The Chicago Tribune
Polar Bears Face New Toxic Threat: Flame Retardants
By Marla Cone
Times Staff Writer
Published January 9, 2006
Already imperiled by melting ice and a brew of toxic chemicals, polar bears throughout the Arctic, particularly in remote dens near the North Pole, face an additional threat as flame retardants originating largely in the United States are building up in their bodies, according to an international team of wildlife scientists.
The flame retardants are one of the newest additions to hundreds of industrial compounds and pesticides carried to the Arctic by northbound winds and ocean currents. Accumulating in the fatty tissues of animals, many chemicals grow more concentrated as larger creatures eat smaller ones, turning the Arctic's top predators and native people into some of the most contaminated living organisms on Earth.
In urban areas, particularly in North America, researchers already have shown that levels of flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyls, or PBDEs, are growing at a rapid pace in people and wildlife. Although they have been found in much lower concentrations in the Arctic, scientists say their toxic legacy will persist there for years because they are slow to break down, particularly in cold climates.
In polar bears, the effects are unknown. But in tests on laboratory animals, PBDEs disrupted thyroid and sex hormones and damaged developing brains, impairing motor skills and mental abilities, including memory and learning.
Scientists say that other industrial chemicals with properties similar to PBDEs are already weakening the bears' immune systems, altering their bone structure, skewing their sex hormones and perhaps even causing small numbers of hermaphroditic bears.
What remains uncertain, however, is whether those physiological changes are killing bears or reducing their populations. Some experts suspect that many cubs, which are contaminated by their mother's milk, are not surviving.
An even more immediate threat to the world's 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears is global climate change, which is melting their hunting grounds. Bears in Canada's western Hudson Bay — the most well-researched population — declined from 1,100 in 1995 to fewer than 950 in 2004. In Alaska, wildlife biologists for the first time have documented that polar bears are drowning. Scientists predict that some populations could become extinct by the end of the century as more sea ice melts.
Derek Muir of Canada's National Water Research Institute, who led the new research, said the geographical patterns in contamination suggest that the East Coast of North America and northwestern Europe are the primary sources of the flame retardants.
The most highly contaminated bears are in eastern Greenland and Norway's Svalbard islands, where the chemicals are about 10 times more concentrated than in bears in Alaska and four times more than in Canada, according to new research published in December in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
A major denning area, Svalbard is a national refuge where hunting is prohibited, but scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute say its bear population is not thriving, and older females aren't producing cubs.
The team of scientists from Canada, Norway, Denmark and Alaska, who tested 139 bears captured in 10 locations, found that some brominated flame retardants magnify from prey to predator at an extraordinary rate. One compound was 71 times more concentrated in polar bears than in ringed seals, their major food source.
Manufacturing industries in the United States use large volumes of PBDEs in furniture, carpet padding, electronics and plastics. The most abundant PBDE in the bears comes from a compound called penta, used primarily in North America to make foam furniture cushions fire-resistant.
The only U.S. manufacturer of penta and another PBDE called octa ended their production in 2004 after the compounds began building up in human breast milk and Europe and California banned their use. Yet stockpiles remain, as well as products that contain penta, octa and other flame retardants, so the chemicals are still hitchhiking to the Arctic on northbound winds.
Michael Ikonomou of Canada's Institute of Ocean Sciences reported some good news last year. Although the flame retardants had been doubling every four to five years in Arctic ringed seals from 1981 to 2000, they have stabilized as the bans on the two compounds go into effect. Muir said he expects "a quick downturn" in the polar bear levels as factories stop using stockpiles. He warned, however, that other industrial chemicals are starting to turn up in Arctic creatures.
The geographical patterns of the flame retardants mirror those of a much older contaminant — PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. Although banned by industrialized nations in the 1970s, PCBs persist in the environment for decades, and remain the most abundant and worrisome contaminant in polar bears, particularly in the Norwegian and Russian Arctic.
Muir, who has been documenting Arctic wildlife contamination for 20 years, said the flame retardants probably are coming from the same areas as PCBs and arriving in the Arctic via the same pathways — primarily northbound winds blowing chemicals across the Atlantic from the United States, Canada and northern Europe.
If the chemicals were originating in Asia, contamination would be higher in the Alaskan bears.
