after-words.org

The United States is pressing the 50 countries that banned American beef imports because of mad cow disease to lift the restriction. The Agriculture Department plans to increase ten fold the number of cows it tests each year for the disease.

But that number is still well short of the 100 percent testing requested by Japan, a major market for U.S. beef. In an effort to woo back international customers, Creekstone Farms, a small Kansas meatpacker, has proposed testing all of its beef. Creekstone is proposing to pay for the testing itself, and passing the costs -- as much as $20 per head -- along to its customers. Creekstone Vice President Kevin Pence concedes that it's purely a marketing move. The company's cattle are all under 30 months old, and only cattle older than 30 months are considered at risk for mad cow disease. The import ban on U.S. beef has cost Creekstone some 20 percent of its business. Pence says another year like this would put Creekstone out of business.

A week after federal officials announced plans to increase testing for mad cow disease, two California legislators introduced a bill to require all cattle in the state to be tested for the disease. If passed, SB 1425 could pit California against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is considering whether to allow anyone other than its scientists to test for mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. [...] The measure would require all beef and beef-based meat products sold or processed in California to come from cattle that have tested negative for the brain-wasting disease. It would also require that all cattle slaughtered in the state be tested.

The Department of Agriculture has licensed two rapid tests for use in detecting mad cow disease, known technically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The tests, made by Bio-Rad Laboratories in Hercules, Calif., and Idexx Laboratories in Westbrook, Maine, produce results in four to five hours.

USDA had announced in mid-March that it would for the first time use rapid assays in its BSE testing program, which aims to examine brain tissue from 201,000 to 268,000 slaughtered cattle over a 12- to 18-month period (C&EN, March 22, page 7). USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, as well as NVSL facilities in 25 states, will use the Bio-Rad and Idexx kits for the testing. The program is expected to start in June.

The Bio-Rad kit is the most widely used BSE assay in Europe and is used almost exclusively in Japan to test all its slaughtered animals. The Idexx kit has been submitted to the European Union for approval.

On April 17 1994, Madalena Mukariemeria stepped forward to die. "The killer was a very big man. He had this huge club full of nails and sharp pieces of metal. He was such an expert he could kill with just one blow to the head. I wanted this man to kill me. People had been dying in such terrible ways and he would do it quickly," she says....

In the capital, the bodies were already piling up. The killing began a little slower in Kibuye, isolated to the west among lush, rolling hills on the banks of Lake Kivu. But in time this place would come to be known as the "purest genocide" because of its high concentration of Tutsis, and because - though civil war was its backdrop - that fighting was far away: this was simply a slaughter of civilians.

The first to die in Kibuye was a Tutsi agronomist named Bigirimana. A few days later word reached the church that it was Dr Kayishema who had settled an old score by demanding the man's head. It was skewered on a pole in the middle of the town's only roundabout....

After the slaughter, the church became one of the safest places to hide. The rotting corpses kept the militia at bay and Louis buried himself under the bodies. "At night I would creep down to the lake to drink and eat bananas and sneak back into the church and hide under the bodies before dawn," he says. "On the first night, there were some wounded children in the brush, crying out all night. The crying attracted the interahamwe. They picked up the children and smashed them against the wall."...

Eleven thousand people were murdered in and around Kibuye church on April 17 1994. The next day, Dr Kayishema led the slaughter of about 10,000 people in the town's stadium.

A decade on, Madalena has not changed her view that it would have been better to die under the swinging club ... Madalena's tiny home is decorated with religious pictures even though she refuses to go near the church any more. She gestures at a painting of Christ on the cross. "I believe Jesus was crucified, crucified like the Tutsis." Now 52 years old, she has an open face, bright eyes and a schoolgirl giggle. But her expression switches suddenly to wrenching sadness as she tells how her sister-in-law and a dozen members of her family who survived the slaughter in 1994 were butchered three years later by Hutu militiamen who crossed from Zaire.

Madalena took in six orphans from her extended family, bringing them up alongside her own four children. Almost all the girls and women in the family were raped, and one of the adopted children died of Aids. The others show no signs of HIV but do not know for sure.

