You see the epithet "Ketchup boy" on right wing websites, and even many liberals believe that the Heinz corporation is a Kerry liability. Not true. Neither Kerry nor his wife, Theresa Heinz, are connected to food manufacturing giant in any significant way, nor does it appear that Heinz is really outsourcing
Thanks to Ted Welch on SPJ-L for pointers to:
Online world wonders: If Kerry wins, will Heinz (the company) benefit?
Not likely, real-world observers respond
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
By Teresa F. Lindeman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In the real world, the first lady contender has little financial connection to Pittsburgh's H.J. Heinz. She was married for 25 years to a member of the founding family, Republican U.S. Sen. John Heinz, until his death in a plane crash in 1991.
She chairs the Heinz Endowments, which still own stock but not enough to meet the 5 percent ownership threshold that requires notifying the Securities and Exchange Commission.
There's been no Heinz family member involved in the management of the business since the late 1980s, said company spokesman Jack Kennedy. And the family drastically reduced its holdings in 1995 in a secondary stock offering.
Even the Heinz Co.'s foundation is separate from the Heinz family endowments.
While the Federal Election Commission's Web site listed a $2,000 contribution on Dec. 31, 2003, by Teresa Heinz Kerry to the "John Kerry For President Inc." cause, it also lists a $5,000 contribution on June 3, 2003, to "Bush-Cheney '04 Inc." by the H.J. Heinz Co. Political Action Committee.
---End item---
at Instant Pundit Glenn Reynolds writes:
OKAY, MAYBE I'M WRONG: Maybe outsourcing won't be such a big election issue after all:
Here's an excerpt from one email, from reader Eric Hoffstein:
The Heinz company is hardly the 'Kerry family business.' Kerry's current (and 2nd) wife is the heir of Penn. senator John Heinz. That is, she only inherited part of Heinz interest in the Heinz family trust, which, while it does have some holdings in Heinz, is not related or a subsidiary or partner of Heinz Co. Kerry's wife is not on the board of Heinz nor does she currently hold any position with the company. Therefore, while Kerry's wife has what could be perhaps considered an indirect relationship with Heinz, she has no control or influence over their business decisions--presumably Kerry, as the second husband, has even less.Further, to Heinz's credit, they are widely considered to be an"employee friendly" employer and have instituted a sort of code of good conduct to apply to all their employees, including foreign ones. They do have foreign plants but they are not "outsourced" plants--companies in the food biz have to localize their production to some extent, especially where some fruits and vegetables are concerned.
A BuzzFlash Interview
March 16, 2004
[Excerpt]
This is what you've been waiting for. Bruce J. Miller's Take Them At Their Words: Shocking, Amusing and Baffling Quotations from the G.O.P. and Their Friends, 1994-2004 (Academy Chicago) is a compendium of hundreds of right-wing GOP quotations. Miller, brother of Mark Crispin Miller, has assembled the bitter, spiteful and downright bizarre ranting and ravings of the people who now rule America, along with their supporters.
Who could forget Barbara Bush on Good Morning America: "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many...It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
Or Ann Coulter, opining: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
Or George W. Bush to the Palestinian Prime Minister: "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you can help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
At first you will laugh, but keep in mind what Sidney Blumenthal, who wrote an insightful introduction, noted: "You may read and laugh, but, remember, they mean it."
BuzzFlash: You just edited a book, "Take Them At Their Words: Shocking, Amusing and Baffling Quotations from the G.O.P and Their Friends, 1994-2004." When you say, "Take them at their words," what do you mean?
There's a double standard about this, because if Democrats say anything that's the least bit controversial, they're hammered on it by the right wing media chorus. But should we take Republicans at their words? Does Ann Coulter mean that Timothy McVeigh would have been bettering off targeting The New York Times building? Are we to take them literally? Are they as dangerous, violent and bilious as they often sound?
[Good question. Unfortunately those who can answer it best are the victims who are either sold-out, dead or incommunicado.]
See the rest here.
NATURE|VOL 428 |18 MARCH 2004 |www.nature.com
By Jonathan Knight, San Francisco
[Excerpt]
A national security expert says he was forced to resign last year because of his vocal opposition to the use of lie detectors at his nuclear weapons lab. Alan Zelicoff, formerly a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, last week spoke for the first time about his resignation last July. He quit following disciplinary action against him for public criticism of polygraph testing. The lab denies any link between Zelicoff 's departure and his public statements.
The Department of Energy instituted routine polygraph screening for employees at all nuclear weapons laboratories in 1999 to check for leaks of classified information. Zelicoff headed the many scientists at Sandia who objected to the move. He was barred from working on the disease-surveillance software he had developed (see Nature 411, 228; 2001).
[Zelicoff's full statement follows.]
The Polygraph vs. National Security
[ Used by permission.]