In June in Seattle, 40 wildlife scientists representing all five nations that contain polar bear populations adopted a resolution declaring that the bears are "susceptible to the effects of pollutants," and those effects could be worsened by the stresses of global warming. They agreed that chemicals probably are causing diseases and changes in the tissues, organs and bone density of bears in eastern Greenland. Denmark, which owns the self-governed territory of Greenland, was chosen to coordinate a circumpolar study of the role of pollution in harming bears' vital organs and other bodily systems.
Geir Gabrielsen, the Norwegian Polar Institute's director of research on the environmental impacts of toxic chemicals, said all the industrial compounds and pesticides probably combine to alter the physiology of polar bears as well as Arctic seabirds. Glaucous gulls in Svalbard have shown signs of reproductive, behavioral and developmental stress, perhaps from PCBs and other contaminants that alter their thyroid hormones. Chemical loads are also high in Arctic foxes and whales.
"PCBs, pesticides, brominated and fluorinated compounds are the greatest threat to top predators in the Svalbard area," he said.
Virtually every animal and person tested on Earth contains traces of brominated flame retardants, scientists say. Americans have the highest levels found so far, and many U.S. women carry concentrations in their breast milk that are close to the amounts that altered the brains of newborn mice in lab tests.
Marine mammals in North America's urbanized areas, particularly killer whales and belugas, are 100 times more contaminated with PBDEs than Arctic creatures. Canada's polar bears, however, contain more than the nation's grizzly bears because their diet is almost entirely meat, particularly fatty meat that builds up chemicals. Killer whales have the highest concentrations in the Arctic.
In addition to the brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds used to manufacture Teflon and formerly used in Scotchgard have been detected in polar bears in Greenland, Canada and Alaska, and a PBDE compound called deca, used in large volumes in electronics, is in the blood of Svalbard bears.
The new study also detected another flame retardant used in building materials and household furnishings, called HBCD, or hexabromocyclododecane, in Arctic bears. Chemists had thought it had a low potential to migrate long distances but now believe it is spreading globally.
"It is a chemical that needs to be watched," Muir said, "because it does biomagnify in the aquatic food webs and appears to be a widespread pollutant."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-me-polarbears9jan09,1,3685362.story?coll=chi-homepagenews-utl
1 stolen wallet, $412,000 in hole
Identity thieves cash in on 3 phony mortgages
By David Jackson
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 8, 2006
Second City student improv performer Meghan Ross took all the obvious steps when her wallet was snatched in a crowded bar three years ago.
Grabbing a cell phone, the 22-year-old canceled her credit cards and filed a police report. She woke her mother for advice.
She made follow-up inquiries over the next few days, then figured the ordeal was over, costing her the $40 in cash she lost.
Sixteen months later, in April 2004, a private detective tracked down Ross' parents and handed them a sheaf of court papers. Ross was being sued by giant lending companies based in New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601080284jan08,1,3690656.story
Church's archives not the only black history records at risk
Published January 9, 2006
In 1993 a national conference of archivists convened at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss. One of the topics of discussion was how to persuade African-American church leaders to do a better job documenting their church's history.
Archivists were concerned that historians wanting to chronicle the role of the black church in American society long had been hampered because church records often weren't properly stored or readily accessible.
Among the archivists attending the conference were representatives from some of the country's most esteemed repositories of black history and culture: Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New Orleans' Amistad Research Center and Chicago's Harsh Research Collection at the Woodson Regional Library on the South Side.
Michael Flug, senior archivist at Harsh, said he and his colleagues began telling stories detailing how they had visited churches and found boxes of valuable photographs, programs, souvenir booklets and handwritten sheet music that were in poor condition.
They had found old records that included the minutes of meetings and oral history tapes in varying states of disrepair. Much of it had been shunted into the alcoves of church basements and forgotten.
Church officials often had far
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0601090118jan09,1,3083450.column?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
For those of us missing the hearings on Alito, Mike provides the C-Span link:
"In an era when the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling."
http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Current_Event&Code=SCourt&ShowVidNum=57&Rot_Cat_CD=SCourt&Rot_HT=&Rot_WD=&ShowVidDays=365&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=365
Christian conservatives rally for Judge Alito
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Christian conservative leader Rev. Jerry Falwell said on Sunday that confirming Federal Appeals Court judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court would be the biggest victory for his constituency in three decades.