Survivor organisations estimate that two-thirds of Tutsi women who were raped are HIV-positive. One-quarter of all Rwandan children are orphans because of the genocide, war and Aids. Nearly one-third of all households in Rwanda are headed by women because so many of the men were killed ...

The government began releasing the genocidaire nearly two years ago. The nation's jail population had swelled to 120,000 and the established court system would have taken more than a century to try them. So the authorities revived a system of traditional courts - gacaca - designed to provide village justice with restitution through community service.

All but the worst killers - those who organised the slaughter, or were particularly noteworthy in the scale or brutality of their atrocities - are eligible for release if they confess their crimes, apologise to the families of their victims and agree restitution. The freed prisoner must also go before the gacaca courts as a witness against other genocidaire....

Pink, which is an identifier for at least one street gang and is one of this season's hot fashion colors, is out for the remainder of the year in Merrillville schools.

Associate Superintendent Michael Berta confirmed Monday that students at Merrillville High School were told in a message over the intercom system last week that they will not be allowed to wear pink clothing or accessories. Students at Pierce Middle School and Merrillville Intermediate School seen wearing pink were told by school officials to avoid the color, although no schoolwide announcements were made there.

Although Merrillville High School Principal Mark Sperling didn't state why in addressing students, the underlying reason is that pink has been associated with street gangs, Berta said.

ED BRADLEY:
The secretary of state, defense, the director of the CIA, have all testified in public under oath before the commission. If - if you can talk to us and other news programs, why can't you talk to the commission in public and under oath?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify. I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle here ... it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.

Rice Defends Refusal To Testify (Washington Post, March 29, 2004, page A01, registration required): National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, at the center of a controversy over her refusal to testify before the Sept. 11 commission, yesterday renewed her determination not to give public testimony and said she could not list anything she wished she had done differently in the months before the 2001 terrorist attacks. [...] Rice gave no ground on the administration's decision that she will not appear in public before the panel or testify under oath because Bush officials believe doing so would compromise the constitutional powers of the executive branch. The renewed refusal came despite the panel's unanimous plea for her testimony. [...] Two Republican officials, who declined to be identified because they are not supposed to talk to reporters, said White House aides are discussing ways they could compromise with the commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, perhaps by agreeing to the declassification of Rice's private testimony. "That would show people that she is cooperating, and make it clear that her testimony is consistent with her public pronouncements," one official said. "That would help our credibility."

Jury selection starts in transgender murder (CNN.com, March 15, 2004): The gruesome evidence, the brutal injuries -- David Guerrero dreads hearing of these at the trial of the three men accused of killing his sister's child, Eddie "Gwen" Araujo. But he'll be there when jury selection begins Monday, part of his family's quiet but determined effort to make sure that Araujo -- and the thousands of other transgender people living under the threat of violence -- aren't forgotten. "That's what keeps me going," says Guerrero. "That's going to be my form of justice." [...] The Guerreros' ordeal began October 3 when Araujo, who had been dressing as a woman for some time, went out to meet friends at a party and did not return. Two weeks later, Jaron Nabors, one of the young men who had been at the party, led police to her body. Nabors later testified against his friends at a preliminary hearing last year in exchange for being allowed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The three remaining defendants are Michael William Magidson, Jose Antonio Merel and Jason Michael Cazares, who face 29 years to life in prison if convicted of the murder, which was charged as a hate crime.

According to Nabors, the story began in the summer of 2002 when the four defendants met the pretty, flirtatious girl they knew as Lida. Merel and Magidson later had sexual contact with Lida, according to Nabors, growing suspicious about her gender after they began comparing notes about the encounters. On October 3, the four confronted Lida at Merel's house, shouting "Are you a man or a woman?" and sending a woman friend into the bathroom with her to find out.

Then the beating began. Araujo begged for mercy, saying "No! Please don't. I have a family." She was struck in the head with a skillet, punched and choked, Nabors said. She took a blow to the face so hard her head crashed into the wall, leaving an indentation. She was tied up, wrapped in a blanket and dragged into the garage to keep blood from getting on the carpet. Nabors said he did not see what happened next, but he said one of his friends later told him he had strangled Araujo, and another admitted hitting her twice over the head with a shovel to make sure she was dead.

