is that nuclear tests make us respect them less," he said, adding that the North's comments about sanctions were "not very helpful."
(AP) Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the Security Council president, speaks to the media after a...
Full Image
U.S. intelligence has concluded that the North Korean device likely used plutonium, as opposed to uranium, in the Oct. 9 test.
Under a 1994 deal with the U.S. during the Clinton administration, North Korea pledged to freeze its nuclear program, then believed to be based on producing weapons-grade plutonium. But the agreement broke down by 2002 under the Bush administration after revelations of a covert effort by the North to produce highly enriched uranium. Pyongyang soon removed 8,000 spent fuel rods that the International Atomic Energy Agency was monitoring and began to reprocess them into weapons-grade nuclear fuel.
The White House said Tuesday that it wouldn't be surprising if North Korea were to try another nuclear test "to be provocative."
"It would not be a good thing for them, but it certainly would not be out of character," said White House press secretary Tony Snow. "We're not going to discuss any particular matters of intelligence, but if you take a look at the record, I think it is reasonable to expect that the government of North Korea will do what it can to test the will, the determination and the unity of the United Nations."
Asked why it would not be a good thing for North Korea, Snow said, "If they do believe that somehow people are going to give them a pass on this, they're going to find out that they're wrong."
(AP) Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the Security Council president, speaks to the media after a...
Full Image
While U.S. officials insist they aren't about to invade, they have taken other steps against North Korea - even before the U.N. resolution - including severing it from the international financial system. That move is believed to have angered the elites that keep Kim in power, and Kim may fear being ousted or possibly even killed.
The North has consistently pressed for direct talks with the U.S. on the financial sanctions and has refused to attend six-nation disarmament talks until the sanctions are lifted. Along with the U.S., the talks include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
Now, the North has a new arrow in its quiver: being a confirmed nuclear power recognized as such by the very country whose attention it so desperately craves.
The Bush administration, wary of rewarding the regime's behavior, has consistently refused to talk directly to the North, insisting the issue is a regional concern and seeking to enlist other countries.
On Tuesday, Rice left for Japan, first stop on a four-nation trip, amid clear signs of unease in China and South Korea about even the softened sanctions.
China contends that interdicting ships, although permitted in the U.N. resolution, might needlessly provoke the North and discourage it from returning to the six-nation talks. South Koreans worry about a conventional attack by their unpredictable neighbor.
"Sanctions against North Korea should be done in a way that draws North Korea to the dialogue table," South Korean Prime Minister Han Myung-sook said, according to Yonhap news agency. "There should never be a way that causes armed clashes."
---
AP writers Barry Schweid and Katie Shrader in Washington, Burt Herman and William Foreman in Seoul, Audra Ang in Beijing and Kana Inagaki in Tokyo contributed to this report.
Clinton War Room Going After Curt Weldon?
October 17, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Clarice Feldman theorizes at the AmericanThinker.com that it's the Clintonoids out trying to get Curt Weldon because of some things he wrote in his book about the incompetence of intelligence and law enforcement during the Clinton years. Let's go back to the final answer that Bill Clinton gave during the Chris Wallace interview. He mentions one House Republican by name. The question, "The White House, the Republicans, want to make the American people afraid?"
CLINTON: Of course they do. Of course they do. It's a big load of hooey. We've got nine Iraq war veterans running for House seats, a three-star admiral who was on my National Security Council staff, who also fought terror, by the way, is running for the seat of Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania. We've got a huge military presence here in this campaign and we just can't let 'em have some rhetorical device that puts us in a box we don't belong in. That's their job. Their job's to beat us. I like that about Rove. But our job is not to let them get away with it, and if they don't then we'll do fine.
RUSH: Last night on CNN, by the way, Donna Brazile was asked by Wolf Blitzer, "A lot of people are saying this, Donna: If you and the Democrats can't win the House at least, maybe even the Senate this time, you might as well forget about being in Democratic Party because you've got so much going for you right now."
BRAZILE: The truth is that we still have a number of competitive races. While the political landscape now favor a generic Democratic candidate, we still have to slug it out until the end zone in all these key congressional raises. So this is a good year for Democrats, but we still have to turn out our votes.
RUSH: Okay, so somebody finally asked a Democrat, What happens if you lose? What does it mean? And Donna Brazile would not answer that question. She would not answer.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(American Thinker: Clintonoids trying to get Curt Weldon - Clarice Feldman)
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
Monday, Oct. 16, 2006 8:03 p.m. EDT
Hillary Apologizes for Aide’s McCain Remark
Reprint Information
Bush Signs Law on Terror Suspects
NATO General: Not Aggressive Enough in Afghanistan
Mark Foley Names Alleged Sex Abuser
New Liberal Radio Network Formed
Bill Richardson: Tax Breaks for Military
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has had to apologize to Sen. John McCain after one of her advisers made a derogatory comment regarding McCain's time as a prisoner of war.
According to the New York Post, the flap started in the New York Times column of Maureen Dowd, who quoted an anonymous adviser slamming McCain for his recent criticism of the Clintons regarding North Korea's nuclear program.
According to the Post, the adviser said Team Clinton thought McCain was doing the White House's dirty work by criticizing the Clintons and ended up "looking similar to the way he did on those captive tapes from Hanoi, where he recited the names of his crewmates."
That was a reference to an unsubstantiated rumor used to tar McCain, a Vietnam war hero, as off-kilter during the 2000 GOP presidential primary.
Story Continues Below
Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said, "These comments are reprehensible and they in no way reflect Senator Clinton's feelings."
McCain spokesman John Weaver replied, "Senator Clinton is correct, the remark was reprehensible."
Editor's note:
Wear the USS George Bush fleece jacket – Click Here Now for FREE offer!
Get HUGE returns on Canadian Royalty Trusts – Click Here
Hold the Toothpaste – Fluoride Is Toxic – Click Here Now
New Tips & Tricks for Your Funds at Vanguard - Free!
Free: Top Defense & Homeland Security Stocks
Stop Drinking Water Now
Can Pheromones Fix Your Relationship?
Inside Cover Stories
Mark Foley Names Alleged Sex Abuser
New Liberal Radio Network Formed
Bill Richardson: Tax Breaks for Military
George Soros Takes Aim at Israel
Lieberman to Dems: Change Your Ways
Former President Ford Returns Home
Voters Wary of 'October Surprise'
GOP 'Values Voters' Needed for Win
'Duke' Cunningham Aided Contractors
Don King Stumps for Michael Steele
Taxing Life for 300 Millionth American
Google Headquarters Goes Solar
More Inside Cover Stories
Print Page Forward Page E-mail Us RSS Feed
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/10/16/200944.shtml
This Is What North Korea Calls an Act of War?