"What we've worked on for 30 years, to mobilize people of faith and value in this country, what we've done through these years is coming to culmination right now," Falwell said at a rally on the eve of Alito's confirmation hearing.
"Now we're looking at what we really started on 30 years ago, reconstruction of a court system gone awry," Falwell said at a rally at a Baptist church in Philadelphia and broadcast on Christian radio and television.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5459
Suicide attack at Interior Ministry kills 29
Deadly four-day period also claims lives of 28 American troops in Iraq
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two suicide bombers wearing police uniforms and holding security passes tried to attack National Police Day celebrations Monday, with police shooting one to death and the other exploding his vest, killing 29 people, authorities said. The U.S. ambassador and Iraq’s interior and defense ministers were in attendance but far from the attacks.
An Internet site known for publishing extremist material from al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi carried a claim of responsibility for the attack, saying it was in revenge for the alleged torture of Sunni prisoners at an Interior Ministry facility. The text of the entire statement was not available.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5463
THE FORGETFUL PRESIDENT
Did George meet Jack?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I said it's possible that they would have met at a holiday reception or some other widely attended gathering. The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him.
Maybe this will refresh his memory...
May 9, 2001: At the meeting, Bush made some general comments about Indian policy but did not discuss Indian gaming. Abramoff was at the meeting—for which he charged the Coushatta Tribe $25,000.
WHO IS LESS CONSCIOUS, GEORGE OR SHARON?
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon showed the first tangible signs of improvement Monday - moving his right hand and right leg in response to pain stimulation, and sporadically breathing on his own - after doctors began reducing the medication that's kept him anesthetized and on a ventilator...
Last week, George didn't sound too hopeful, describing Sharon in past tense as "...a man who cared deeply about the security of the Israeli people and a man who had a vision for peace. May God bless him."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=580
New York Times Journalist Killed in D.C.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Veteran New York Times journalist David E. Rosenbaum, 63, died Sunday evening from injuries suffered in a street robbery while walking near his home two nights earlier, police said.
He had undergone surgery Saturday at Howard University Hospital in an effort to relieve pressure on his brain, said his brother, Marcus Rosenbaum.
Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile said police found Rosenbaum after being called to the scene about 9:20 p.m. Friday and that the victim's wallet was missing.
He said police are investigating a report that two men were seen leaving the area in a dark-colored vehicle.
"He wanted some fresh air and decided to take a walk," Rosenbaum's brother, Marcus Rosenbaum, told The Washington Post. He said his brother was found by a neighbor who called 911 and waited with him until help arrived.
Marcus Rosenbaum said a credit card company had called his brother's home Saturday morning and reported that someone had been trying to use one of his credit cards.
A graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University, Rosenbaum grew up in Tampa, Fla., and worked for The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, a chain of suburban newspapers in London and Congressional Quarterly in Washington before joining the Times bureau in Washington in 1968.
Except for a three-year stint as a special projects editor in New York in the early 1980s, Rosenbaum spent the remainder of his career with the Times' Washington bureau in a wide range of reporting and editing positions.
He shared the 1990 George Polk Award for National Reporting with a fellow Times reporter for their coverage of federal budget battles.
Rosenbaum's survivors include his wife, Virginia, and two grown children who also live in the Washington area.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5450
Charge dropped in Marine training death
(Parris Island-AP) January 5, 2006 - A military judge has dropped a charge of failing to obey orders against a Marine swim instructor in the death of a recruit at Parris Island last year.
Staff Sgt. Nadya Lopez still faces a charge of negligent homicide in the death of recruit Jason Tharp last February, said Maj. Guillermo Canedo, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot at Parris Island.
A military judge last month granted a defense motion to dismiss the failure to obey orders charge and to delay the court-martial until February 27th, Canedo said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5458
Arcata City Council calls for Bush impeachment
By Kimberly Wear / Eureka Times-Standard
ARCATA -- A split City Council passed a resolution demanding the impeachment or resignation of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, citing violations of international and constitutional law.
The White House responded that the president “remains focused on the business the American people elected him to conduct.”
The resolution lists a series of allegedly impeachable offenses, including “the crime of misleading the American people and Congress into waging an unnecessary and brutal war in Iraq,” “the criminal failure of the president to respond adequately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster,” “torturing human beings in violation of the Geneva Convention” and “ordering the secret surveillance of American citizens.”