Oakland Tribune Online - Defense is hinting at heat-of-passion claim (Wednesday, March 24, 2004)

Attorneys for three men charged with killing a transgender Newark teen offered hints of potential trial strategies as they questioned prospective jurors Tuesday. In his line of questioning, Michael Thorman, attorney for defendant Michael Magidson, suggested he ultimately could ask a jury to decide whether the killing was in fact a manslaughter -- a killing committed during a heat of passion -- rather than premeditated first-degree murder. He made a similar argument at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing in the case in March 2003.

Magidson, 23, and Jason Cazares and Jose Merel, both 24, are charged with murder and a hate-crime enhancement in the slaying of the teenager, who was beaten and strangled in a Newark home Oct. 3, 2002, according to testimony at the preliminary hearing.

The slaying occurred after the men learned that a young woman they knew as Lida was biologically male, according to the earlier court. Magidson and Merel allegedly had oral and anal sex with the victim, who was born Eddie Araujo but had been living as a young woman named Gwen at the time of the fatal encounter. [...] One query Tuesday to a juror tentatively assigned the seventh seat in the jury box captured the essence of Serra's questions to many others: "Do you feel that you would have such an emotional reaction to that sexual deception, that somehow it would put you in a state of mind where you couldn't be, one, rational, two, follow the law, and three, utterly fair and impartial to both sides?"

[...] In his questions, Thorman reminded potential jurors that the law allows them, when evaluating an unlawful, intentional killing, to consider, for example, whether the slaying was done in a "rage," a factor the attorney said could mitigate culpability.

One juror said the concept was "hard to swallow."

"Do you feel that, based on your state of mind, that if we came down to the question of murder vs. manslaughter that you could not give a fair trial to Mr. Magidson?" Thorman asked.

"It would be very hard," said the woman, who later was excused.

gfn.com - Spotlight News: As War Continues Gay Discharges Plummet

The number of gay men and lesbians dismissed from the military under the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has dropped to its lowest level in nine years, according to a report by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, or SLDN, a gay military advocacy group.

Last year, the military discharged 787 gay men and lesbians, a figure that marks a 17 percent decrease from 2002, and a 39 percent drop from 2001, according to the SLDN.

A Muslim chaplain once suspected of being part of an espionage ring at the Guantanamo Bay prison has been found guilty of two minor charges, prompting his lawyer to call him the victim of a "drive-by act of legal violence.'' Capt. James Yee, 35, was issued a reprimand Monday during an Article 15 proceeding, used by the Army to settle minor disciplinary issues. In such proceedings, a finding of guilt does not result in a criminal conviction. The commanding officer at the Guantanamo Bay base, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, found Yee guilty of two violations of military law - adultery and improperly downloading pornography onto an Army computer. Miller had the option of imposing 30 days' arrest in quarters, 60 days on restriction and a loss of one-half of a month's pay for a maximum of two months. He issued only a reprimand. Yee said he will appeal.

Hiibel Thumpers - The Supreme Court is suspicious. By Dahlia Lithwick: The Supreme Court hears oral argument this morning in the "drunken cowboy" case, a privacy dispute that has the conspiracy nuts in a tailspin and me in trouble with my Civil Procedure professor. The issue in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada is variously described by the amicus briefs and the editorialists as whether the police have the right to demand your "papers"; mandate national identity cards; and impede ordinary citizens' freedom to roam free. But as the justices on the Supreme Court weigh in today, it's clear most of them don't see the case this way. One after another dismisses the national ID card debate as not at issue here. One after another suggests -- and to a rather frightening degree, at times -- that this case has nothing to do with innocent people, or ordinary people. This case has to do with "suspicious" people, and -- as you were no doubt aware -- suspicious people are not like you or me.

We all seem to want to live in the world inhabited by most of the justices: where our names are private, and no one needs to incriminate themselves -- unless some policeman decides they are suspicious. Then, there is a duty, a responsibility, a constitution-negating requirement that you come forward -- to use Scalia's formulation -- and cooperate. This idea that the "suspicious people" (read: dark-skinned, poor, urban etc.) have some heightened duty to cooperate with the police is utterly backward, in light of the police's historical treatment of them. It's a shame Justice Clarence Thomas doesn't speak today. One can imagine that he has at least some idea of what it means to hold "suspicious" people to a different constitutional standard.

