I guess if Bush wants to grant them immunity, he already KNOWS he broke the law, and so did they.

From ZDNet:

Despite the Bush administration’s firm stance on granting immunity to telephone companies, Congress hopes to raise the issue again to find out exactly what the phone companies provided to the government, reports Ars Technica.

The Bush administration has asked for retroactive immunity for telephone companies regardless of the legality of their actions. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, intends to hold hearings in order to find out find out exactly what these companies might have done.

“Before granting immunity for any activities, it will be important to review what those activities were, what was the legal basis for those activities, and what would be the impact of a grant of immunity,” Reyes said in a statement.

Under consideration are whether the NSA’s surveillance program was legal and if the laws need to be changed to allow intelligence agencies to better track terrorist communications.

Reyes says that he “will not prejudge the outcome of these hearings,” but the fact that he has serious questions about the retroactive immunity suggests that he won-t be easily persuaded to sign off on it. That’s good news for organizations like the EFF, which is embroiled in a lawsuit with AT&T over the issue. Even if the administration doesn-t get its way in Congress, it will continue to push for the courts to throw out such cases on the grounds that they will expose state secrets. Thus far, though, the combined case against the telephone companies remains alive.

Ahhhhhh sorry doesn’t cut it. Knowing he had a drug resistant strain of TB while in Italy, the asshole got on a flight and put God knows how many people at risk. He KNEW what he was doing at that point.

DENVER - The Atlanta lawyer quarantined with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis apologized to fellow airline passengers in an interview aired Friday, and insisted he was told before he set out for his wedding in Europe that he was no danger to anyone.

“I’ve lived in this state of constant fear and anxiety and exhaustion for a week now, and to think that someone else is now feeling that, I wouldn’t want anyone to feel that way. It’s awful,” Andrew Speaker, speaking through a face mask, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” from his hospital room in Denver.

Meanwhile, questions arose as to whether the wedding even took place. The mayor of the island of Santorini in Greece, Angelos Rousso, told The Associated Press: “There was no wedding. They came for a marriage but they did not have the required papers.” He said the couple stayed in a hotel for three days and then left.

In Denver, Speaker’s doctors said that he could be in the hospital for up to two months, and that if antibiotics fail to knock out the extremely drug-resistant infection, he may have to undergo surgery to remove infected lung tissue, about the size of a tennis ball.

Key figures about Iraq since the war began in March 2003

CASUALTIES:

-Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of May 31, 2007: 3,474.

-Confirmed U.S. military wounded as of May 31, 2007: 25,681.

-U.S. military deaths for May 2007: 126.

-U.S. military deaths after the Baghdad security crackdown beginning Feb. 14, 2007: at least 350, including at least 151 from incidents in Baghdad and at least 177 from incidents outside the capital. The locations of at least 22 deaths are unconfirmed or unknown.

-Deaths of civilian employees of U.S. government contractors as of May 28, 2007: More than 900.

-Iraqi civilian deaths: Estimated at more than 64,000, with one controversial study in 2004 contending there were as many as 655,000. According to Associated Press figures, there have been at least 2,155 Iraqi deaths in May 2007.

-The number of victims of sectarian death squads in Baghdad since the security crackdown began is on the rise. Based on an AP count, there were at least 718 bodies found in Baghdad in May 2007, 447 in April, and 564 in March.

-Assassinated Iraqi academics: 317.

-Journalists killed on assignment: 105.

COST:

-More than $430 billion. Combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and operations against terrorism elsewhere, the cost has topped at least $500 billion. A January 2007 study by Linda Bilmes of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government put the total projected cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at $350 billion to $700 billion.

More at the AP

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A violent crime spike in four cities led the Justice Department on Friday to dispatch additional teams of federal agents to combat guns, gangs or surging murder rates in Mesa, Ariz.; Orlando, Fla.; San Bernardino, Calif., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The four-city push comes as the FBI is expected to report a 1.3 percent rise in violent crime nationwide in 2006 - an increase for the second straight year.

At the same time, a new internal Justice report rapped crime-busting task forces for failing to coordinate efforts and potentially endangering agents’ lives.

“Each of these cities has seen an unacceptable increase in homicides or other violent crimes,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told employees at the Washington headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Authorities in each have come forward and asked for our help.”