Councilman Dave Meserve and Councilwoman Harmony Groves penned the resolution that passed 3-2 Wednesday, joined by Councilman Paul Pitino, with Mayor Michael Machi and Councilman Mark Wheetley dissenting.
”All elected officials swear to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Meserve said. “This obligates us to act when the president violates the Constitution. We hope that other cities will join us in demanding the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.”
White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said Bush understands that there are people who “oppose the president's efforts to win the war on terror.”
”How those opposed to those efforts choose to express that opposition is up to each individual -- in this case a city council,” he said. “This president recognizes he has a responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country and that's what he will continue to do.”
The resolution also asks that Congressman Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, join with others in Congress to introduce articles of impeachment against Bush. That would make him the third president to face the proceeding.
The first was President Andrew Johnson and the second -- more than 100 years later -- was President Bill Clinton. Both were acquitted. President Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment.
Impeachment is a two-tier process beginning with a formal accusation, or the impeachment, being brought by the House of Representatives with a majority vote. Then, there is a trial by the Senate -- a conviction requires a two-thirds vote.
Copies of the Arcata resolution are being sent to Thompson, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and members of the House Judiciary Committee.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5441
Pentagon: 80% of Marines killed in Iraq from upper body wounds could have lived if they had the right armor
Extra Armor Could Have Saved Many Lives, Study Shows
By Michael Moss / New York Times
A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.
The ceramic plates in vests currently worn by the majority of military personnel in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5429
Murtha Denies Causing Recruitment Woes
By Kimberly Hefling / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Rep. John Murtha says the military is blaming him for a recruitment slump instead of recognizing mistakes that have led to an enlistment shortage.
"They're trying to direct attention away from their problems," said Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated Marine Corps veteran who has become a leading voice in Congress advocating an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a news conference Thursday that Murtha's remarks about Iraq are damaging to troop morale and to the Army's efforts to bring up recruitment numbers. Pace, the nation's top general, was asked specifically about an ABC News interview this week in which Murtha, 73, said if he were eligible to join the military today he would not join, nor would he expect others to join.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5430
We're leaving because we love your freedom
Zawahri says US defeated in Iraq: Jazeera TV
By Firouz Sedarat / Reuters
DUBAI - Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in a video aired on Friday that U.S. President George W. Bush's plans to withdraw troops from Iraq meant Washington had been defeated by the Muslims.
He also criticized Islamist groups, including Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood, for believing in Western-style democracy and taking part in elections.
"Bush, you must confess that you have been defeated in Iraq and in Afghanistan and you will be in Palestine soon," he said in the video broadcast by Al Jazeera television.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5434
Report Rebuts Bush on Spying
Domestic Action's Legality Challenged
By Carol D. Leonnig / Washington Post
A report by Congress's research arm concluded yesterday that the administration's justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments.
The Congressional Research Service's report rebuts the central assertions made recently by Bush and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales about the president's authority to order secret intercepts of telephone and e-mail exchanges between people inside the United States and their contacts abroad.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5439
Arcata City Council calls for Bush impeachment
By Kimberly Wear / Eureka Times-Standard
ARCATA -- A split City Council passed a resolution demanding the impeachment or resignation of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, citing violations of international and constitutional law.
The White House responded that the president "remains focused on the business the American people elected him to conduct."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5441
DeLay Abandons Bid to Remain House Leader
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) today abandoned his bid to remain House majority leader, bowing to pressure from a growing number of fellow House Republicans who wanted a permanent leadership change because of his indictment on campaign finance charges.
"The job of majority leader and the mandate of the Republican majority are too important to be hamstrung, even for a few months, by personal distractions," DeLay wrote in a letter to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). In a separate letter to House Republicans, DeLay said that during his time in Congress, "I have always acted in an ethical manner within the rules of our body and the laws of our land. I am fully confident time will bear this out."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5435
Officials Focus on a 2nd Firm Tied to DeLay
By Anne E. Kornblut and Glen Justice / New York Times
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - Having secured a guilty plea from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, prosecutors are entering a new phase of the corruption investigation in Washington and are focusing on a lobbying firm that may hold the key to whether Tom DeLay or other lawmakers will face criminal charges in the case.