By Alan P. Zelicoff, MD
e-mail: zalan8587[at]qwest.net
There may be a serious problem at the Department of Energy National Laboratories, one that goes beyond missing hard drives, credit-card fraud, and sloppy handling of classified computer codes. The Labs' raison-d'ętre -- what management likes to say distinguishes them from crass commercial enterprises -- is their claim on selfless objectivity: providing "service in the national interest based on sound science" despite the ebb and flow of political tides. If my recent experience is any reflection, this code of conduct is conditional.
More than four years ago, in the wake of the arrest of Wen Ho Lee on espionage charges, then-DOE Secretary Bill Richardson imposed a sweeping polygraph program, ostensibly to identify spies. Scientists objected strenuously, as they knew that polygraphs had never caught a spy -- not even Aldrich Ames, who had passed his CIA polygraph at least 5 times -- but that they do destroy careers and morale. Sandia Lab's President Paul Robinson ordered his small group of senior scientists to review publications on polygraphs in order to make recommendations to the Secretary. The seniors concluded that polygraphs were worse than worthless. Their report to this effect was, however, ignored. Follow-on letters to Richardson and the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee opposing the expanded polygraph program went unanswered.
As the only senior scientist who had also practiced medicine, I knew that continuation of polygraphs was going to be a disaster for individuals at Sandia and elsewhere in the DOE complex. And indeed it was. Within a few months Sandia employees began contacting me with tales of unconscionable abuse: Polygraphers were asking detailed questions about medical histories and medications (both are of no proven relevance to outcome of the polygraph test), and were engaging in 4-hour-long inquisitions, accusing staff of lying and revealing classified information. Employees who flunked their first polygraph were brought back a second, or even third, time for more of the same, and were denied legal representation, or even independent review of the videotapes of their sessions.
But no employee dared appeal to the DOE or to Laboratory managers because they feared for their jobs. As one Sandia scientist of 26 years wrote to me: "if the Lab and DOE are permitting the polygraphers to do this to me in the first place, what reason is there in complaining?"
It got even worse. In February of 2003, David Renzelman the head of the DOE polygraph program said at a meeting of DOE counter-intelligence officials that he "liked to see lab geeks squirm" when they were strapped to the polygraph chair. Renzelman's bluster came on the heels of a National Academy of Sciences study -- specifically designed to evaluate polygraphs in the DOE labs -- that concluded that "[the polygraph's] accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee screening."
The NAS panel further stated that "polygraphs have no place in any federal agency," and -- much as the Sandia senior scientists had warned -- that there was no chance that polygraphs would ever catch a spy, but every chance of their undermining security. Renzelman was fired in March, but only after his garish disrespect for science became public, and an embarrassment to DOE that could no longer be hidden, thanks to an anonymous counterintelligence staffer who revealed the incident in an unsigned letter to officials.
At the same time, Richardson's replacement Spencer Abraham was required to appear before Congress to comment on the Academy report. In early March he sent a note to the Directors of the National Laboratories stating that he had "delayed" his testimony and the making of any decision on polygraphs because of "pending hostilities in Iraq." That turned out to be untrue, because within a week, DOE published a Federal Register notice of its intent to continue the polygraph program, asserting that polygraphs are "a tool that appears in current circumstances well-suited" to security goals.
Scientists everywhere were aghast. Donald Kennedy, editor of the prestigious magazine Science, wrote: "In its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking … DOE referred to the report but said that although the academy's recommendation might be all right for the academy, its own mission was different, so the judgment couldn't apply to it! … it's just bad science." The Lab directors were nonetheless silent. So much for logic and reason at DOE and its labs.
As a physician, I felt obliged to put pressure on the Secretary to reconsider his decision even if the Lab Directors were unmoved; after all, people were (and still are) getting hurt. And so I wrote an editorial piece published in The Washington Post recounting these events ("Polygraphs: Worse Than Worthless," May 27, 2003). Within days, my supervisor at Sandia, Dori Ellis, placed me on disciplinary suspension without pay, accusing me of "insubordination."
When I returned to the Lab, she also banned me from working on a counter-terrorism software tool that I had invented and developed over the prior four years, and which was nearing technology transfer to the public domain. The Rapid Syndrome Validation Program (RSVP) enabled physicians all over the country to report unusual disease outbreaks quickly, and it had operated successfully in three states, was utilized by hundreds of doctors, and was a subject on which I had testified before very supportive Congressional committees on four separate occasions.
I reported Ms. Ellis' retaliatory banning order to my colleagues at the New Mexico Department of Health who had helped me design and test RSVP, and notified her that I was ethically bound to do so, while continuing to speak out on polygraphs in public forums, as scientific reason, on that issue, had failed. She again placed me on disciplinary suspension a week later. When I appealed to Sandia's president, and he didn't respond to phone calls or letters, I resigned. It wasn't too difficult to read the handwriting on the wall. Unsurprisingly, RSVP now languishes, gathering dust on a shelf.