Defying critics who have demanded his resignation over the firings of U.S. attorneys, Gonzales said he would spend the final 18 months of his tenure “in a sprint” to curb violent crime.

More at the AP

My guilty pleasure.

I must admit, I do smell bacon!

Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor

One day soon, perhaps.

In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state’s former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Now Karl Rove, the President’s top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A longtime Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove “had spoken with the Department of Justice” about “pursuing” Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama’s U.S. attorneys.

The allegation was made by Dana Jill Simpson, a lifelong Republican and lawyer who practices in Alabama. She made the charges in a May 21 affidavit, obtained by TIME, in which she describes a conference call on November 18, 2002, which involved a group of senior aides to Bob Riley, who had just narrowly defeated Siegelman in a bitterly contested election for governor. Though Republican Riley, a former Congressman, initially found himself behind by several thousand votes, he had pulled ahead at the last minute when disputed ballots were tallied in his favor. After the abrupt vote turnaround, Siegelman sought a recount. The Simpson affidavit says the conference call focused on how the Riley campaign could get Siegelman to withdraw his challenge.

According to Simpson’s statement, William Canary, a senior G.O.P. political operative and Riley adviser who was on the conference call, said “not to worry about Don Siegelman” because “‘his girls’ would take care of” the governor. Canary then made clear that “his girls” was a reference to his wife, Leura Canary, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and Alice Martin, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

Canary reassured others on the conference call - who also included Riley’s son, Rob, and Terry Butts, another Riley lawyer and former justice of the Alabama supreme court - that he had the help of a powerful pal in Washington. Canary said “not to worry - that he had already gotten it worked out with Karl and Karl had spoken with the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice was already pursuing Don Siegelman,” the Simpson affidavit says. Both U.S. attorney offices subsequently indicted Siegelman on a variety of charges, although Leura Canary recused herself from dealing with the case in May 2002. A federal judge dismissed the Northern District case before it could be tried, but Siegelman was convicted in the Middle District on bribery and conspiracy charges last June.

Full article at TIME

By Kathy Gill
from About.com

While listening to the Randi Rhodes Show on Air America this afternoon, Author Greg Palast, who wrote “Armed Madhouse” has told Randi that Griffin is resigning and there’s going to be big trouble. Seems a friend of Palast’s, who owns the website WhiteHouse.com received emails from Griffin, who mistyped the email address to Palast’s friend, instead of Whitehouse.gov! Last evening in New York, Palast met with John Conyers and gave him over 500 emails from Griffin, some TO Karl Rove, regarding the “caging” practices which Monica Goodling alluded to during her testimony. Conyers now has the emails and I can hear indictments and subpoenas being handed out in 3…2…1… - JS

The Bush Administration test-case in an usurpation of power play is no more, according to the Arkansas Blog, with the resignation of United States Attorney Tim Griffin.

President Bush appointed Griffin, 34, as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas after the Administration had language inserted in the Patriot Act Reauthorization Bill that eliminated Senatorial confirmation of replacement US Attorneys. Griffin had served as Karl Rove’s “director of opposition research,” and news reports suggest Rove and then White House Counsel Harriet Miers wanted Griffin in Arkansas.

In other news at the beleaguered Department of Justice, the Washington Post reports that the investigation into US Attorneys firings has expanded to include “hiring practices at the sprawling department, including the troubled Civil Rights Division and programs for beginning lawyers.”

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has insisted that he is “fully committed to ensuring that with respect to every position we have a Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed U.S. attorney.”

However, as I pointed out last week, Griffin was appointed five months ago. Under “normal” rules of appointment, his term would have expired mid-April. Griffin publicly said he would resign rather than go through Senate confirmation.

The Arkansas Times had called for Griffin to resign.

read more at About.com

By ELLEN PILIGIAN and MONICA DAVEY

COLDWATER, Mich. - Jack Kevorkian, the former doctor and outspoken, flamboyant advocate for assisted suicide, walked out of a prison here this morning after serving eight years for second degree murder for his role in one death.

After serving 8 years, Dr. Jack Kevorkian today walked out of prison and into the predictable media frenzy.

Outside a state prison building, Mr. Kevorkian, who turned 79 last month, smiled and told reporters that leaving prison was “one of the high points of life,” before being ushered away in a white van. His original prison sentence was 10 to 25 years.