October 17, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So the North Koreans said today that these really, really stiff UN sanctions aimed at punishing North Korea for its nuclear test are a declaration of war. They're not admitting this, but signs are they're readying a second test. We've had sanctions on the North Koreans since the fifties, folks. Let me just say, as sanctions go, the ones imposed on North Korea by the Security Council last Saturday, I mean these are tough sanctions, folks, listen to this -- and it wasn't even close, by the way. It was unanimous, a 15-to-nothing vote. Everybody got on board, the ChiComs, the Russians. It was diplomacy in action.
This is tough stuff! From this day forward, the sale or transfer of materials that the North Koreans could use to build a nuke are not allowed. From this day forward, materials that the North Koreans could use to build biological or chemical weapons or ballistic missiles are not allowed. The resolution says so. From this day forward, North Koreans associated with weapons programs will not be allowed to travel internationally, and their overseas assets will be frozen, and the cherry on top of all this is that cargo going in and out of North Korea is going to be inspected. This is tough stuff. I mean, with our port security, maybe they could inspect our cargo, too?
At any rate, with sanctions like this, who would want to live? If I were Kim Jong Il, man, it would be suicide. "How am I going to get my Courvoisier?" he must be asking himself, or how's he going to get his XXX porn-rated videos? So, North Korea, the axis of evil's third leg has been neutered. The UN did this with one resolution. North Korea isn't now just a starving isolated rogue nation. I mean, now they are really, really isolated. The diplomats at the UN have really punished them, so much so that they are considering this a declaration of war. Now, how did we get these tough sanctions, folks? What changed?
How did we get the ChiComs and the Russians on board here? Well, there was just a teensy-weensy little clause added. That clause forbids the threat of military action to enforce the sanctions. So if the North Koreas break them, they're going to get another letter. We are going to paper these people into submission like you can't believe. If they want to ignore these super-tough UN sanctions, or if they want to tell the world to kiss their rear end, then they're going to get a letter, and the letter may be in all caps, just to show how angry the UN is. In fact, they might even get more resolutions in addition to more letters. I think Kim Jong ll finally got what's coming to him. He got sanctions and diplomacy. This stuff is just fabulous, and for all of this, Kim Jong ll considers this all to have been a declaration of war.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(NYPost: N. Korea: Sanctions Are War Declaration)
(NRO: Tyrants and the Bomb)
(FACTBOX-Key U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea)
(NYPost: Dark Globalism: How Islamist Terror
Spreads Its Tentacles Worldwide - Mark Steyn)
Concentration Camps, Starvation in North Korea...
(State Dept: Life Inside North Korea)
(Christopher Hitchens: Worse Than 1984)
(Christopher Hitchens: An Enslaved State Where Private Life is Abolished)
(Eyes of the Tailless Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman)
(Vanity Fair: Hitchens on His Visit to North Korea)
(NY Sun: Korean Reds Targeting Christians)
*Note: Links to content outside http://www.RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
"If you're at a party with Wheat Thins, you're at a liberal's house -- especially if it's the low-fat Wheat Thins (not to be confused with Triscuits
Liberals Don’t Think We Deserve to Win the War
October 17, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, as part of the stark contrast as to how the war on terror will be fought between these two competing parties, the Republicans and Democrats, this morning at the White House, President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, which is going to be challenged by liberals. It will go to the Supreme Court. Here's what the president said today.
THE PRESIDENT: This nation will call evil by its name. We will answer brutal murder with patient justice. Those who kill the innocent will be held to account. With this bill, America reaffirms our determination to win the war on terror. The passage of time will not dull our memory or sap our nerve. We will fight this war with confidence and with clear purpose. We will protect our country, and our people. And now in memory of the victims of September the 11th, it is my honor to sign the military commissions act of 2006 into law.
RUSH: Yeah, well, after the signing, Jeffrey Toobin, CNN, said the bill's going to come down to Justice Kennedy. The anchor said to him, "Supreme Court going to approve this, Jeffrey?"
TOOBIN: Senator Specter thinks that the courts are going to strike it down. As for me, I don't know, but I'll be watching.
FEMALE VOICE: Justice Anthony Kennedy, it might all kinda come down on him.
TOOBIN: As so often will be the case in the new Supreme Court.
FEMALE VOICE: That's right.
TOOBIN: Justice Kennedy will hold the power.
RUSH: All right, this is a theme, by the way -- there have been a number of stories in the DC media, particularly the Washington Post. I know how this works -- praising Anthony Kennedy as having grown in office, he's the moderate -- he's now power. It's really the Kennedy court, not the Roberts court, and of course these stories are meant to be read by Justice Kennedy, and they are supposed to influence Justice Kennedy, (doing impression) "Yeah, it is my court, and I can keep getting this favorable coverage and laudable praise if I continue to do what these people want." It's a well known Washington process. So here we've signed the military detainee act, the military commission act. This is the military tribunals, and already the liberals are planning on doing everything they can to make sure that it doesn't happen.
Now you have to ask yourself why. It's not just as simple as a civil rights disagreement. It's not just as simple as they think military tribunals are a little excessive, and yet they are serious about fighting the war on terror because the second half of my statement's not true. These are the people who have spent the last number of years attempting to grant Al-Qaeda constitutional rights as though they were US citizens. I call it the Al-Qaeda Bill of Rights. You have to ask yourself -- these are the people, folks, who have been invested in America's defeat. Here you have a lawyer, a liberal civil rights lawyer, breaking all kinds of legal ethics, among them attorney-client privilege, to pass on these comments of Omar Abdel Rahman to his supporters for whatever nefarious purpose. I'm sure he wasn't saying "Hi." I'm sure he wasn't saying, "Hey, I'm doing okay." He was urging death to all who disagreed with his version of Islamic behavior and law. And she was passing along these messages of death, and the judge said, "Well, no one was harmed in any of this." The judge can't possibly know it.
So we have the military tribunals signed into law, Congress gave it to the president quickly, as I knew would be the case, and already the libs can't wait to stop it and protest it. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons. One is, they want the cases tried by them. They want to be the power. They want to run US foreign policy. They want to usurp, via the US judiciary, the whole role of commander-in-chief, particularly when a Republican is in office. They are not about to surrender the power that they have amassed in the judiciary, with all of these appointments that they have gotten confirmed, Supreme Court, appellate court, US district courts, and you look at the speed with which Clinton's judges were confirmed versus the arduous task that the Bush people have had in getting their judges confirmed, this is -- and, by the way, this focuses another point on the importance of this upcoming election next month, and that is the makeup of the US Supreme Court.
We've got three justices in there. One's in his eighties, two are in their seventies, and you know they're just hanging on, at least one of them is, so that it is not Bush who gets to name his replacement. Liberals know exactly what they're doing. Now, in addition to them wanting to control the prosecution and the war on terror via the US court system via the US military -- because, remember, the liberals loathe the US military, they think it's the focus of evil in the modern world. They want control of all kinds of US foreign policy via the courts, particularly prosecution of this war -- and when you add to it the things that they have done in the past 18 months or two years, you have to question whether they want to win it. You have to question whether they want trials to be conducted by themselves with terrorists represented by their lawyers in order for the US to win this.