Why did Lab management react so strongly to my polygraph protest? There is only one credible explanation: If DOE dumps polygraphs, the other US government agencies that have long used them -- CIA, NSA, and the FBI -- look pretty silly by comparison (and indeed they are if they place the slightest reliance on the polygraph). Much better to ruin a few scientists' careers than trouble the Cabinet officials and agency administrators responsible for the internal integrity of our front-line intelligence agencies, even if sparing them will undermine security not only at the Labs, but at all of the agencies still hanging their hats on the aggressively counterproductive polygraph. So it's a good bet that DOE put pressure on the Lab to muzzle me, and then, when the muzzling failed, exerted pressure to get rid of me.
Sandia's "corporate values" emblazoned in its employee handbook and on placards in just about every nook, bathroom and cranny at the Lab are: "Integrity, Quality, Leadership and Respect for the Individual. " But it appears that these values only go so far as political expediency -- and protecting a budget of $2.2 billion -- permit. There is no doubt that Sandia scientists do many good things (as would expected with such generous funding) but perhaps over the last few years the Lab has evolved into a middling, even mediocre bureaucracy that is willing to dismiss uncomfortable scientific facts, sacrificing its staff members' careers at the altar of Congressional largesse. That's a dangerous indoctrination for new Lab employees, for we will depend on their commitment to objectivity in order to maintain the safety and security of our nuclear stockpile. There can be nothing conditional about that.
______________________
Alan P. Zelicoff is a physician, inventor and specialist in control of biological weapons. Until his resignation in 2003 described above, he was senior scientist with the Center for National Security and Arms Control at Sandia National Laboratories. The views here are his own.
By Stan Greene Beth T'filah Messianic Synagogue
It seems that since the advent of CAT scanning technology an interesting thing has been discovered. There are people out there with high IQ's, honors students, geniuses, who have virtually NO brain. 5% to 50% of normal cortical material. Some of them Lorber describes as having 'no detectable brain', yet they have scored up to 120 on IQ tests.
The original article seems to have appeared in Science 210 December 1980, p. 1232 and there was an article in Science Digest, October 1983 (vol. 91 No. 10).
Lorber cited the case of a boy who had an IQ of 126 and had a first class honors degree in mathematics, he had "virtually no brain".
"A noninvasive measurement of radio density known as CAT scan showed the boy's skull was lined with a thin layer of brain cells to a millimeter in thickness. The rest of his skull was filled with cerebrospinal fluid. The young man continues a normal life with the exception of his knowledge that he has no brain."
CAT scanning of folks for any number of other reasons (head trauma, strokes, etc.) over the last two decades has turned up hundreds of such individuals.
These people generally have a history of hydrocephaly, an abnormal build up of cerebrospinal fluid, ("water on the brain") as babies, the pressure killing off most of the cerebral cortex and leaving them with 50-95% empty skull cavity filled with CFS enclosed in a thin (down to 1mm thick) envelope of cortical tissue. Most of these folks function perfectly normally, even beyond normal.
References:
http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/lorber.html
http://web.syr.edu/~sndrake/necbrain.htm
http://www.altered-states.net/barry/brain/use100percent.htm
[Connecticut journalist Marie Coady incredulously reported this to SPJ-L. To see the full story, go to Tehran Times. I think that journalists should do their best to check out the accusation. If it's a fake, no Pulitzer, but a good example of how far the enemies of freedom will go to trash the United States. If true.... ]
U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq
[Excerpts]
TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – Over the past few days, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.
The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.
"Most of these weapons are of Eastern European origin and some parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The U.S. obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over the past two decades," he said.
[Open Letter]
Dear Friends,
This past week editorials in the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the San Francisco Chronicle have focused on Peaceful Tomorrows' recent press statements in opposition to the Bush re-election campaign's use of 9/11 imagery. Peaceful Tomorrows was part of a broad-based response (including other family groups and fire fighters) opposing the appropriation of these images by any political ad campaign. We repeatedly stated that we thought NO candidate or party should use the images in ads. We also stressed that we welcomed discussion and debate about the events and issues of 9/11 by ALL candidates.
Unfortunately, the editorials have chosen to focus on Peaceful Tomorrows' funding not our message. The editorials state that Peaceful Tomorrows received funding from the Tides Foundation, and that Teresa Heinz Kerry, John Kerry's wife, made large contributions to the Tides Foundation in the past. The insinuation, therefore, is that Peaceful Tomorrows is funded by Teresa Heinz Kerry through the Tides Foundation.
There is absolutely NO truth to these allegations. Here are the facts:
Tides Foundation made four grants to Peaceful Tomorrows in 2002 and 2003 which together totaled $34,665. None of these grants came from the Howard Heinz Endowment, the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, Teresa Heinz Kerry or John Kerry.