Mr. Kevorkian will be on parole for two years; one component of his parole was his promise that he would not participate in any future assisted suicides, Michigan prison officials said. That promise does not preclude Mr. Kevorkian from speaking in support of physician assisted suicide, according to Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the state’s department of corrections.

“The desire of the parole board was not to infringe on his freedom of speech,” said Mr. Marlan. “What they don-t want is him offering information on how to build the device he has previously used for such things or how to create a system to assist in suicide.”

Mr. Kevorkian’s release sparked a flurry of reaction among those focused on the issues of assisted suicide and dying. When he entered prison in 1999, Mr. Kevorkian was viewed by critics as a scary, peculiar symbol of those who favored assisted suicide; some questioned whether the more than 100 ill people he claimed to have helped die were truly capable of making the decision to end their lives. Supporters, meanwhile, viewed him as a bold, fearless advocate of a movement intended to spare some terminally ill Americans from gruesome, painful ends.

As he emerged today, assisted suicide and death choices - spurred in part by the case of Terri Schiavo in Florida - were still being fought over; in California, legislators are expected to vote on a “Compassionate Choices Act” next week.

Oregon remains the only state in the country with a law that allows a terminally ill patient to ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal amount of medication under certain circumstances. Other states, including Vermont, have rejected such proposals.

read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

from Dictionary.com

va·ca·tion /veɪˈkeɪʃən,
-noun
1. a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday: Schoolchildren are on vacation now.
2. freedom or release from duty, business, or activity.
3. an act or instance of vacating.
-verb (used without object)
4. to take or have a vacation: to vacation in the Caribbean.

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Sun block. Beach umbrella. Laptop. One in five people toted laptop computers on their most recent vacations, an AP-Ipsos poll released Friday said. Along with the 80 percent who said they brought along their cell phones, the survey shows going on vacation no longer means being out of the electronic loop.

Sizable numbers are interrupting their unwinding time to check in at the office and, even more so, to keep up with the social buzz.

About one in five said they did some work while vacationing, and about the same number checked office messages or called in to see how things were going, the poll showed. Twice as many checked their e-mail, while 50 percent kept up with other personal messages like voice mail.

The credit - or culprit, depending on one’s view - is in part today’s array of devices that can easily keep people digitally tethered to workplaces, friends and family. The electronic gear was most commonly brought along by younger people - one in four below age 40 brought laptops, compared to 15 percent of those 50 to 64 and even less for older people.

Reasons vacationers performed work-related tasks include an expectation that they be available; a worry about missing important information; or in some cases the enjoyment of staying involved, according to analysts and some of those surveyed.

“I’m the final guy, so I make sure my customers are happy,” said Don Schneider, 43, a plumbing contractor from Buena Park, Calif., who also runs an online business that supplies video equipment for plumbers.

Schneider says he limits his holiday check-ins to about a half-hour daily and tries to do it unobtrusively so he won’t annoy family and friends, making calls from his hotel room or car.

Nineteen percent said they worked on their vacation even though they were technically off. Twenty percent said they checked work messages like voice mail, and another 15 percent said they called to check in.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

from YAHOO! NEWS

BATON ROUGE, La. - Louisiana’s grant program to help people rebuild homes damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita is estimated to be as much as $5 billion short as the six-month Atlantic storm season began Friday.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco says the federal government should pay for the entire program, called “Road Home,” but pressure is mounting for the state to cover up to $1 billion of the shortfall if it wants to receive more federal aid.

State Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot estimated the deficit at $5 billion in a report released Thursday, $2.1 billion over previous estimates. Theriot assumed the Road Home would not receive a transfer of $1.14 billion in federal grant money the state slated for homeowners but is now the subject of disputes with federal officials. The state audit also assumes a higher average award than in previous estimates.

Blanco’s proposed budget does not include a dime for the program, despite more than $2 billion in surplus and unobligated state money available. The state House passed a budget similar to Blanco’s on Thursday after rejecting requests from New Orleans lawmakers to put money into the Road Home.

U.S. Rep. William Jefferson of New Orleans said Congress is angry about how Louisiana has handled the money it has already received, particularly a $200 million grant to the city’s utility, Entergy New Orleans, and its $750 million contract with ICF International Inc., the private firm hired to run Road Home.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS