Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government 23 Oct 2007

www.legitgov.org/
www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

DoD to carry out ‘military missions’ during pandemic, WMD attack By Lori Price 23 Oct 2007 On Thursday, the Bush administration issued a directive which ‘establishes a National Strategy for Public Health and Medical Preparedness (Strategy), which builds upon principles set forth in Biodefense for the 21st Century (April 2004) and will transform our national approach to protecting the health of the American people against [with] all disasters.’ HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-21 states that within one year of the directive’s date, ‘the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Defense, in coordination with the Secretaries of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, shall establish an academic Joint Program for Disaster Medicine and Public Health housed at a National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences… Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense authorities will be used to carry out respective civilian and military missions within this joint program.’
www.legitgov.org/DoD_to_act_in_pandemic.html

Troops, key doctors to get first U.S. bird flu shots 23 Oct 2007 Deployed military troops, emergency workers, pregnant women and children will be among the first to get scarce vaccinations if a pandemic strain of flu breaks out, U.S. officials said. A long-awaited report to be issued on Tuesday lays out who would be first in line to get vaccinated against [with] H5N1 bird flu or any other strain of pandemic influenza. [See: DoD to ‘augment civilian law’ during pandemic or bioterror attack – www.legitgov.org/DoD_to_augment_civilian_law.html updated 23 Oct 2007.]
uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKN2220467220071022

Cheney, Howard ‘did deal on Hicks’ 23 Oct 2007 US Vice-President [sic] Dick Cheney agreed to a deal with Prime Minister John Howard to release former Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks, a US media report says. The report, published in Harper’s Magazine, cites an unnamed US military officer saying that a military staffer was present when Mr Cheney interfered directly to seal Hicks’s plea bargain deal. “He [Mr Cheney] did it, apparently, as part of a deal cut with [Australian Prime Minister] Howard,” the unnamed source is quoted as saying. “I kept thinking: this is the sort of thing that used to go on behind the Iron Curtain, not in America.”
www.bigpond.com/news/topsto
ries/content/20071023/2067496.asp

Joint Chiefs Chairman Looks Beyond Current Wars 22 Oct 2007 The new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff plans to press Congress and the public to sustain the current high levels of military spending — even after the Iraq war — arguing for money to repair and replace worn-out weapons and to restore American ground forces he described as “breakable,” though not yet broken.
www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/washington/22mullen.html

Bush: Missile shield is meant to deter Iran 23 Oct 2007 President [sic] George W. Bush said on Tuesday a planned missile shield in Europe is vital to protect against an “emerging Iranian threat” as he pressed an escalating U.S.-led campaign against Tehran.
www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSWAT00833920071023

U.S. offers to keep missile shield on stand-by 23 Oct 2007 The United States has proposed delaying the activation of parts of its European missile defense shield if Russia cooperates on the project, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.
www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSL2333690920071023

Iran, EU see further nuclear talks by end-Nov 23 Oct 2007 Iranian negotiators and the EU hope for more talks on Iran’s nuclear program in coming weeks after a “constructive” meeting on Tuesday, despite a warning by Iran’s president that his country would not retreat “one iota.”
ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&story
ID=2007-10-23T203922Z_01_L22635350_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-
IRAN-NUCLEAR-COL.XML

Bush’s Request for Wars Increases to $196 Billion 23 Oct 2007 President [sic] Bush asked Congress on Monday to approve $196 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other [!] national security programs, setting the stage for a new confrontation with Democrats over the administration’s [mis]handling of Iraq.
www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/washington/23prexy.html

Bush Seeks $500M Drug War Aid —Million$ for private US contractors to train Mexican troops —U.S. and Mexican negotiators reached agreement in secrecy 23 Oct 2007 President [sic] Bush announced Monday in Washington that he will ask Congress to approve a $500 million package to help Mexico fight [build] drug cartels. U.S. and Mexican negotiators reached the agreement in secrecy. The much-anticipated Mexico aid plan, which is included in Bush’s $46 billion supplemental budget request for war funding, would pay for helicopters, canine units, communications gear and inspection equipment, the State Department said. The aid packages are part of what the Bush regime hopes will be a multiyear, $1.4 billion initiative. [See: Private US military contractors may train Mexican drug forces 20 Oct 2007 The U.S. and Mexican governments are expected Monday to announce an ‘anti’-drug package that will probably involve hiring private U.S. military contractors to train Mexican troops, senior U.S. officials said.]
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/10/22/AR2007102202296.html