The Heinz Endowments granted Tides Foundation a total of $230,000 which was dispensed between 1994 and 1998, all for projects in western Pennsylvania.
We have asked ALL candidates for any political office to avoid 9/11 imagery in their ad campaigns.
We encourage and support the discussion and debate of ALL issues regarding September 11th, including national security, foreign policy, fear, terrorism, and civil liberties by ALL candidates. Your support has been invaluable to us throughout the past two years. Right now, we need your help again. Please send letters to the editor, make phone calls to talk radio, and discuss these issues with friends and colleagues. Let us know, any time you hear misinformation about our funding.
Our website,
Please make a donation to Peaceful Tomorrows if you can. We need to redouble our efforts to spread our message of non-violence and hope for breaking the cycles of violence that claimed our loved ones' lives. We cannot let the false information that has been spread about Peaceful Tomorrows by some members of the press deter us from our central mission of turning our grief into action for peace.
Our heartfelt thanks for your encouragement; we truly could not do our work without friends.
In Peace,
September 11th Families For Peaceful Tomorrows
Hot Copy
Paul D. Colford
[Excerpts]
Robert Cox A cyber-gadfly, hit with a copyright-infringement charge by The New York Times, yesterday stripped his Web site of a Times parody and watched it pop up elsewhere online.
At issue is the devilishly realistic Times "Columnist Corrections" page that Robert Cox created for his site, TheNationalDebate.com ("Where Policy, Politics and the Media Meet").
Cox pulled the "Corrections" from his site - at 4:05 yesterday afternoon - but listed where in the sympathetic, so-called "blogosphere" it could now be found
Legislators Urge E-Voting Halt
Wired News Article
By Kim Zetter
[Excerpt]
SACRAMENTO -- California legislators said on Thursday they want to stop the use of all paperless electronic voting machines in the state, fearing the same type of fiasco that plagued Florida in the 2000 election.
State Sens. Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate election committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley urging him to decertify all paperless touch-screen voting machines before the general election.
The March 2 primary "was a test-flight of widespread use of these machines. I think it's fair to say the test flight crashed and burned," said Perata. "None of us want California to be the sequel to Florida."
[Press Release from FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting] Original
MEDIA ADVISORY: GOP Rhetoric on Kerry's Voting Record Goes Unchallenged
March 8, 2004--After John Kerry emerged as the likely Democratic nominee for president, the Republican National Committee (RNC) began criticizing his record on military spending. The campaign against Kerry's record escalated on February 22 when the RNC released a list of weapons systems that Kerry allegedly "voted against."
Republican spokespeople used this list to make sweeping claims about Kerry in the media: "I think the more that the president and the Republicans describe accurately-- they don't have to exaggerate at all; they just have to describe accurately and calmly-- what it means...to have voted against every major weapon system," Newt Gingrich declared on Fox's Hannity and Colmes (2/26/04), "I think if they stick to that and stick to the facts, Senator Kerry will react by saying that he's being smeared by his own record."
Partisan TV pundits like Sean Hannity quickly echoed these charges: "He's voting against every major weapons system we now use in our military," Hannity told his Fox News audience (3/1/04). Hannity's participation in the RNC's attack was perhaps to be expected, but he was not the only media figure to simply pass on the Republican allegations without examination. CNN anchor Judy Woodruff (2/25/04) framed the issue this way in an interview with Rep. Norm Dicks (D.-Wash.): "The Republicans list something like 13 different weapons systems that they say the record shows Senator Kerry voted against. The Patriot missile, the B-1 bomber, the Trident missile and on and on and on."
Embarrassingly, Dicks had to explain to Woodruff that most of the weapons "votes" weren't individual votes at all, but a single vote on the Pentagon's 1991 appropriations bill. Woodruff responded with surprise to this information: "Are you saying that all these weapons systems were part of one defense appropriations bill in 1991?"
But Woodruff wasn't alone. Appearing on CNN (2/3/04), Bush-Cheney campaign strategist Ralph Reed explained to anchor Wolf Blitzer that Kerry's record was one of "voting to dismantle 27 weapons systems, including the MX missile, the Pershing missile, the B-1, the B-2 stealth bomber, the F-16 fighter jet, the F-15 fighter jet, cutting another 18 programs, slashing intelligence spend by $2.85 billion, and voting to freeze defense spending for seven years." Blitzer responded by pointing out to guest Ann Lewis of the Democratic National Committee, "I think it's fair to say, Ann, that there's been some opposition research done."
For many reporters, the charges against Kerry's record were recorded as just part of the back-and-forth of a campaign: Fox News Channel's Carl Cameron (2/27/04) explained: "With the GOP attacking John Kerry's votes to cut defense over the years, the Democratic front-runner, once again, counter-attacked what he calls the president's 'mishandling' of the war on terror."