This is serious stuff, folks. I do not say this lightly. There are people in this country who think we deserve to lose. And if you find that strange, there are Republicans in this country who think we deserve to lose the House. There are Republicans in this country who think we deserve to lose the Senate for whatever their reasons, they think so. So don't be surprised and don't be shocked when you hear me say that there are Americans who want us to lose against this enemy. I can't begin to tell you why. It's a psychological analysis. It centers around guilt. There's no question that there's a blame-America-first crowd in this country, there's no question that there is a hate-America crowd in this country, and there is no question that some of these people do deserve to have their patriotism challenged. Here is Trish in Edmonton, Canada. Edmondon, Alberta, nice to have you on the program with us.
CALLER: Well, good morning, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: Dittos.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: From north of the border.
RUSH: Yeah, it's great to have you. By the way, you know what I've noticed? I've been reading the news that the US is using Black Hawk helicopters to patrol the US-Canadian border.
CALLER: Yes, in Montana.
RUSH: In Montana. Yeah, a lot of increased flights because of the terrorist threat. And I'm saying, what about the southern border?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: At any rate, I know that's not why you called but I had to mention that since you're calling from Canada. It's great to hear from you, by the way.
CALLER: Well, we spoke almost a year ago about Mary Landrieu down in Louisiana.
RUSH: Yes?
CALLER: Yes. This -- this -- you've made my day. I've listened to you -- the day I listened to you the first day was going back, it was on Lincoln's birthday, like back in 1990. So I just really enjoy your program.
RUSH: Now, are you native Canadian?
CALLER: Oh, no. No. I'm from Oklahoma. My husband works up here for Big Oil. We're destroying the environment up here in Canada.
RUSH: Great, great, keep it up. What is Lincoln's birthday?
CALLER: February 12th.
RUSH: Well, it used to be, that's not when we celebrate it. We celebrate it on the 22nd now, President's Day.
CALLER: Right. Well, I remember that was a point of discussion on that particular day.
RUSH: (laughing) Right.
CALLER: Listen, Rush, what's flooring me on this is we have the liberal strategy -- I'm not even going to say Democrat -- we see the liberal strategy of what will happen if we do catch bin Laden or Zawahiri or any of the Hezbo cells that are here in the US if the Democrats are in power. I mean, we've set legal precedent. We all heard them talk about all the good deeds and the social services.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Like building roads and hospitals. Well, if we catch bin Laden, and they bring him up there to New York and put him on trial, and he's convicted by a jury that knows that they can give this man 30 years or life --
RUSH: Well, yeah, because you know that his legal team will be from the ACLU.
CALLER: Exactly. Yes, sir.
RUSH: And it was Patty Murray, by the way, the little mom in tennis shoes senator from the state of Washington who get in a little trouble for suggesting that no wonder bin Laden had a lot of support amongst his radical followers. He built a lot of schools, he made sure the roads were paved and the trash was collected, and he's done a lot of good social work. And so your theory is that once he goes to put on trial in the United States, and let's say he's sentenced to five life terms for the September 11th attacks and the death of 3,000 Americans, you're suggesting that a smart lawyer and a Clinton judge could get the sentence reduced to maybe ten months or three years because of all the good works bin Laden has done up until the time he committed the crime on 9/11?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: I think it would go a different way. I think that bin Laden, if caught and captured and brought to trial, would deny ever having anything to do with it. And they would say, but you said you did, you claimed -- (bin Laden impression) "Well, of course, I was trying to stand up big with my people, but you can't prove I knew anything about this. I wasn't on those airplanes. I was never in this country. I had nothing to do with this. You prove that it was me. Prove that I had anything." (laughing) And the defense counsel would be, "See, Judge, we've been operating under a misconception started by the Bush administration and the CIA since September 12th of 2001 that bin Laden did it, when in fact we know the Bush administration did this on its own." And the 9/11 truth squad would get their day in court to prove that it was a Bush conspiracy. That's what will happen, or a variation of it, you're exactly right, if bin Laden or Zawahiri or any of these other people are brought to trial. I'm sure they'd bring Saddam to trial here as a witness for bin Laden, character witness -- (laughing) I mean, it's not funny but sometimes you have to illustrate absurdity by being absurd.
CALLER: You know, the more you look at this and the more you see this unfolding, you realize that that is not absurd. The absurdity is becoming reality.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: This decision by a judge, the jury acted in good faith. They knew that she was up for 30 years, they convicted her, and the judge, a liberal judge, turned that decision on its ear and in effect had done nothing but to embolden other jihadists or people who would help them here in the United States.
RUSH: No question about it. But, look, Trisha, I can't emphasize this enough. Do not underestimate the role that former Clinton administration officials played in persuading this judge. I don't know how much persuasion he needed, but nevertheless, they ganged up, and this Jo Ann Harris, who was in the Clinton attorney general's office, the justice department, and who would likely be an AG candidate or a federal judge candidate, led the charge for reducing the sentence and talking about all of the great works in her past that Lynne Stewart had done. You've gotta focus on that, not only are they going to appoint other judges like this one but there are people like Jo Ann Harris who will end up -- it's like Jamie Gorelick. I mean, imagine a justice department full of Jamie Gorelicks.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(NYPost: We have the first globalized insurgency - Mark Steyn)
(WSJ: A lawyer who passed messages to terrorists gets off light)
(NRO: Sentencing Day Arrives for Lynne Stewart - Andrew C. McCarthy)
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
Democrats Have Demonstrated They Aren't Fit to Lead
October 17, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Jay in Seattle, welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hey, thanks, Rush, for taking my call. I really appreciate it.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I wanted to get your insight, because I think one of the things that is never talked about here is, if the Democrats were to take back the House and take back the Senate and God forbid take back the White House, and we went into a complete withdrawal out of Iraq, what countries do you think would fall first? Would it be Jordan? Would it be Kuwait? Would it be Egypt? Would it be Saudi Arabia next? Would it be Lebanon? We know they have a presence already and offices in downtown Damascus. We know they have a presence in Palestine. We know they started in Pakistan and then moved into Afghanistan. We kicked 'em out.
The Democrats used that against us and say, "Well, you pulled troops out of Afghanistan, and you moved 'em over to Iraq, and now they're back," and now we've got John Kerry saying that we need to deploy troops back into Somalia. I guess that's what we should call Black Hawk Up.
RUSH: (laughs)
CALLER: You know, I just wanted to get your opinion. I'm not asking to read tea leaves here, but how do you think this would pan out?