State Dept. Can’t Account For $1.2B Paid to DynCorp: Audit —Review identifies $29 million in overcharges by DynCorp in past year 23 Oct 2007 A government audit expected to be released Tuesday says that records documenting the work of DynCorp, the State Department’s largest contractor, are in such disarray that the department cannot say “specifically what it received” for most of the $1.2 billion it has paid the company since 2004 to train the police officers in Iraq… A review of DynCorp’s spending over the past year identified $29 million in overcharges by DynCorp, including $108,000 in business travel, according to a State Department letter in response to auditors. A separate review by the Defense Contracting Audit Agency found that DynCorp had billed for $162,869 of labor hours “for which it did not pay its workers.” [See: DynCorp Disgrace By Kelly Patricia O’Meara 14 Jan 2002 Middle-aged men having sex with 12- to 15-year-olds was too much for Ben Johnston, a hulking 6-foot-5-inch Texan, and more than a year ago he blew the whistle on his employer, DynCorp, a U.S. contracting company doing business in Bosnia.]
www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/washington/23contractor.html

Blackwater accused of tax evasion 22 Oct 2007 Blackwater USA, the security company that has come under intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill after a September 16 incident in which it allegedly opened fire on Iraqi civilians and killed 17, was accused on Monday by a senior Democratic lawmaker [Henry Waxman, CA] of evading tens of millions of dollars in federal taxes.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21427332/

Blackwater tying up loose ends? Radio journalist missing in Baghdad, driver killed 22 Oct 2007 A correspondent for the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) went missing while on her way to an interview in Baghdad on Monday morning, the radio station said. “Police found the body of her driver, shot and dumped in the street,” RFE/RL said in a statement. “There is no trace of the car or RFE/RL’s correspondent.”
www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22468746.htm

US airstrike in Iraq kills 11, including civilians 23 Oct 2007 The U.S. military said it killed 11 people in a helicopter attack on a group of men seen planting a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Tuesday, but police and residents said the dead were farmers, women and children. The U.S. military acknowledged that five women and one child were among those killed but blamed militants for using their home as a safe haven to escape attack by U.S. forces. [In other words, if you try to evade the US terrorists’ daily war crimes, you’re an ‘insurgent.’]
www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23266364.htm

Iraq shuts down Kurdish rebel offices under threat of attack 24 Oct 2007 Iraq ordered the closure yesterday of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) offices in the country as pressure mounted on the Government of Nouri al-Maliki to clamp down on the hardline Kurdish separatists.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
world/europe/article2726809.ece

In Iraq, Conflict on a Second Kurdish Front 23 Oct 2007 Deadly raids into Turkey by Kurdish militants holed up in northern Iraq are the focus of urgent diplomacy, with Turkey threatening invasion of Iraq and the United States begging for restraint while expressing solidarity with Turkish anger.
www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/world/middleeast/23kurds.html

Turkey Sends More Troops to Iraq Border 22 Oct 2007 Dozens of Turkish military vehicles streamed toward the Iraqi border with heavy artillery and ammunition Monday after Kurdish guerrillas killed a dozen soldiers and claimed to have captured eight in an intensifying crisis threatening to spill into Iraq.
apnews.myway.com/article/20071023/D8SEK9T01.html

Afghan official replaced over Israeli invite 23 Oct 2007 An official at Afghanistan’s embassy in Germany has been replaced for inviting an Israeli diplomat to a function, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. “He was a political employee of the embassy and has been replaced because of inviting the Israeli diplomat,” said Sultan Ahmad Baheen. Like the majority of Muslim countries, Afghanistan does not recognize Israel.
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20071023.wafghanisrael1023/BNStory/

‘That’s their last chance to light another gas station in the Middle East.’ —Pat Buchanan on ‘Hardball,’ referring to the neocon foreign policy advisers on Rudy Giuliani’s team. 22 Oct 2007