The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature. The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

3 Mepham players sue over assaults (NY Newsday, March 17, 2004)

Three high school football players sexually assaulted at a team training camp last summer filed negligence lawsuits Wednesday against the school, administrators, its football coaches and the three assailants and their parents. The lawsuits, which seek unspecified damages, were filed in state Supreme Court in Mineola, the plaintiffs' lawyers said at a news conference. The lawsuits follow last week's release of a Wayne County, Pa., grand jury report that criticized Mepham High School's football coaches, but found no basis for filing criminal charges against them.

Text of Wayne County grand jury's Mepham report (NY Newsday, March 10, 2004)

The Wayne County Investigative Grand Jury received evidence regarding the crimes committed in Preston Township, Waync County, Pennsylvauia, between the days of August 22 and August 27, 2003. The evidence included credible evidence that certain upperclassmen from the Mcpham High School, Long Island, New York, football team assaulted some of the younger members of the team. The entire team of 68 students was attending a football camp at Camp Wayne for Girls in Wayne County at that time. The team was chaperoned by five adult coaches. [...] The three perpetrators started their activities the first night of the camp by taping one of the young victims to his bed. They then required him to go to the adjoining cabin and put powder and gel in the hair of another underclassman. The next day two of the perpetrators hold down one another of the victims across his bed while the third assaulted him by sticking a broomstick coated with Mineral ice in his anus. This activity was conducted in front of other players who laughed and joked about it.

The assault by broomstick coated with Mineral Ice was repeated the next day on the same victim, but only after the 16 and 17 year old perpetrators had applied duct tape to the victim's legs, eyebrows, butt and pubic area and pulled it off slowly causing a great deal of pain. All of these actions were again witnessed by other players. The older players laughed but the younger players did not. Three different younger players were assaulted by having foreign objects inserted into their anuses by these young men. The objects which were used in the assaults were broomsticks and pine cones coated with Mineral Ice and in one instance a golf ball was inserted and then pushed in further using the broomstick as a ramming instrument. Two of the players endured these assaults more than once and were forced to actually commit the assaults on each other in front of others by the bullying of the older players. These two players were assaulted to various degrees daily starting on the second day of camp.

The two underclassmen were made to suffer further pain and humiliation by the perpetrators throughout the week at camp. One day they were forced to put Mineral Ice on their testicles and then alternately kicking each other in that sensitive area of the anatomy.

After the one underclassman had removed the golf ball from his rear, the other young player was required to put it in his mouth and was not told where it had been until after he had complied. The bullies then made him take the first underclassman's toothbrush and stick it in his anus. When the first underclassman returned to the room after cleaning himself from golf ball assault, he was made to brush his teeth using the toothbrush. [...] The Grand Jury is convinced based upon the evidence before it that if two of the victims had not required medical treatment for the injuries they sustained at camp within a few days after returning home, these crimes would not have been reported. Accordingly, the Grand Jury is also convinced that the coaches had no knowledge of there crimes and other activities until after the team had returned to New York and the victims sought medical attention.

The Grand Jury was asked to consider whether criminal charges should be brought in Pennsylvania relative to the coaches' acts or failures to act. In that regard the Grand Jury has reviewed the evidence before it in light of the crimes of Endangcring the Welfare of Children (18 Pa.C.S. Section 4304) and Recklessly Endangering Another Person (18 Pa.C.S. Section 2705).

After thoroughly examining the elements of those crimes and the evidence presented, the Grand Jury finds no basis for charging the coaches with either or both of these crimes. By legal definition the coaches acted neither knowingly nor recklessly with regards to the elements of these offenses. Their decision to place no coach or adult in any of the players' cabins and instead have a senior in charge of each cabin can certainly be viewed as ill-advised in hindsight or even negligent, but it does not suffice for criminal charges. It is unfortunately abundantly clear that the coaches did not know that the crimes committed by their players were being perpetrated...

Wiese and Bruder, he said, "understand it would be difficult to return to the NYPD, but they just wanted to be treated fairly." [...] Bruder and Wiese were convicted in 2000 of obstruction of justice in perhaps the most notorious brutality case in the department's history. [...] The obstruction charges against Wiese and Bruder involved statements claiming that Schwarz did not participate in the bathroom assault. A federal appeals court overturned their convictions on Feb. 28, 2002, ruling that their statements did not adversely affect the sitting grand jury.