RUSH: Well, the first thing that I would say in response to your question, is that if the Democrats do wrest full control of the government by 2008, and, when they're inaugurated in 2009, they'll totally reverse the existing strategy on the war on terror and the war in Iraq, then I would suggest that Iraq deserves to lose and deserves to be run over, and whatever else happens out there.
I'm going to take the same philosophy that I'm hearing now from recalcitrant voters who are upset. I think the Republicans deserve to lose; I think the Iraqis deserve to lose; I think the terrorists deserve to win; I think the Democrats deserve to win. The good guys have just totally botched this and they need to be "taught a lesson." I think we need a couple more hits on the United States in terms of terrorism to wake us up, too. I'm just going to take this philosophy and I'm going to apply it to virtually everything and I'm going to see how well it resonates out there.
To deal with your question seriously, the first thing that happened is that Iraq would become the epicenter of the Al-Qaeda terrorist movement. It would become a seething cauldron. It would become a toxic soup of terrorism. Afghanistan would be the next to fall, and it would be a joint situation. John Kerry in the meantime would be Black Hawk Backing back into Somalia. But at the first sign of trouble we would Black Hawk Down again and get out!
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: In the meantime we would be talking to our "allies," the French and the Germans, and by that time the North Koreans, to figure out what it is we could do jointly to contain the spread of terrorism rather than wipe it out. Because make no mistake, with Democrats in power, there will be no effort made to defeat anybody. There will be no effort made to stop the acquisition of nuclear weapons by anybody, because "What right do we have to say that when we have a nuke other nations can't?" So the policy will become containment, appeasement. The Democrats do we have and liberals will use what they think is the force of their good nature and their powerful intellect to negotiate with these people on a policy of containment and appeasement, which will result in our being laughed at across the world by our enemies, and their march will continue inexorably until a breaking point is reached and we are forced to take the action that everybody is decrying and blaming America for taking as we speak.
So it would just be delaying the obvious. It's one thing, to answer your question in full candor -- and this whole question came up at a dinner party I went to not long ago. There were many people frustrated that the education system in this country has not taught American history. There just aren't enough people who understand our history and understand what it has taken to ensure our freedom for 200-plus years. Somebody said, "That may be, but in real times of crisis the American people will respond to leadership," and I agree with that, but will we have people at that point in history who are capable of the right kind of leadership to defend and protect the United States? That's my worry about Democrats, and I'm basing it simply, folks, on what I've heard them say the past three years and their whole history, by the way.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(WSJ: A lawyer who passed messages to terrorists gets off light)
(NRO: Tyrants and the Bomb)
(NYP: Dark Globalism: How Islamist Terror
Spreads Its Tentacles Worldwide - Mark Steyn)
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
Lynne Stewart Sentence Offers Window
on the Democrat Approach to Terrorism
October 17, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's start off here with the wrist-slap that Lynne Stewart got yesterday from a Clinton appointed federal judge. It's not just the judge in this case, though, who needs to be examined. Lynne Stewart represented the blind sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman. She violated canons of legal ethics. As part of his sentence, he is not allowed to communicate with any of his terrorist buddies. She, his lawyer, did it for him. She could have received up to 30 years in jail, but she gets 28 months. She's going to appeal that. She'll remain out, I think, on appeal, and depending on which judge and court she gets on the appeal, she could have the whole thing stricken.
It was a very interesting case presented by her defense. (paraphrased) "Hey, she's helped the poor! I mean, you gotta examine this woman's life in toto. She helped the poor, and she's had breast cancer, and she's overweight, and that means that she's more prone to producing more estrogen. That means the breast cancer could come back, and it's harder to detect breast cancer in overweight women," and the judge said, (paraphrased) "Yeah, you know what, I kind of like those arguments," and decided on 28 months. The lesson there is that if you do good works earlier in your life and end up before a Clinton appointed federal judge and you are a Democrat, the good works early in your life will mitigate crimes that you commit later on in life.
Aside from looking at the judge, and we've got the judge's pedigree here someplace. He's straight out of the Clinton central casting. His name is John George Koeltl. He was nominated by Clinton in April 26th of 1994, confirmed by the Senate in August of 1994. It's amazing how fast that Clinton appointees were confirmed to the federal bench back in 1995. Republicans had not taken over the House but that wouldn't have mattered anyway. The Senate is where these things were decided. He received his commission on August 10th of 1994, went to Georgetown University for his AB, and got his JD in law at Harvard. He was a law clerk for Justice Potter Stewart, the Supreme Court assistant special prosecutor, Watergate special prosecution force, 1973 and 1974.
He was in private practice in New York from '75 to '94. However, the judge is only part of the equation here, ladies and gentlemen. The thing that stood out for me is that what we have in this sentence of 28 months of helping a terrorist communicate to his buddies, you could assume that these communications between Omar Abdel Rahman, facilitated by his attorney Lynne Stewart to his buddies, led to the deaths of more people. In full light, what we have here is a classic illustration of the Clinton administration record on terror, and it is well worth dwelling on and delving into. If the Clintons ever win the White House again, and Hillary wins in '08, there's a woman involved in this case that might end up being a candidate for attorney general, or nominated for a judgeship herself.
Her name is Jo Ann Harris. Jo Ann Harris was one of the people who came to the court yesterday to argue in defense of Lynne Stewart and on behalf of a reduced sentence for her. The New York Times did not opt to quote from a letter submitted to the sentencing judge on Stewart's behalf and Jo Ann Harris. Jo Ann Harris was the Clinton justice department's criminal division chief at the time the blind sheik was indicted. The indictment, by the way, came in 1993, not as the Times reported in 1994, and the Times also said that Jo Ann Harris authorized the indictment. She didn't. The indictment was actually authorized by the Attorney General Janet El Reño and the Manhattan US Attorney General Mary Jo White.
My source for this is Andy McCarthy, National Review Online, who led the prosecution of the blind sheik. Now, according to the article, "Jo Ann Harris told the judge that the terrorism counts against Ms. Stewart were 'unwarranted overkill.' Harris reportedly elaborated that Stewart “didn’t have a clue that the stick she was poking in the government’s eye was going to have consequences beyond her imagination." I'm reading here from a piece written by Andy McCarthy. "Counterterrorism, of course, remains the central national security issue as we head into the 2006 elections, with 2008 choices hard upon us after that. Thus, it is very much worth noting the stark contrasts here. The Bush Justice Department strongly believed that Stewart’s behavior warranted the strongest condemnation. A jury of twelve New Yorkers - not exactly the Red State heartland - unanimously agreed after hearing all the evidence. Still, one of the highest Clinton Justice Department officials evidently thinks the whole thing was 'overkill.' The contrast is starker still. Recall that President Bush, through Attorney General John Ashcroft, adopted a 'spit on the street' approach to terrorism - authorizing suspects to be locked up on any available, legally valid charge, in order to disable them and convey to terrorist groups that we were pursuing them aggressively. Compare President Clinton, who has spent a lot of time lately defending his national security record.