The firm, Alexander Strategy Group, is of particular interest to investigators because it was founded by Edwin A. Buckham, a close personal friend of Mr. DeLay's and his former chief of staff, and has been a lucrative landing spot for several former members of the DeLay staff, people who are directly involved in the case have said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5440
Chronology: House Majority Leader DeLay
By The Associated PressThe Associated PressSaturday, January 7, 2006; 1:39 PM
-- _1984: Elected to represent the 22nd District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives.
_1994: Elected majority whip.
_July 1997: DeLay is part of a group that tries, but fails, to oust House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
_October 1998: DeLay attacks the Electronics Industries Alliance for hiring former Democratic Rep. Dave McCurdy as its president and later receives a private rebuke from the House ethics committee for "badgering a lobbying organization."
_November 2002: Elected majority leader without opposition.
_September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict three DeLay associates _ Jim Ellis, John Colyandro, and Warren RoBold _ in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee DeLay founded. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections.
_September-October 2004: DeLay is admonished by the House ethics committee on three issues. The committee chastises DeLay for offering to support the House candidacy of Michigan Republican Rep. Nick Smith's son in return for the lawmaker's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. The panel also says DeLay created the appearance of linking political donations to a legislative favor, and that he had improperly sought the Federal Aviation Administration's intervention in a Texas political dispute.
_January 2005: House Republicans reverse a controversial rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted.
_March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. Delay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay's overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff.
_April 2005: House Republicans scrap controversial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an ethics investigation. Democrats said the rules were meant to protect DeLay.
_September 2005: DeLay is indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas political fundraising law and forced to step aside as majority leader. Ellis and Colyandro are indicted on additional felony charges of violating Texas election law and criminal conspiracy to violate election law for their role in 2002 legislative races.
_October 2005: DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are indicted by a second grand jury on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering. DeLay turns himself in to the Harris County Sheriff's Office in Houston, where he is fingerprinted and photographed. He smiles broadly in his mug shot to thwart its use by political opponents. DeLay's attorneys win removal of a Democratic judge from the case because he has donated to Democratic causes and candidates. The Associated Press reports that DeLay and Rep. Roy Blunt, who succeeded DeLay as majority leader, orchestrated a political money carousel in 2000 that diverted donations secretly collected for presidential convention parties to some of their own causes.
_November 2005: Former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge that stems from the government investigation of work he and his former partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, did for Indian tribes. The investigation continues.
_December 2005: A judge dismisses the conspiracy charge but refuses to throw out the more serious allegations of money laundering, dashing the congressman's immediate hopes of reclaiming his House majority leader post and increasing the likelihood of a criminal trial next year.
_January 2006: Abramoff pleads guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud and agrees to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. DeLay abandons his bid to resume his post as House majority leader.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/07/AR2006010700540.html
Bremer says US did not expect insurgency in Iraq
Jan 6, 2006 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Bremer, who led the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, has admitted the United States did not anticipate the insurgency in the country, NBC Television said on Friday.
Bremer, interviewed by the network in connection with release of his book on Iraq, recounted the decision to disband the Iraqi army quickly after arriving in Baghdad, a move many experts consider a major miscalculation.
When asked who was to blame for the subsequent Iraqi rebellion, in which thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died, Bremer said "we really didn't see the insurgency coming," the network said in a news release.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5426
Homeland Security opening private mail
Retired professor confused, angered when letter from abroad is opened
By Brock N. Meeks / MSNBC
WASHINGTON - In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary.
But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5428
3 GOP senators blast Bush bid to bypass torture ban
Reject assertion he has right to waive rules to protect US security
By Charlie Savage / Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- Three key Republican senators yesterday condemned President Bush's assertion that his powers as commander in chief give him the authority to bypass a new law restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees.
John W. Warner Jr., a Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, issued a joint statement rejecting Bush's assertion that he can waive the restrictions on the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against detainees to protect national security.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5421
Zogby Poll: 53% of Americans Support Impeachment; ImpeachPAC Announced!
Submitted by bob fertik on Fri, 2005-11-04 12:43. About ImpeachPAC
For Immediate Release: November 4, 2005
New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeachment; ImpeachPAC is Launched to Support Pro-Impeachment Candidates
By a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new Zogby poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
http://www.impeachpac.org/?q=node/6
cotinued ...