Giving the Osprey More Firepower 22 Oct 2007 After investing $20 billion over 25 years and losing 30 lives in the development of the controversial V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, known as the Osprey, the U.S. military might like to think that its long-awaited combat debut would go relatively smoothly. But even as 10 Marine V-22s have just arrived in Iraq, the Air Force – which is buying V-22s for special operations missions – has decided the gun on the marine’s version isn’t good enough for an aircraft expressly designed to ferry troops into hot landing zones.
news.yahoo.com/s/time/20071022/
us_time/givingtheospreymorefirepower

Fort Huachuca soldier arrested on child molestation charges 23 Oct 2007 An Army sergeant based at Fort Huachuca has been arrested on a child molestation charge after his girlfriend told officers she’d seen images of him sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl on his computer, authorities said. Robert D. Higgins, 33, of Sierra Vista was also arrested on suspicion of sexual exploitation of a child and tampering with or destroying evidence, said Mertie Stompro, a Sierra Vista Police Department detective.
www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1023molest23-on.html

Steep decline in oil production brings risk of war and unrest, says new study —Output peaked in 2006 and will fall 7% a year —Decline in gas, coal and uranium also predicted 22 Oct 2007 World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown. The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 – much earlier than most experts had expected.
www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,2196435,00.html

NASA won’t disclose air safety survey 22 Oct 2007 NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized. NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly. Last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071022
/ap_on_re_us/air_safety_secrets

Scottish “wannabe suicide bomber” jailed 23 Oct 2007 A Scottish student, described by prosecutors as a “wannabe suicide bomber,” was jailed for eight years on Tuesday for possessing terrorism-related materials including bomb-making instructions.
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071023/wl_nm/britain_student_dc

U.S. Prosecution of Muslim Group Ends in Mistrial 23 Oct 2007 A federal judge declared a mistrial on Monday in what was widely seen as the government’s flagship terrorism-financing case after prosecutors failed to persuade a jury to convict five leaders of a Muslim charity on any charges, or even to reach a verdict on many of the 197 counts.
www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/us/23charity.html

Waterbury Raid Suspects Have Their Day In Court 22 Oct 2007 (CT) Early Friday morning, 280 local police officers and federal agents rousted the prisoners, charging them with conspiracy, gun crimes and/or drug crimes. Two busloads made the short trip to the courthouse. Dozens of other suspects were hauled in. It’s the city’s largest roundup of [alleged] criminals, more than 80 all told, with mop-up [?!?] work continuing.
www.nbc30.com/news/14392185/detail.html

NSA cooperation: OK for e-mail, IM companies? 22 Oct 2007 A new Senate bill would protect not only telephone companies from lawsuits claiming illegal cooperation with the National Security Agency. It would retroactively immunize e-mail providers, search engines, Internet service providers and instant-messaging services too. The broad language appears in new legislation that a Senate committee approved by a 13-to-2 vote on Thursday during a meeting closed to the press and public… Other sections of the Senate bill permit the attorney general and the national-intelligence director to sign off on wiretaps without court approval.
www.news.com/NSA-cooperation-OK-for-e-
mail,-IM-companies/2100-7348_3-6214609.html

Fired atty: Gonzales could face charges 22 Oct 2007 Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may face criminal prosecution, fired former U.S. attorney John McKay said in Spokane, Wash. The U.S. Inspector General is expected to include recommendations regarding the prosecution of Gonzales and others in a report on its investigation that could be released as early as next month, McKay said Friday in a speech to the Federal Bar Association, The Spokane Spokesman-Review reported.
www.newsdaily.com/TopNews/UPI-1-20
071022-00423400-bc-us-usattorneys.xml

Court to weigh unsealing case vs. ‘New Times’ 23 Oct 2007 A Maricopa County Superior Court judge set a hearing for Wednesday to determine whether the secret content of a grand-jury investigation into the New Times newspaper should be unsealed. County Attorney Andrew Thomas closed the investigation and dropped the underlying charges against the alternative weekly newspaper on Friday after a national outcry when the paper’s owners were arrested for revealing grand-jury information in their paper.
www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1023courthearing1023.html

Law requires moment of silence in Illinois schools 22 Oct 2007 Illinois public school students will be required to observe a moment of silence at the beginning of every school day under a new law. Critics called the measure an attempt to promote organized school prayer.
media.www.chicagoflame.com/media/storage/paper519/news/
2007/10/22/NewsBriefs/Law-Requires.Moment.Of.Silence.
In.Illinois.Schools-3045559.shtml