"In 1999, he pardoned 16 members of the FALN terrorist organization which, as Investors Business Daily editorialized last month, 'carried out more than 150 bombings in the U.S., including the lunchtime bombing of Fraunces Tavern in New York on Jan. 24, 1975, that killed four.' (Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris has indicated that this was done to help then-First Lady Hillary Clinton win the votes of Puerto Ricans in the anticipated New York Senate race.) On January 20, 2001, moreover, Clinton's very last acts in power included pardons for two convicted Weather Underground terrorists, Susan Rosenberg and Laura Sue Whitehorn. Lynne Stewart is a figure who straddles the September 10 and September 11 worlds - the divergent Clinton and Bush counterterrorism models. As the lead-up to her sentencing shows, it matters a great deal which model we choose."
So, yeah, you can focus on the judge, and that's all well and good and it's expected of a Clinton-appointed federal judge who was on the Watergate committee. It's a bunch of libs. There's no question about it. It's why the argument over reorienting the entire judiciary, Supreme Court on down, has been such a huge argument this year. But don't forget the name of the former A. G., Jo Ann Harris, who argued on behalf of the most lenient sentence possible, because if the Clintons ever get back in power, somebody like Jo Ann Harris would constantly be an attorney general candidate or nominated for a judgeship. And in this, in this ruling yesterday, this sentencing yesterday, as McCarthy writes, it is patently obvious the Democrat liberal view of terrorism and how to deal with it versus the George W. Bush model, and it's on full display and is an indication of how that war on terror will be fought in the future, depending on who's running the show.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So any of you out there looking for a reason to hope that the Republicans lose control of the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or whatever, just take a look at this sentencing decision for Lynne Stewart, who has represented the dregs of society. That actually worked in her favor. She has represented all kinds of domestic terrorists, what, Weather Underground, Black Panthers, that sort of thing, and she's done so much work on behalf of the poor, and that shows a big heart and good intentions. You do that, and you're buying yourself out of serious trouble later on. It's almost crime insurance, and that's essentially what the judge in the case determined. So if you're of a mind that the war on terror is trumped up, doesn't really exist and so forth, and you want to go back to fighting it in a lax way-- In fact, if you want to go back and pretend we're at September 10th, then go ahead and vote the Democrats into power. That is precisely what happens. Speaking of all of this, we got it go to the audio sound bites. First I want to take you back to July 27th, this year, me, on this program, talking about winning in Iraq.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Of course there's some unsettledness out there. There always is. We are at war. We are at war. And we're going to be at war for a while, no matter who's in the White House. You gotta factor that in who you're going to vote for because if we're going to be at war, we want to win the war.
RUSH: Right. We want to win the war. So I play that for you because last night, President Bush sat down for the first of the three part of Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News Channel and the question from O'Reilly, "60% of Americans are now against the Iraq war. Why?"
THE PRESIDENT: Because they want us to win. They're wondering whether or not we have the plans in place to win. They want to know whether or not we have the flexibility on the ground to constantly meet the enemy, and I can understand why there's frustration, because the enemy knows that killing innocent people will create a sense of frustration, and they know America. They know that we're a conscious driven people that value life, and the more people they destroy, the more innocent lives that are destroyed, it is more likely it is we'll retreat, in their way of thinking.
RUSH: And that's the bottom line; people want to win, that's the source of the frustration, people are being led to believe that we are not only not winning, but that we can't. In fact, let's jump forward to audio sound bite number six. James Baker, who has been misquoted, by the way, in media outlets, never said, has not said that he doesn't think we can win in Iraq. It's been reported in certain places that he's heading up a commission, the president asked him to head up the commission, and it's been reported that he's out there saying we can't win, we gotta come up with something else because victory here is not possible. It caused a lot of people to raise a lot of hell when he said this. It turns out that he hasn't said this, that this was some sort of a leak to ears and microphones that were receptive to believing such a thing. He was on Matthews' show last night. Question: "What do you make of the National Intelligence Estimate that we're creating more terrorists over there than we are killing?"
BAKER: The way I look at it, Chris, is even if Iraq was not the front line in the war on terror when we went in there, it damn sure is today, and the terrorists are there, and one of the difficult problems we have, people talk about getting out and all that. As I told you earlier, we have not closed on any recommendation whatsoever. But one of the problems in just picking up and leaving is you leave a failed state for the global terrorists to reproduce in, just like they did in Afghanistan with the Taliban.
RUSH: That is an excellent point. I hearken back to my trip to Afghanistan. My gosh, that's a year and a half ago. It was a year and a half ago. It was a year ago February, and the head of USAID Andrew Natsios was on the trip, and we went to dinner one night at the home of an American who lived there and was working to help the effort to rebuild the country and bring back the Afghanistan economy and culture, and he got a brutal Q&A from some of the people there, and he said, "Look, the reason we must stay and the reason we must prevail is because terrorists thrive in places where there are no states, no governments, a stateless place," which is what Afghanistan was after their civil war, and the Taliban was able to move in. That is why Somalia is so important now.
Somalia is now stateless. Al-Qaeda intended to take it over. That's why Musharraf in Pakistan is consistently under the gun just to stay alive. He is probably the most targeted world leader out there right now from people in his own country, and so Baker is saying here to just cut-and-run and get out of there leaves that place as a cesspool breeding ground for those people to take over and run operations out of that part of the world. Bush is insistent that we have no intent to leave. However, takes us back to the Lynne Stewart decision. Depending on who ends up running this show, either in '06 or '08, the approaches and the theories, the strategies in dealing with militant Al-Qaeda terrorists, militant Islamist terrorists, is on full display here, and it is clear that the American left and the Democratic Party doesn't take the threat seriously at all, is not prepared to deal with it as something other than a nuisance that needs to be dealt with on an episode-by-episode basis. Here's Peter in Staten Island. We go to the phones early today. A lot of people want to weigh in on this Lynne Stewart business, and you're first. Welcome.
CALLER: Yes, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Fine, sir.
CALLER: It's a pleasure to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: You're a great American, and this is from a long-haired Republican conservative.
RUSH: Well, it's great to have you on the program, sir, thank you.
CALLER: Yes. I've been a long listener. This Lynne Stewart thing is like a slap in the face to all Americans. This was one of the most treasonous acts you can imagine. I think she's a traitor. You know, she's making a real example out of this woman instead of afterwards she's talking about having a party and everything or at least life imprisonment with no parole.
RUSH: Well, she walked into the courtroom acting as though she were barely alive. She walked in looking haggard, looking ragged, looking like she was in ill health, full of stress, wanted to be full of remorse, wanted the court to see her as a haggard old woman who has been worn down to the bare edges over all this, and you're right, once the sentence came down, oh, ho, let's throw a party, why, I could do this time standing on my head, she said.
CALLER: Well, like I said, Ethyl Rosenberg was a good mother and everything, left behind two sons. We executed her many years ago and stuff for a treasonous act like that, and, like I said, you know, this woman here with her ways, her liberal ways and everything just disgusts me to no end.
RUSH: Well, I can understand it. You're probably in the minority in New York, though it maybe close on this one. You know, liberals in New York still don't get it. I mean, they don't like seeing the World Trade Center video, and everybody had a conniption when Cory Lidle's accident happened, and everybody's first thought was, "Oh, no! Is this a terrorist attack?" When it comes to doing something about it, though, just don't get much out of these people. Now, some of you may not even remember Lynne Stewart, you may not even know who she is other than what you've seen in the news. She represented Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik.
His plot was to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and he was convicted of having this plan. "His attorney, Lynne Stewart, was arrested six months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and accused of violating strict prison rules by helping Abdel Rahman spread the word to kill those who didn't buy into his extreme interpretation of Islamic law. She's admitting to knowingly violating prison rules but she denies condoning violence and claims that she was just trying to do her job as a lawyer by looking after Abdel Rahman's interests. Now, the US attorney in the case, the assistant US attorney, Andrew Dember, refuted her defense that she was wrongly targeted by the feds in the wake of 9/11.
"He said, 'The case has nothing to do with 9/11, Your Honor. She knew well what she was doing was a criminal act, and he didn't want to be caught.' When it came to Stewart the judge said prison time was necessary as punishment but praised the longtime civil rights lawyer for her dedication of her clients over the past three decades and noted that no one was hurt as a result of the crimes in the case." No one was hurt? Oh, okay, well, we can't even know that for sure. We can't. We don't know what the messages that she translated and transmitted from the sheik Rahman to his followers, wherever, we can't know what happened as a result of those messages, but it's clear leniency. It's a lib deciding the fate of a lib, and the case really is irrelevant. The fact that it was about terrorism is not much. I'll tell you, folks, this is why it's dangerous, this war on terror fought in court, because this is how a lot of these cases are going to end up.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: About Lynne Stewart, it should be pointed out, ladies and gentlemen, that it was George Soros "who poured millions of dollars into the effort to defeat the president, who made a substantial donation to do the defense fund for the radical lawyer Lynne Stewart. According to records filed with the IRS, Soros' foundation, the Open Society Institute gave 20 grand in September of 2002 to the Lynne Stewart defense committee." So the libs are thick in all of this, and there's no other way to describe this other than an outrage, especially when you compare it to some of the other things that are going on in the news today. There's something like six investigations, six FBI raids and investigations involving Curt Weldon? This is a two-and-a-half-year-old investigation. He finds out about it three and a half weeks out of the election. This is the Bush justice department doing this. We're going out of our way to destroy anybody we can over the Mark Foley episode. There's just a lot of head scratching stuff going on out there today, folks, that makes no sense -- and in the meantime this sentence that Lynne Stewart gets is an insult, and you can tell by her reaction to it that it was.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(NRO: Sentencing Day Arrives for Lynne Stewart - Andrew C. McCarthy)
(NY Post: Wrist Slap for Smirk Jerk Terror Attorney)
(WSJ: A lawyer who passed messages to terrorists gets off light)
(NYDN: Terror lawyer off light)
(NYPost: Lynne's Grin)
(NYT: Lawyer, Facing 30 Years, Gets 28 Months, to Dismay of U.S.)
(NYP: We have the first globalized insurgency - Mark Steyn)
*Note: Links to content outside http://www.RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
Aftershocks rattle Hawaii after quake
AP - 26 minutes ago
WAIKOLOA, Hawaii - Frightened and unable to sleep in her posh, ocean-view hotel room after riding out the island's most recent earthquake, Doris Christianson crept out of bed and found a decidedly more down-market place to lay her head. In a note to her husband, Bob, she wrote: "I'm in the car."
my grandson and his wife are supposed to go to hawaii thursday. i wonder if they should go?
SEOUL (AP) — North Korea said Tuesday it considered U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing the country for its nuclear test "a declaration of war," as Japan and South Korea reported the communist nation might be preparing a second explosion.
The North broke two days of silence about the U.N. resolution adopted after its Oct. 9 nuclear test with a statement on the official state news agency, as China warned Pyongyang against stoking tensions.
"The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war" against the North, the statement said. North Korea is known officially as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The chief U.S. nuclear envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said the North's response was "not very helpful."
"I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what the international community feels about its actions," Hill said in Seoul after a meeting with his South Korean and Russian counterparts.
Hill said he could not confirm South Korean and Japanese reports that the North may be preparing another nuclear explosion, but said a second test would force the international community "to respond very clearly."
North Korea "is under the impression that once they make more nuclear tests that somehow we will respect them more," Hill told reporters after a meeting with U.S. and Russian counterparts. "The fact of the matter is that nuclear tests make us respect them less."
In its statement, North Korea said it would not be intimidated.
The communist nation "had remained unfazed in any storm and stress in the past when it had no nuclear weapons," the statement said. "It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state."
Chun Yung-woo, South Korea's top nuclear envoy, dismissed the statement as "the usual rhetoric that they have been using at the time of the adoption of the Security Council resolution."
China has long been one of North Korea's few allies, but relations have frayed in recent months by Pyongyang's missile tests and the nuclear explosion last week.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao warned Pyongyang against aggravating tensions, saying the North should help resolve the situation "through dialogue and consultation instead of taking any actions that may further escalate or worsen the situation."
The United States pressed on with a round of diplomacy in Asia aimed at finding consensus on how to implement U.N. sanctions on the North. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to go to Japan on Wednesday before traveling to South Korea and China.
Hill stressed that the international community should make the North pay a "high price" for its "reckless behavior."
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said his government had "information" about another possible blast, and a senior South Korean official said there were signs that the North could be preparing a second test — but emphasized that it was unlikely to happen immediately.
"We have yet to confirm any imminent signs of a second nuclear test," the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
China, whose support for the measures is key to whether they will have any effect on neighboring North Korea, has begun examining trucks at the North Korean border to comply with new U.N. sanctions endorsed over the weekend.
South Korea has said it would implement the U.N. sanctions, but also has been cautious about allowing sanctions to shake regional stability. Seoul has also indicated that it has no intention of halting key economic projects with the North, despite concerns that they may help fund the North's nuclear and missile programs.
"Sanctions against North Korea should be done in a way that draws North Korea to the dialogue table," South Korean Prime Minister Han Myung-sook said Tuesday, according to Yonhap news agency. "There should never be a way that causes armed clashes."
In Washington, U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte's office said Monday that air samples gathered last week contain radioactive materials that confirm that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion.
In a short statement posted on its website, Negroponte's office also confirmed that the size of the explosion was less than 1 kiloton, a comparatively small nuclear detonation. Each kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tons of TNT.