Associated Press reporter Nedra Pickler (2/27/04) noted that "the Bush campaign has criticized Kerry in recent days for voting against some increases in defense spending and military weapons programs during his 19-year congressional career. Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot said Kerry's policies would weaken the country's ability to win the war on terror."
NBC anchor Tom Brokaw (3/2/04, MSNBC) also seemed to accept the charges at face value, noticing that "the vice president just today was talking about his votes against the CIA budget, for example, intelligence budgets and also weapons systems. Isn't he [Kerry] going to be very vulnerable come the fall when national security is such a big issue in this country?
One of the few reporters to take a serious look at the RNC's list-- on which 10 of the 13 items refer to the single 1991 vote-- was Slate's Fred Kaplan (2/25/04). Kaplan noted that 16 senators, including five Republicans, voted against the bill. Kaplan concluded that the claim against Kerry "reeks of rank dishonesty."
Kaplan also pointed out that at the time of the 1991 vote, deeper cuts in military spending were being advocated by some prominent Republicans-- including then-President George H.W Bush and Dick Cheney, who was secretary of defense at the time. As Kaplan noted, Cheney appealed for more cuts from Congress: "You've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements."
Cheney went to name the M-1 tank and the F-14 and F-16 fighters-- all of which appear on the RNC's list-- as "great systems" that "we have enough of."
Ironically, Cheney made the rounds on the cable channels on March 2, criticizing Kerry's record in terms parallel to the RNC's release. During an interview with Fox News Channel's Brit Hume, Cheney said: "What we're concerned about, what I'm concerned about, is his record in the United States Senate, where he clearly has over the years adopted a series of positions that indicate a desire to cut the defense budget, to cut the intelligence budget, to eliminate many major weapons programs."
Unfortunately, Hume failed to raise an important follow-up: Why was Cheney now criticizing Kerry for having essentially the same position Cheney advocated back in 1991?
The Bush/Cheney campaign plans to spend $133 million over the next several months in an effort to "redefine" Kerry (Sydney Morning Herald, 3/4/04). If this charge is an indication of the Republicans' approach, then the media would perform a valuable service if they took a keen interest in evaluating the accuracy of such campaign rhetoric.
I've been trying to understand exactly what's going on in Venezuela without much success. I've yet to see any concrete discussion of the issues. Earlier today, I wrote to Roy S. Carson, editor in chief of vheadline.com, an independent news portal in Caracas, and asked him to explain why the opposition refuses to cooperate in validating the signatures that are being challenged. Specifically, what are the procedures to which they object?
In addition to some comments of his own, he sent me the following documents that I think journalists should read. Following are excerpts from Caracas an excellent article by Alan Cisco, published this weekend in Counterpunch. Then come Roy's own comments, along with a transcript of the Venezuelan government statement to the Carter Center/OAS.
Summing up: After grueling negotiation everyone agreed on a process for gathering the signatures for a referendum to recall Chávez. When the signature gathering drive was completed, the National Election Comission, whose five members had been approved by all concerned, invalidated more than one million of the three million signatures.
About 143,000 were either dead, under age, foreign born or otherwise ineligible. The rest were invalid because the identification data had not been filled in by the signers but by others, which was forbidden in the process all had agreed to follow. The election commission established a five day period for signers to go to 2700 centers to re-affirm the validity of their signatures. The opposition insists that these signatures must be honored and has gone to the streets to enforce its demands.
U.S. congressman Barney Frank told Carson, "I've spoken with the Carter Center and I believe that the signatures that were gathered without them filling out the forms, that there was a miscommunication, a misunderstanding and there does not appear to be any doubt about these signatures/thumbprints and that is pretty well verifiable."
Despite Frank's opinion, it's clear that everyone was aware of how the signatures were to be validated. As the Venezuelan government pointed out in its statement, the petitions would have been thrown out in California. Misunderstanding or not, why should anyone be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to kicking out a democratically elected president?
March 6 / 7, 2004
A Report from Caracas: Venezuela Equals Haiti?
Original Article
By ALAN CISCO
[Excerpts]
In the 1999 constitution, product of the constituent assembly fostered by Chavez, there is an unprecedented measure allowing for a recall vote on any elected official after half their term of office has expired, if it is petitioned by 20% of the electorate. Half of the Chavez's six year term ended last August 19, 2003.
The controversy is based around the decisions of the National Election Committee (CNE) on signatures collected for the referendum. The commission has five members, two from the Chavez side, and two from the opposition, but it took months to find a consensus candidate choice for the president, who would have the deciding vote. Finally the nod was given to Chavez sympathizer Francisco Carrasquero, a grey haired law professor of indigenous heritage with a reputation for impeccable integrity.
The petition drives for the recall elections were held at the end of November 2003. In the first round the Chavez supporters collected about six million signatures to recall some 37 opposition Congressional deputies. Then, from Nov 28 to Dec. 1, the opposition claimed to have collected the required 20% signatures for about 2/3 of the 30 deputies they tried to recall, and 3.4 million signatures against Chavez, more than the 2.4 million, or 20% of the electorate needed to solicit the recall vote.