"It is critical to note that petitioners were not found guilty of any of the violence perpetrated upon Mr. Louima in the station house bathroom," the motion reads. "Nor were petitioners ever charged with taking any part in that bathroom attack."

Observations show it measures about 1,180-2,360km (730-1,470 miles) across, making it similar in size to Pluto. Astronomers now say that Sedna may have its own moon, although this needs to be confirmed, and it is also very red in colour and shiny in texture. There is likely to be some debate about whether it qualifies as a true planet, but some scientists are already saying it re-defines our Solar System.

CNN.com - Justice: Officials kept 9/11 souvenirs - Mar 12, 2004: The Justice Department investigation that criticized FBI agents for taking souvenirs from the World Trade Center site also found that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a high-ranking FBI official kept items from the September 11 attack scenes.

The final investigatory report said the Justice Department inspector general confirmed Rumsfeld "has a piece of the airplane that flew into the Pentagon." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report Friday. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday night that Rumsfeld has a shard of metal from the jetliner that struck the Pentagon on a table in his office and shows it to people as a reminder of the tragedy Pentagon workers shared on September 11, 2001. "He doesn't consider it his own," Di Rita said, adding the piece is on display for the Pentagon. "We are mindful of the fact that if somebody has an evidentiary requirement to have this shard of metal, we will provide it to them."

...The Justice Department investigation also collected testimony that Pasquale D'Amuro, FBI Director Robert Mueller's executive assistant director for terrorism until last summer, asked a supervisory agent to "obtain a half dozen items from the WTC debris so the items could be given to dignitaries." Six items -- none needed as evidence -- were gathered and sent to D'Amuro, the report said.

The report also divulged that FBI agents' removal of items like a Tiffany crystal globe from the World Trade Center rubble gutted a criminal case the bureau was building against a Minnesota contractor that had taken a fire truck door from the same rubble. Prosecutors told the FBI they "might not indict the crime regarding the fire truck door due to government misconduct involving the Tiffany globe," the report said. [...] The Justice Department's report has not been officially released, but heavily deleted versions of the report began circulating around Washington last month showing 13 FBI agents had taken rubble, debris and items such as flags and a Tiffany crystal globe paperweight. The bureau announced it was banning agents from taking items from crimes scenes, but no agents were being charged with crimes because the bureau did not have such a policy during the September 11 investigation.

The report stated FBI agents who worked in New York repeatedly expressed their disgust that visiting agents and supervisors would seek souvenirs from the terrorist attacks. Many interviewed regarded the debris as sacred, the report stated, "and were disgusted by the fact that anyone would want to take items, including pieces of the building which were contaminated with blood and human body parts." The report discloses that among the items taken, agents had cut World Trade Center security patches from the sleeves of shirt pieces found in the rubble.

H. R. 3920
To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 9, 2004
Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky (for himself, Mr. DEMINT, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. POMBO, Mr. COBLE, Mr. COLLINS, Mr. GOODE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. HEFLEY, Mr. DOOLITTLE, and Mr. KINGSTON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Rules, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL
To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004’’.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL REVERSAL OF SUPREME COURT JUDGMENTS.
The Congress may, if two thirds of each House agree, reverse a judgment of the United States Supreme Court—
(1) if that judgment is handed down after the date of the enactment of this Act; and
(2) to the extent that judgment concerns the constitutionality of an Act of Congress.

SEC. 3. PROCEDURE.
The procedure for reversing a judgment under section 2 shall be, as near as may be and consistent with the authority of each House of Congress to adopt its own rules of proceeding, the same as that used for considering whether or not to override a veto of legislation by the President.

SEC. 4. BASIS FOR ENACTMENT.
This Act is enacted pursuant to the power of Congress under article III, section 2, of the Constitution of the United States.

HTML version at THOMAS
Adobe Acrobat/PDF version

$5 million settlement reached in Texas lawsuit that disbands discredited drug task force (SFgate.com, March 11, 2004)

More than 40 people snared in a now-discredited drug sting in the Texas Panhandle town of Tulia will share $5 million as part of a settlement, an attorney for the plaintiffs said. The agreement with the nearby city of Amarillo, announced Wednesday, also ends the multiagency task force that ran the sting operation. It was cheered by the NAACP and attorneys representing those arrested in what many believe was a racially motivated operation.