It was the first official confirmation from the United States that a nuclear detonation took place, as Pyongyang has claimed.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted 10/17/2006 3:14 AM ET
Updated 10/17/2006 9:35 AM ET
i thought north korea was in check by the left wing all these yrs. not...
S. Korea Detects Signs of 2nd Nuclear Test in North (Update2)
Bloomberg - 31 minutes ago
By Meeyoung Song. Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea has detected signs North Korea may be preparing to conduct a second nuclear explosion, after a report said US satellites picked up activity at the site of the country's first test last week.
the weather looks better this week. some rain but little snow.
President Bush: 49% think Bush intentionally misled? get real for iraq was doomed by the dicatorship of saddam one day.
ya know it is the central location to finish up the military move to iran.
this is the worse hypocrites, incompetence, ignorant, propaganda i ever saw by the left wing that i ever saw in my lifetime for political powers.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=14059474
the left wing is way out of sink for many yrs.
i'm glad G.W.B. is still kicking the tires for us. he done 5 great yrs. for all of us.
i pay less taxes do to his tax reforms [temporary though].
old slick gets in all taxes that G.W.B. got for us will be gone for the next 4 yrs.
one opinion isn't always good. need all to voice there words too.
I WOULD WORRY ABOUT WHERE YOU GET YOUR INFORMATION. OUR KIDS ARE DYING BY POISON VACCINES AND LIES AND DU.
kOREA GOT ITS STUFF FROM US.
lEAVE IRAN ALONE.THE SAME LIES GOT US IN IRAQ ARE THE SAME LIES OF IRAN. LEAVE HERO CHAVEZ ALONE NOW. OPEC GO LOOK ON THE BOARD WHO IS THERE
COMMUNITS CHINA HAVE OUR PORTS. GO BACK TO SLEEP LEAVE ME ALONE I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR FOOLISH CRAP
WE WILL INCLUDE ALL WEATHER STORMS , WEATHER DISASTERS HERE. SO IF YOU SEE OR HEAR ABOUT ONE. PLACE IT HERE.
Disclaimer: All information provided in this web site is for informational purposes only. This is not a government site. No contract, either
express or implied, is created between the owner/operator of this site and the public. Every reasonable effort has been made to provide
accurate information; however, the information in this site is not warranted or guaranteed in any way. The owner/operator of this site shall
in no way be deemed responsible for any injury suffered, either directly or indirectly, from the use of this site, or the information contained herein.
OUR THEME:
WE ARE OPEN TO DISCUSSION FOR THE GOOD , THE BAD AND THE UGLY.
http://www.katrina.com
HURRICANE RITA ,,, 9/20/2005
New Phone
Numbers for Help:
Louisiana
State Police
for Emergency Calls
225-922-0325 - 225-922-0332 - 225-922-0333 - 225-922-0334 - 225-922-0335 - 225-922-0340 - 225-922-0341
Mississippi
Emergency Management - 601-352-9100
Louisiana Volunteer
Equipment & Donations
State
225-925-7377
Office of
Emergency
Preparedness
225-925-7500
***NEW INFO ON OFFERING YOUR HELP***
(posted 09.02.05
(2:00 pm ET)
If you are willing to offer your personal vehicles to transport victims, please do not head to disaster locations.
Please contact your local RED CROSS office. They are training and scheduling volunteers.
There is no fuel or power in the hit areas, and not enough parking spaces available. There are trucks trying to enter to
distribute food, water and supplies and they can not even get in to help. Thank you for your wanting to help - but PLEASE
CONTACT THE RED CROSS TO COORDINATE THE EFFORT.
Looking for relatives?
Looking for help?
Share your thoughts and messages here ... Feel free to post your comments here ... please see special note on
MISSING PERSONS link to the right! Thank you!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
May God's richest blessings be upon each of you for your willingness to help those in need.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you. ~Katrina
----------------------------------------------------------------
Below are some links that may interest you.
Governmental Websites for Up-to-date Information
U.S. White House - President Bush has signed disaster declarations for Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama to allow
federal agencies to coordinate all disaster relief efforts with state and local officials. read more.
Alabama Homeland Security
Louisiana Homeland Security
Mississippi Homeland Security
Assistance for Storm Victims
FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Agency
Here's how to get help and what areas are disaster stricken
FEMA Disaster Assistance 1-800-621-3362 / 1-800-462-7585 (TTY)
Charitable organizations recommended by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund - (800) 435-7669
Catholic Charities, USA - (800) 919-9338
Salvation Army - (800) 725-2769
United Methodist Committee On Relief - (800) 554-8583
Other charitable agencies recommended by FEMA
Additional Websites for Missing Persons
http://www.pleasenotifyme.org/ - The National Next Of Kin Registry (NOKR) is a new high-speed solution to locating your Next Of Kin
in urgent situations. NOKR is designed as an emergency contact system to help if you or your family member is missing, injured or
deceased. NOKR is a free service to the public as well as the Local and State agencies using the search service.
http://www.NOLA.com - New Orleans On-line
Weather Tools
National Hurricane Center
The Weather Channel - Hurricane Katrina update
Road Closure Index
Parish Contact Information
Katrina Satellite Imagery - LSU's Earthscan Labs
Shelter Information
Red Cross- 1(866)-GET-INFO (438-4636) - http://www.redcross.org
Special Needs Shelter Information
Triage Phone Numbers:
Alexandria: 800-841-5778 Shreveport: 800-841-5776
Baton Rouge: 800-349-1372 Monroe: 866-280-7287
Houma/Thibodaux: 800-228-9409 Slidell/Hammond: 866-280-7724
Lafayette: 800-901-3210 Lake Charles: 866-280-2711
Equine Shelter/Evacuation Site Information
Locations for Animal Evacuation:
Alexandria - Large & Small 318-442-4222 (all vet clinics will accept)
Lamar Dixon - Gonzales - Large Animals
Shreveport - LSU-S (pets only, no livestock)
West Monroe - Ike Hamilton Coliseum
Louisiana Hotel Information 1-800-99-GUMBO
Special News Releases
Louisiana Governor issues statement to EVACUATE NOW! - August 31, 2005
Community Links and Assistance
www.Cleanupjobs.com
http://www.nhba.com/ - This website is for National Home Buyers Assistance (NHBA) is building financial independence one home at a time
HTTP://www.cajun.ca - Dedicated to some of our Cajun friends ... from way up in Canada
--------------------------------------------------------------
this chart is from teapee where strategic areas are concerned.
http://www.pannexresearch.com/katrina/LAOil.gif
--------------------------------------------------------------
from easymoney101 ,,, 9/23/2005
http://gom.rigzone.com/rita.asp
OUR THEME:
WE ARE OPEN TO DISCUSSION FOR THE GOOD , THE BAD AND THE UGLY.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS FOR OPEN COMMENTS...#msg-7607379
link from Deann: before and after KATRINA.