The Chavez supporters, who had observers at every petition table to tally the signatures, alleged that the opposition had only collected 1.9 million signatures, and that the remaining 1.5 million were the result of a "megafraud". Recently obtained FOIA documents have documented that SUMATE, the main opposition group organizing their collection of signatures, received tens of thousands of dollars from the Republican Institute and the Endowment for Democracy.
On March 2, the CNE finally reported the preliminary results. It turned out that there were only slightly more than three million possibly valid signatures delivered, of which 143,000 were declared invalid because the supposed signers were either dead, under age, foreign born or otherwise ineligible.
The main debate, however, is over some 876,000 signatures on sheets where the signers' data, except for the signatures, are filled out in the same handwriting. The instructions for filling out the forms, agreed upon by the CNE, and disseminated in the information provided by the CNE and the opposition SUMATE, stated that each person had to fill out their own data, unless physically incapable of doing so. The opposition claims that these were done to save time, and all must be accepted as signatures in "good faith."
After much debate the CNE, in a 3 to 2 vote, decided not to invalidate these signatures, but rather to have a 5 day period of "repair", when those with questioned signatures would reaffirm their intentions in any of the 2700 centers to be set up around the country for this purpose.
A total of about one million signatures will be subject to revalidation in the repair process, and if the just over 600,000 people confirm their signatures, the referendum will go forward.
The indignant opposition has insisted that all the signatures on the forms with the same handwriting must be accepted, and claims that Chavez is simply dictating to the members of the CNE in order to avoid the referendum.
Understanding the signature ratification process
By Roy S.Carson
There were ten lines on each page printed on officially numbered sealed (watermarked) security paper. Problems have arisen because some over-enthusiastic people tried to hurry things up by filling in the details of each signatory and then taking only the signature and the thumb print.
The Elections Authority says it is reasonable to require each signatory to fill out his/her own name, address, ID (social security) number in the space provided, and that assistance should only be given where it is a matter of a blind or disabled person -- the opposition says it is the signatures and the thumb prints that matters and that so long as these are okay the forms should be recognized.
The government says that there are many instances of false ID papers being used and that many have signed twice or three times at different times and in different places to boost the numbers.
The Carter Center has taken a random selection of forms and counted the number that were incorrect and it appears that even if one took a statistical estimate on the remaining forms the result of the referendum petition would still be the same.
Transcript of the Venezuelan government's statement in dialogue held with the Carter Center/OAS/on the signature ratification process in Venezuela
Main Points
[1] It is very important that the Rule of Law be respected in Venezuela. For more than 2 years now the Venezuelan opposition has refused to respect the rule of law. They have tried a military coup, and 4 times they have tried to overthrow the government by means of strikes; the last oil strike devastated our economy and Venezuela is still recovering.
The opposition has only recently agreed to abide by the rule of law, and their commitment is very tentative and contingent. The leaders of the opposition have not committed to respect the rule of law if the decisions of the CNE or TSJ go against them.
It would be tragic, and dangerous, if international observers were to lend legitimacy to further extra-legal attempts to overthrow the government, by indicating that the referendum process has not been legitimate.
[2] The CNE is a legitimate elections board, chosen in accordance with Venezuela's laws and constitution. When the CNE was chosen, the opposition was unanimous in its approval of the selection. It would be a somewhat different story if the government had used its power to appoint a CNE that it could control. But this was not the case; the appointment of the fifth member went to the Supreme Court, and all sides applauded the Court's selection.
It is wrong and disingenuous for the opposition, and much of the international press, to now claim that the CNE is partisan simply because the majority of the CNE has made decisions that the opposition does not like.
[3] If either party does not agree with the decision of the CNE regarding the petitions, it can appeal to the TSJ. That is how the rule of law works in a constitutional democracy. It is fair for the government to do so, just as Governor Gray Davis of California had the right to appeal the decisions of the California elections board. And the opposition also has this right, and therefore has no right to resort to extra-legal methods; it would be wrong and very dangerous to our democracy for the international community to encourage a return to illegality, by indicating that the government is obstructing democracy simply by exercising its right to appeal an adverse decision from the CNE.
[4] The petition forms would be clearly illegal under California law, and Venezuela's own CNE would be within their legal authority to throw them out. This is not just a technicality; there are reasons for such rules, mainly to avoid fraud, and this is why signatures that violate such laws in the United States are often disqualified. In the case of the petition forms, it is clearly much easier to forge a signature (especially in Venezuela, where most signatures are illegible) than to forge all of the information required of a signer. Since it was well known that the signer was supposed to fill in the required information himself/herself, there is no obvious reason other than fraud to have so many petition forms.