"The settlement that was reached is truly historic," attorney Jeff Blackburn told The Associated Press. "It represents the first example of a responsible city government putting an end to irresponsible task force system of narcotics enforcement." [...] All but one of the 46 people arrested -- most of them black -- will receive some portion of the $5 million. The person not included is deceased. A claims administrator will divide the funds. [...] Mediation is ongoing with others named in the lawsuit -- 26 counties and three cities that were involved with the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force. Swisher County officials earlier approved a $250,000 settlement for those imprisoned based on Coleman's testimony in exchange for the defendants promising not to sue the county. Coleman no longer is an officer.

$5 million settlement reached over Tulia drug bust (Houston Chronicle, March 11, 2004): Plaintiffs in a civil-rights lawsuit settled for $5 million involving a now-discredited drug bust accomplished their goal of dismantling the task force they say targeted blacks, the attorney for the two women who filed the lawsuit said today. "There's no amount of money that could ever compensate the people in Tulia," said attorney Jeff Blackburn at a news conference announcing the settlement. "In our view this was a whole systemic failure." [...] One defendant died before going to trial and is not included in the settlement, Blackburn said. A claims administrator will determine how the funds will be apportioned, taking into account factors like the amount of jail time served. [...] The women's suit was filed Aug. 22, the same day Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35 prosecuted in the Tulia cases. Those 35 defendants spent a combined 80 years in jail.

Bush appointee resigns over marriage issue (Washington Blade Online, Friday, March 05, 2004)

A New York City real estate developer who became one of President Bush's most visible openly gay appointees resigned in protest last week from his post as vice chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts after the president endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

"In light of the president's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, I could no longer continue serving the administration, given the impact of that proposed amendment on me and my family, should it ever become law," Donald A. Capoccia said.

Capoccia, president of the Manhattan-based BFC Construction Corp., has been a longtime Republican Party contributor and a strong supporter of the Log Cabin Republicans, a national gay GOP group with chapters in New York and other states. Capoccia also serves as co-chair of the Republican Unity Coalition, which bills itself as a gay-straight alliance of Republican Party leaders who favor equal rights for gays.

... Gay Republican activist David Greer said he intends to remain in his post as Bush administration appointee to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. But Greer said he would speak out strongly against the Federal Marriage Amendment. He predicted Bush would be hurt rather than helped in the upcoming election because of his call for a constitutional amendment.

Greer, as president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Philadelphia in 2000, helped organize a gay host committee to welcome Bush and the GOP leaders to that city, where the 2000 Republican National Convention was held. Greer and Capoccia were both members of the so-called “Austin 12” gay GOP activists who met with Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign.

Now, four years later, Greer said, the president’s endorsement of the FMA has effectively ended gay support for Bush and would most likely result in a near “wipe out” of the 1 million gay votes that Bush received in the 2000 election. “For myself, this is a line in the sand that can’t be crossed,” Greer said. “Any gay Republican who says this is no big deal, that the amendment can’t be passed, is being disingenuous.” Added Greer, “If there is one reason for gay Republicans to exist, it is this one moment in time. We must stand up and say this is wrong for this party and this is wrong for this president.”

Sources: PM drops option of moving Gaza settlers to W. Bank (Haaretz - Israel News, 06/03/2004 18:44): Political sources said Friday that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a concession to the United States, had dropped the option of moving settlers from Gaza Strip settlements to the West Bank, an idea that had enraged Palestinians. Also Friday, security sources said that, bowing to White House pressure Israel intends to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November before uprooting the Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Subpoenas for White House (Newsday.com, March 5, 2004).

The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July, according to documents obtained by Newsday. Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets. [...] The subpoenas required the White House to produce the documents in three stages - the first on Jan. 30, a second on Feb. 4 and the third on Feb. 6 - even as White House aides began appearing before the grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C.

The subpoena with the first production deadline sought three sets of documents. It requested records of telephone calls to and from Air Force One from July 7 to 12, while Bush was visting several nations in Africa. The White House declined yesterday to release a list of those on the trip.