http://earth.google.com/katrina.html
http://earth.google.com/
links from Id_Jit , help from canada.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/gordonsinclair.htm
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/sinclair.asp
pictures from the katrina disaster area.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index2&cid=1756
by RUliquid,
To offer housing: http://www.hurricanehousing.org/
missing people page >> http://batonrouge.craigslist.org/laf/
Finding loved ones:
http://www.firstgov.gov/Citizen/Topics/PublicSafety/Hurricane_Katrina_Recovery.shtml
http://www.shareyourhome.org/
http://katrinashelter.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=5d292f709e5762799861a5ed201426f8
http://www.bushclintonkatrinafund.org
by 2MAR$, hurricane updates stuff.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2484.htm
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/
by: Susie924,http://www.nola.com/
AMR PLANS ,For complete details and assistance with changing your travel plans, contact our Reservations personnel 1-800-433-7300
or AAdvantage Reservations at 1-800-882-8880 within the United States or Canada.
by peoria
trying for wording replacement for victims of KATRINA.
"Displaced Americans"..?? peoria
by teapee,Here's a link to a fantastic non profit organization that I donated $$$ to for hurricane help
http://www.convoyofhope.org/
Katrina info map http://www.scipionus.com/
latest for KATRINA NEWS , ETC. http://news.yahoo.com/
a political committee that will shape new emergency views/plans.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/bop_9-2.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
by RUliquid
MS river control.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lmrfc/fop/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/new-orleans-imagery.htm
by Burpzilla,
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/locator/locator_search.asp
for images and maps,,,#msg-7615173
by apilgrim2 for the good, the bad, the ugly reads.#msg-7618084
THIS IS FROM CCN , In Katrina’s path: Reported safe
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/hurricanes/list/
FROM FOX TV FOR HELP.
TITLED , U.S. Department of Labor IN THE 21ST. CENTURY.
http://www.dol.gov/
here it is mick BY dbleagl ,,, this is networking
1-866-4-USA-DOL
TTY: 1-877-889-5627
Contact Us
THIS IS A LATE SPECIAL FROM TEAPEE.
Updated Monday, September 05, 2005. 406 front pages from 41 countries presented alphabetically.
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
By kinger13
Link to list of 28 Hurricane Relief Fund’s: http://relieffundlinks.blogspot.com/
FOR PERSONS THAT ARE EXPERIENCING SOME TRAUMA FROM KATRINA.
SEE #842...#msg-7630405
9/7/2005 ,,, this is from teapee for total help from yahoo.
see #916
http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/animal_environ/hurricanes/?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=NEWS
9/7/2005 FROM LG 9/6/2005 ,,, TELLS SOME STORIES.
http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html
9/7/2005 from lobogotti "another hero of mine"
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory2/3334317
9/9/2005 from Merci ,,, see #1072 , #1068 , #1083
now it's inevitable but I wish they (the politicians) would NOT turn this into another political side show..
~ is all about saying the things people want to hear so they don't loose a vote...#msg-7678992
http://investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=7678772
ANSWER FOR BULLDOZER MAN ON TV DOING HELP FOR REPAIRS.
yep... he told us no one would get on it they were afraid because of the hole being so deep ... that was him..
#msg-7679579
from teapee 9/9/2005 ,MISSING PERSONS DATABASE@ 25,000 PLUS -
http://www.nola.com/forums/searching/index.ssf?initial=true
from Biowatch 9/10/2005 , Gulf Coast Scammers Prey on Storm Victims Law Enforcement Braces for More Fraud ,,, #msg-7688942
FROM easymoney101 9/13/2005 WORKING TO FIND THE TRUTH FOR ALL.
#msg-7719939
http://www.tvnewslies.org/
AIDS REVIEWS FOR THOSE OR A FRIEND WITH AIDS.
#msg-7784679 ,,, #message-7784729 ,11/07/2005-#msg-8389146
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/ ,,,
vaccinations? http://www.informedchoice.info/index.php#sp9
11/01/2005 ,,,
CENSUS IMFORMATION FOR ALL FROM EASYMONEY101 , VERY IMPORTANT.
#msg-8327400
FROM BOREALIS see #1391
Hurricane Katrina: The Essential Time Line Willie Drye
for National Geographic News
September 14, 2005 ,,, #msg-7742795
Nov. 18, 2005 ,,,,,,,,Katrina Cost...#msg-8549057
9/7/2005 by The Original dpb5!
Results of the Jerry Lewis Telethon...
http://startribune.com/stories/484/5598067.html
An even nicer article about his efforts here...
http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4931
FROM The Original dpb5!...9/19/2005..excellent info for the DPA's
http://www.dhs.gov ...Department Of Homeland Security and
http://www.fema.gov ...Federal Emergency Management Association
http://www.firstgov.gov/
FROM SARALS ... 9/19/2005 DONATION TO OPRAHS FUND FOR DPA
Katrina Homes Oprah's Angel Network...
http://www2.oprah.com/uyl/katrina/homes/homes_main.jhtml
FROM RULIQUID ,,, TROPICAL STORM WATCH: it is called RITA
see #1564........9/18/2005 ,,, #msg-7788020
FROM MERCI ,,, persons escaping routes. 9/22/2005
RITA - traffic/houston.. 100 yards per hour.. people are running out of gas on the interstate.. man that's so sad ,,,#msg-7847938
FROM BOREALIS ,,, 10/09/2005 --- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/
FROM RIMINI ,,, 9/29/2005 , weather updates
http://www.weather.com/maps/news/septnonactive/atlanticoceansatellite_large.html [other views there too] *08/01/2007 ATLANTIC,ETC.
U.S.A. WEATHER: 08/01/2007
ATLANTIC WEATHER / STORM WATCH FOR HURRICANES: 08/01/2007
TROPICA STORM/HURRICANE ORIGIN/SEPT.21-30[1886-2005]119 YRS./100 STORMS
These Are Rush Da Man Radio Stations State by State.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/menu/rush.guest.html
LIST ALL RUSH STATIONS NATIONWIDE, OR CLICK ON A STATE BELOW
CODEX , possibly a future experiment with a dreams of changing the human race http://www.thebyteshow.com/Library.html ,,,1/15/06
******************************************************************************************************************************************************
"HURRICANE IKE HITS GULF COAST FRIDAY --- 09/12/2008"
FROM MARKETEDGE---
Red Cross to help the disaster victims in U.S.
http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_subsrc=RCO_DonateButton&s_src=F7ZWGR00
Disaster Services & Emergency Assistance
To find a shelter, obtain emergency food, water and other disaster relief, contact your local Red Cross chapter.
Find and contact your local Red Cross chapter
Or call 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767) or 1-800-257-7575 (Español)
Volume | |
Day Range: | |
Bid Price | |
Ask Price | |
Last Trade Time: |