By Fred Mitchell and Don Pierson,
Chicago Tribune

He and DeLamielleure step up battle with the group by presenting plight of an ex-lineman.

CHICAGO - NFL Hall of Fame members Mike Ditka and Joe DeLamielleure continued their war of words with NFL Players Assn. boss Gene Upshaw on Monday, and introduced hobbled former offensive lineman Brian DeMarco, 35, as a prime example of the union’s indifference to the medical needs of scores of ex-players.

“This is unacceptable,” Ditka thundered at a news conference organized by Gridiron Greats at his Chicago restaurant.

“We are past having committees. It’s about right versus wrong. Do the right thing. Just do the right thing.”

Spearheaded by Ditka, DeLamielleure and former Green Bay Packers star Jerry Kramer, GridironGreats.org has been providing direct financial assistance to needy former players such as DeMarco, who is unable to work and barely able to function as a result of lingering football-related injuries.

Monday’s media event coincided with the launch of a major public donation drive. Ditka also used the occasion to fire back at former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson, a member of the player union’s pension and disability board, who was quoted in a Chicago Tribune article Sunday as saying Ditka “was not one who [cared] about the players or their injuries when he was coaching. He was very disrespectful of guys who got hurt and now he’s trying to champion for a couple of guys. The fact of the matter is he’s way off base and he’s late in the game.”

Ditka called Duerson’s charges “an out-and-out, outrageous lie.”

Meanwhile, DeLamielleure again took issue with Upshaw, who dismissed DeLamielleure’s outspoken advocacy for Gridiron Greats as misguided and was quoted as threatening him in a recent Philadelphia Daily News article.

“He threatened to break my neck,” DeLamielleure said. “I say that he stunk as a union leader for 20 years.”

read more at The L.A. Times online

By Mark Gregory
BBC News, Washington

The US is threatening to get much tougher with international energy companies that do business with Iran.

Oil firms may face fines and other penalties if they sign deals to develop Iranian reserves of oil and gas, a State Department source told the BBC.

The statement marks an escalation of US financial pressure aimed at persuading Tehran to abandon alleged plans to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran insists its nuclear program has no military application.

A law already on the statute book gives the US government wide ranging authority to penalize companies doing business with Iran.

Blunt message

Under the Iran Sanctions Act Washington can fine not just American firms, but any company anywhere that does more than $20m business with Iran.

But so far the US government has generally chosen not to use these powers.

However, this stance may be about to change.

Nicholas Burns, one of the most senior officials at the State Department, has a blunt message for energy companies considering Iranian deals.

“We have been going round to the major oil and gas firms to let them know that this law exists and that we implement it if they cross the line,” he said.

The Bush administration has come under pressure from Congress, now Democrat controlled, to take a stronger line with companies trading with Iran.

from

WASHINGTON, June 12 (UPI) — Timely withdrawal from Iraq presents the best option for driving al-Qaida out of the troubled country, one expert says.

U.S. interests in the conflict, primarily preventing the country from becoming a launching pad for terrorists, would be best served by setting a 12-month timetable for disengagement said Lawrence Korb, senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, speaking at an Iraq policy forum Monday.

If U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq, local and regional interests will extinguish the growing al-Qaida force in Iraq, Korb told attendees at the forum, hosted by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

“I can’t see Iran, for example, wanting it to become a haven for al-Qaida,” he said. “(Al-Qaida’s) a Sunni Arab group and they’re obviously Shiite Persians.”

Pressure within Iraq might also help quell al-Qaida activity, Korb said. Shiites constitute the largest majority in the country and would probably drive out the foreign Sunni group.

“If we can believe the opinion polls, there’s very little support for al-Qaida in Iraq,” Korb said. “I find it hard to think once we’re out of there that (al-Qaida) would still get the aid and comfort that they’ve been getting up to now.”

The terrorist organization has taken advantage of the American presence in Iraq to gain favor with locals, Korb said, and will continue to find sympathy and attract recruits until U.S. troops leave.

Other extremist groups and violent factions may dissolve as well without a common enemy to fight against.

“The one thing that unites a lot of these groups is to get us out, so once you set a timetable they don’t have that excuse any more,” he said.

A quick withdrawal will also allow the United States to focus forces elsewhere, better combating larger problems in the Middle East, Korb said.

By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer
from Yahoo! News

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hundreds of Hamas fighters firing rockets and mortar shells captured the headquarters of the
Fatah-allied security forces in northern Gaza on Tuesday, scoring a key victory in the bloody battle for control of the seaside strip.

Both sides said Gaza had descended into civil war, as the death toll from two days of Palestinian fighting reached 37.

Tuesday’s battles marked a turning point, with Hamas moving systematically to seize Fatah positions in what some in the Islamic militant group said would be a decisive phase in the yearlong power struggle. The confrontations became increasingly brutal in recent days, with some killed execution’style in the streets, others in hospital shootouts or thrown off rooftops.

The conflict escalated further when the Fatah central committee decided to suspend the activities of its ministers in the government it shares with Hamas. In an emergency meeting in the
West Bank city of Ramallah, Fatah decided on a full withdrawal if the fighting doesn’t stop, said government spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

President Mahmoud Abbas accused the Islamic militants of Hamas of trying to stage a coup.

A survivor of the Hamas assault on the northern security headquarters said the Fatah forces were outgunned and reinforcements never arrived. “We were pounded with mortar, mortar, mortar,” the Fatah fighter, who only gave his first name, Amjad, said, breathing heavily. “They had no mercy. It was boom, boom. They had rockets that could reach almost half of the compound.”

Battles raged across the Gaza Strip during the day. The staccato of gunfire echoed across Gaza City, plumes of smoke rose into the air from far-flung neighborhoods and one firefight sent a dozen preschoolers scrambling for cover.

In a sign of the heightened hostilities, both sides threatened to kill each other’s leaders. A rocket-propelled grenade damaged the home of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and four mortar shells slammed into Abbas’ Gaza City office. Neither attack caused any injuries.

Desperately trying to boost morale, disorganized Fatah forces attacked Hamas’ main TV station, but were repelled after a heavy battle. The station later showed a group of captured men it said were among the attackers, blood streaming down their faces.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

from Mr. Kucinich’s website via You Tube

Dennis Kucinich has released a new commercial. So far, he’s the only one of any candidate to really “call out” Big Oil.

Very powerful commercial. - JS

Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana & Steve Lukather
Super Boogie

The oversight is good, but really, what have all these subpoenas accomplished thus far? It will just be more of the “I don’t recall” defense.

From Politico

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a business meeting for Thursday to authorize subpoenas as part of the panel’s investigation into the NSA eavesdropping program.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have repeatedly asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to turn over any legal opinions and advice the Bush administration has supporting the NSA’s warrantless eavesdropping program, which President Bush and other administration officials have called the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”

Gonzales has repeatedly rebuffed those requests, including a May 21 letter to the attorney general from Leahy and Specter. Leahy has recently threatened to take further action to obtain access to the information.

Now, Leahy has scheduled a vote for Thursday to authorize him to subpoena the documents following consultations with Specter. Under Judiciary Committee rules, Republicans can postpone the vote on the subpoena authorizations for a week, but Democratic insiders don’t expect Leahy will have any problem gaining approval for the subpoenas at that time.

Leahy’s decision to seek subpoena authority signals a dramatic escalation of the fight between Capitol Hill and the White House over the NSA eavesdropping effort, and was spurred by recent testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey that Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card attempted to persuade ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the program while hospitalized in early 2004. The effort led to a showdown between the White House and the Justice Dept., and Comey and other senior DOJ officials threatened to resign over the matter. Bush had to personally intervene in the dispute before it was resolved and the eavesdropping program reauthorized.

It is no secret that the U.S. military has used the ocean as trashcan for munitions in the past. Peter discussed at the Old DSN how federal lawmakers were pressing the US Army to reveal everything it knows about a massive international program to dump chemical weapons off homeland and foreign shores. “The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.” Brian pointed me to the Daily Press’s in depth coverage of this whole issue. Registration is free and only takes a minute or two and is extremely worthwhile. Included at the site are maps of disposal sites (downloadable as pdfs), stories, descriptions of items dumped including nerve and musturd gas, and rather depressing pictures some are below the fold (all from Daily Press).

Hundreds of dolphins washed ashore in Virginia and New Jersey shorelines in 1987 with burns similar to mustard gas exposure. One marine-mammal specialist suspects Army-dumped chemical weapons killed them. (Photo courtesy of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in New Jersey)

More here

And this won’t effect the economy? Riggghhhtttt!

June 12 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings surged 90 percent in May from a year earlier as more homeowners fell behind on their monthly mortgage payments, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

There were 176,137 notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions last month, led by California, Florida and Ohio, the Irvine, California-based seller of foreclosure data said in a report today. The median price for a U.S. home slid 1.8 percent the first three months of 2007 as the housing slump entered its second year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The filings rose 19 percent from April.

A jump in foreclosures at a time of year that traditionally is the busiest for home sales means the slide in prices probably isn’t over, said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. Typically, more than half of all home sales occur in the April to June period, according to Freddie Mac, the No. 2 mortgage buyer.

More at Bloomberg

yah….let’s work on a Star Wars defense and forget about anything else that matters.

MIAMI (AP) - An aging weather satellite crucial to accurate predictions on the intensity and path of hurricanes could fail at any moment and plans to launch a replacement have been pushed back seven years to 2016.
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s chief said the failure of the QuikScat satellite could bring more uncertainty to forecasts and widen the areas that are placed under hurricane watches and warnings.

If the satellite faltered, experts estimate that the accuracy of two- day forecasts would suffer by 10 percent and three-day forecasts by 16 percent, which could translate into miles of coastline and the difference between a city being evacuated or not.

“We would go blind. It would be significantly hazardous,” said Wayne Sallade, emergency manager in Charlotte County, which was hit hard by Hurricane Charley in 2004.

In the letter to a Florida congressman, NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher blamed the delays on technical and budget problems. Scientists said if QuikScat failed, they may have to rely on less accurate satellites.

Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said authorities “may have to err on the side of caution” in future forecasts.

That means “more people disrupted, and more impact on the economy,” Proenza said. “On the other hand, we have to err on the side of the protection of life. And that’s how we would handle it.”

More at Breitbart.com