Signatures gathered after the designated polling period are also clearly illegal. The opposition held on to the petitions, for unexplained reasons, for 19 days after the polls closed. It does not take 19 days to make Xerox copies of the documents. The presumption of fraud and/or gathering of illegal signatures is very strong.
[5] In the case of illegal signatures, whether the petition forms, signatures gathered after the deadline, or others, the CNE has the option of publishing the corresponding cedulas and allowing people to come forward an validate their signature. This would be a generous compromise, allowing the will of the signers (and non-signers) to be respected, without sacrificing the need to protect against fraud. But the CNE would not be overstepping its authority if it, following the common practice in the United States, were to throw out signatures that did not conform to legal requirements.
[6] The Carter Center has a pivotal role in protecting democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela. As you know, the OAS is often subject to the political pressures of its most powerful member country, the United States. To take just one example, Marta Altolaguirre, former president of the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, stated last year that "Cuba has the worst human rights record in the region, followed by Venezuela, Colombia and Haiti." As any expert on human rights in Latin America can attest, this is a false statement. As you know, by any criterion that places Cuba as the worst human rights violator (e.g. freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, etc.), Venezuela is nowhere close.
There are numerous other examples indicating that the United States government -- which supported the April 2002 military coup, continues to fund Venezuelan opposition groups, and has recently indicated (falsely) that the Venezuelan government has agreed to hold a recall referendum -- has undue influence on the OAS in matters pertaining to Venezuela
The world is therefore depending on the Carter Center to defend the rule of law in Venezuela. Even if you do not agree with the decision of the CNE, or a decision of either party to appeal to the TSJ, it is essential that the Carter Center defend the rule of law, because there is no guarantee that anyone else in the international community will do so.
[7] When the U.S. Supreme Court made what appeared to be a partisan decision in the case of Bush v. Gore, in the 2000 presidential elections in the U.S., the consensus was that the rule of law should be respected. This despite the fact that many legal scholars questioned the decision, and a subsequent Florida recount sponsored by the NYT, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers later found that Gore had won Florida and therefore the election. That is how a constitutional democracy works: even in the face of a controversial and seriously flawed election, the rule of law prevails.
The Venezuelan government has respected the constitution and the rule of law throughout this period of conflict. It has always maintained a recall referendum would be held if the opposition could gather the legally required signatures, and will honor that pledge.
Venezuela asks nothing more from the international community than they respect the rule of law in Venezuela, the same as they would in the United States or any other democracy. To do otherwise is to risk causing great harm to our efforts at resolving our conflicts peacefully.
William's birth had to fit in around Charles's polo games
By Suzanne Goldenberg, March 7, 2004, The Sun-Herald
[Excerpt]
Charles's obsession with horses extended as far as the birth of William, which had to be scheduled around polo matches, Diana said.
"We found a day that Charles could get off his polo pony for me to give birth. That was very nice, I was very grateful for that."
[Excerpts]
A decade after it was enacted, California's three-strikes sentencing law has had little impact on violent crime while costing taxpayers $8 billion to imprison tens of thousands of felons, most of them for nonviolent offenses, according to a study released today.
The report by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute also found that blacks have been imprisoned under the three-strikes law at 10 times the rate of whites, while the rate for Hispanics has been almost 80% greater than for whites.
• Nearly 65% of those convicted of second or third strikes were serving time in prison for nonviolent crimes. They included 672 third-strikers serving 25 years to life in prison for drug possession — a number that was greater than the number of third-strikers in prison for second-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and rape combined.
• While only two ex-felons were serving 25 years to life for petty theft a decade ago, that number soared to 354 by last September.
• The six largest California counties using three strikes most frequently had lower decreases in crime rates than the six that used the law less often. Similarly, states that did not have three-strikes laws had lower average rates of violent crime — and larger average drops in violent crime — than the states with the tough sentencing law. For example, New York, which does not have a three-strikes law, had much larger drops in total crime and violent crime than California.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Public Citizen’s report finds that the 416 Bush Rangers and Pioneers have bundled together at least $58.1 million for the 2004 campaign and that 90 percent of them (374) represent the special interests of America’s corporations.
Among the industries highlighted in the report are:
* The financial industry.
Bankers, stockbrokers, venture capitalists and wealthy private investors have contributed at least $38.4 million to Bush’s campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004 and produced more Rangers and Pioneers than any other industry – 73 who have bundled at least $10.8 million this cycle. Bush’s tax cut dramatically reduced the "double taxation" of dividends, the securities industry’s No. 1 priority. His other major tax cuts benefited the securities industry and its CEOs, who personally will save hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in taxes a year. Social Security privatization, likely to be a top Bush priority in a second term, would shift trillions of dollars of retirement savings to private sector investment accounts.
* Real estate developers.
The real estate industry has donated $32.2 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004, and 37 real estate developers have qualified as Rangers or Pioneers in 2004, bundling at least $5.4 million. The Bush administration has made it easier for developers to build on wetlands, has attempted to narrow the Clean Water Act so that it no longer covers many ponds, streams and wetlands, and has appointed crusading opponents of the Endangered Species Act to key positions at the Interior Department.