Rebels rolled into the capital Monday and were met by hundreds of residents dancing in the streets and cheering the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The United States denied allegations Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. forces eager for him to resign and be spirited into exile. Most of the 150 U.S. Marines who arrived Sunday night were at the capital's airport, some doing overflights in a helicopter. Some of the 50 Marines who arrived last week drove cautiously along the waterfront road, and pedestrians raised their hands in fright and surprise upon seeing them.

.... Randall Robinson, former president of TransAfrica monitoring group, said the former Haitian president told him in a phone call that he was abducted from Haiti by U.S. troops who accompanied him on a flight to the Central African Republic. "He asked that I tell the word that it is a coup," Robinson said in a statement. "That he was abducted by American soldiers and put aboard a plan, told to make no phone calls to anyone, put aboard a plane with his sister's husband and his wife."

Secretary of State Colin Powell called those allegations "absolutely baseless, absurd." "He was not kidnapped," Powell told a news conference.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added that "the idea that someone was abducted is inconsistent with everything I saw."

Aristide and his wife arrived in the Central African Republic for what will be at least temporary asylum, said Communications Minister Parfait Mbaye. Aristide's departure was secured by U.S. forces at his request, U.S. officials said. Haiti's first democratically elected president, who was pressured to leave by the United States and the rebels, would travel next to South Africa, according to state radio and a senior Caribbean Community official.

Haiti Destabilization by the Book: George W. Bush just got another scalp, this time that of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected leader of Haiti whom Bush helped topple over the weekend.

Aristide was no angel, but this has all the earmarks of a successful U.S. destabilization campaign.

First, the Bush Administration strangled Haiti's economy by blocking U.S. foreign aid and pressuring other countries and the World Bank not to give aid. For this poorest country in the hemisphere, such an aid embargo proved devastating.

Second, it is likely that rightwing members of the Administration, perhaps along with CIA officers, gave support to the rebels.

Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., told ABC that some of the rebels have had ties with U.S. intelligence agencies.

According to The New York Times, several of the rebels had been part of the Haitian death squad FRAPH, which was funded by the CIA in the early 1990s.

Congressman Jim McDermott - Representing Washington State's 7th Congressional District - Speeches

Regarding Justice Scalia's Refusal to Recuse Himself From Hearing Case Concerning the Vice President

House of Representatives - February 25, 2004

Mr. Speaker, the President's presidential prayer team is urging us to "pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles.''

With that in mind, I thought I would remind the body of the biblical principles they are talking about.

Marriage shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. That is from Genesis 29:17-28.

Secondly, marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. That is II Samuel 5:13 and II Chronicles 11:21.

A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. That is Deuteronomy 22:13.

Marriage of a believer and a nonbeliever shall be forbidden. That is Genesis 24:3.

Finally, it says that since there is no law that can change things, divorce is not possible, and finally, if a married man dies, his brother has to marry his sister-in-law.

Wired News: S.F.: If You're Asked, Don't Tell

Following a nationwide backlash by municipalities against the USA Patriot Act, San Francisco will present voters with a ballot measure that proponents say will protect city residents from federal snooping. Proposition E, which is slated for vote in California's March 2 primary election, would authorize the Board of Supervisors -- instead of individual city workers -- to respond to federal requests for San Franciscans' private records. [...] San Francisco's Proposition E would allow the Board of Supervisors -- which sponsored the measure -- to review federal subpoenas for violations of residents' civil rights, said the measure's sponsor, Supervisor Jake McGoldrick. "This will protect people's privacy in a direct way," said McGoldrick. "If we get orders from the Bush-Cheney-Ashcroft regime we'll be able to see if any kind of profiling or abuse is being committed." He said the city attorney would fight any federal order that showed evidence of violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Justice Department has pooh-poohed these local measures, saying they're based on erroneous information and legally inconsequential. "Federal law trumps local laws when it comes to federal issues," said department spokesman Mark Corallo, who dismissed San Francisco's Prop E as political grandstanding. "There's nothing in the Patriot Act that allows racial profiling and nothing in federal law that allows racial profiling," he said. "But why should the Board let the facts get in the way of a good piece of rhetoric?"