Electoral Initiative Back… With Big Bucks? By John Myers 22 Oct 2007 …[T]he initiative to change how California’s votes for the White House are counted is back… and may have enough cash to gather the needed signatures in only three weeks. The initiative, which received nationwide attention this summer, would mean that California’s 55 electoral votes would almost all be doled out by the presidential winner in each of the state’s congressional districts. And given the wide swath of GOP red in inland California, that could give the Republican nominee as many electoral votes here as could be won in Ohio. Longtime GOP attorney Tom Hiltachk, the author of the initiative, pulled out of the campaign several weeks ago. But it’s now been revived by a group of conservatives that includes anti-tax crusader Lew Uhler and former 2003 recall campaigner Tony Andrade.
www.kqed.org/weblog/capitalnotes/2007
/10/electoral-initiative-back-with-big.jsp

Giuliani Defends, Employs Priest Accused of Molesting Teens 23 Oct 2007 Presidential candidate [GOPedophile] Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties. The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims’ groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.
abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3753385

Romney Slip: Another Osama-Obama Mix-Up 23 Oct 2007 In a slip of the tongue, Republican Mitt Romney accused Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama of urging terrorists to congregate in Iraq. On Tuesday, the GOP presidential hopeful [sociopath] said: “Actually, just look at what Osam – Barack Obama – said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. … It’s almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded.”
www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7018748,00.html

Palo Verde shuts down reactor to repair a valve 23 Oct 2007 One of three reactors at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station was shut down Monday to repair a valve, leaving the plant with just one operating reactor for the second time this month.
www.azcentral.com/news/articles
/1023biz-PaloVerde23-ON.html

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean 19 Oct 2007 The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that’s twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists. The enormous stew of trash – which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers – floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii. [Why not transport the Garbage Patch to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where it will feel right at home?]
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/
chronicle/archive/2007/10/19/SS6JS8RH0.DTL

Study: Warming is stronger, happening sooner —Higher C02 emissions from fossil fuels, and weaker Earth, cited as reasons 22 Oct 2007 Just a days after the Nobel prize was awarded for global warming work, an alarming new study finds that warming signals are stronger, and happening sooner than expected, due to increased human emissions of carbon dioxide and an Earth less able to absorb them.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21423872/

Bush declares fire emergency 23 Oct 2007 President [sic] Bush today declared a state of emergency in Southern California, paving the way for federal aid to help fight the region’s wildfires. The declaration follows a request made Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for federal assistance.
www.latimes.com/news/local/la
-me-bush24oct24,0,4939296.story

Second person dies in California wildfires 23 Oct 2007 A second person died on Tuesday in the raging wildfires sweeping across Southern California, authorities said.
www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N23331462.htm

Massive evacuations ordered as onslaught of fires spreads 23 Oct 2007 Wind-whipped firestorms destroyed more than 700 homes and businesses in Southern California on Monday, the second day of its onslaught, and more than half a million people in San Diego County were told to evacuate their homes.
www.latimes.com/news/local/la
-me-fire23oct23,0,5337099.story

Fire evacuations grow as 1,200 structures burn —San Diego mayor urges residents to stay off roads so crews can work 23 Oct 2007 Thousands more residents were ordered to evacuate their homes Tuesday, as walls of wind-whipped flames consumed hundreds more homes across tinder-dry Southern California and raised the number of evacuees into the hundreds of thousands.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21431682/

‘It was nuclear winter. It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world.’ Raging Calif. Fires Burn Scores of Homes 22 Oct 2007 Wildfires blown by fierce desert winds Monday reduced scores of Southern California homes to ashes, forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee and laid a hellish, spidery pattern of luminous orange over the drought-stricken region.
apnews.myway.com/article/20071023/D8SEKBL00.html

CLG needs your support.
www.legitgov.org/#contribute
Or, please mail a check or money order to the CLG:
Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG)
P.O. Box 1142
Bristol, CT 06011-1142
Contributions to CLG are not tax deductible.

Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested. Those who’d like to be added to the list can go here: www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg and add your name. Those who would like to be removed from the list can access the same link and remove your name.
Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries/issues/concerns with your subscription.