* Electric utilities.
The electric utility industry has donated nearly $6 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004. In return, in 2000 three industry Pioneers got slots on the transition team at the U.S. Department of Energy. The administration also rewrote a key Clean Air Act rule to effectively neutralize existing government lawsuits against energy companies and prevent future challenges. Bush launched a "Clear Skies" initiative that would dramatically delay emissions reductions and do nothing to contend with carbon dioxide, and has proposed mercury regulations indistinguishable from industry proposals.
* Oil and gas.
Oil and gas companies gave $15.8 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004. Bush has opened federal land for oil and gas exploration and coal mining, targeted Wyoming’s Powder River Basin for coalbed methane drilling, and required federal agencies to consider how agency rules will affect energy supply, distribution and use.
* Mining companies.
The mining industry has contributed at least $3.1 million to Bush campaign efforts in the 2000 and 2004 cycles. Mining executives have been appointed to top posts in the Interior Department, and Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency has permitted mountaintop removal for coal mining, is trying to lift a Reagan-era regulation that banned mining within 100 feet of a stream and increased the amount of public land available for mining company waste dumping.
In addition, the administration-backed Medicare bill was a boon to the pharmaceutical and managed care industries, the insurance industry benefited by government agreeing to cover 80 percent of terrorism damages, and media conglomerates have gained from policies encouraging mega- mergers.
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit
Contact: Frank Clemente (202) 441-9818
Craig Aaron (202) 454-5167
Angela Bradbery (202) 588-7741
Law lord believes his report's findings on David Kelly's death were misinterpreted by media and is dismayed at accusations of whitewash
David Hencke and Michael White
Thursday March 4, 2004
The Guardian
[Excerpt]
Lord Hutton was shocked by public anger at his report into the suicide of the weapons scientist, Dr David Kelly, and by the turmoil it caused at the BBC with the resignation of the corporation's two most senior figures, the Guardian has learned.
The law lord was convinced he had produced a "finding of fact" which was even-handed in criticising both the BBC's "unfounded" reporting and weaknesses in editorial control and the Ministry of Defence's failure to provide "duty of care" towards Dr Kelly.
As the dust settles on the report, leaked on publication day, January 28, reports of Lord Hutton's dismay about accusations that he produced a "whitewash" and the depth of the crisis at the BBC are beginning to circulate in Westminster and Whitehall, MPs and officials confirmed yesterday.
This came through on newsroom-l from a long-time subscriber I know to be a valid source. He asked me to remove all identification before posting. If you are a journalist who wants to verify the story personally with him, let me know and I'll put him in touch.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NEWSROOM-L] SPJ PressNotes for Tuesday, March 2, 2004
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 10:09:08 -0600
To: newsroom-l
Interestingly enough, one of the photographers involved here is a
correspondent / acquaintance. On another list he notes that he has
taken down his website, changed his email and snail mail addresses
and phone number, and has requested that those of us who know him
release nothing to anyone. Seems he's receiving harassment of one
sort or another and is attempting to protect his family. This guy's
been through a lot and doesn't scare lightly.
His offense? He produced the original of one of the altered
photographs and demonstrated that it had been faked. For this the
"patriots" and "Good Americans" of the Wingnut Administration and its
Fellow Travellers have apparently decided he must be taught not to
call a liar a liar....
> from SPJ PressNotes for Tuesday, March 2, 2004
> Several historic photos of John Kerry have circulated the Internet in
> recent weeks in an attempt to discredit the presidential candidate. At
> least three of the photographs have been taken from the Corbis Web
> site, and photographers who own the copyrights are now asking the
> company to track down the infringers and hold them responsible. The
> photos have been copied and used without permission on several Web
> sites in an attempt to link Kerry with controversial antiwar activist
> Jane Fonda.
Problems with new electronic systems in Orange and San Diego counties
frustrate voters. Officials call the harm minimal.
By Jeffrey L. Rabin, Stuart Pfeifer and Tony Perry, Times Staff Writers
[Excerpts]
Problems with new electronic voting systems caused some Orange County
residents to vote in the wrong district elections Tuesday and prevented
some San Diego County voters from casting any ballot at all.
In Orange County, poll workers unfamiliar with the new electronic voting
system made mistakes Tuesday that allowed many people to vote in the
wrong districts, potentially endangering the outcomes of several races,
officials acknowledged.
Assemblyman Ken Maddox, a Republican candidate for state Senate in the
35th District, said he had driven to the polls at Westminster Christian
Assembly after fielding calls from voters complaining that his name
wasn't on their ballot.
"I went down there to find out what was going on," Maddox said. "I got
there about noon. They hadn't even bothered to notify the registrar. We
called the registrar and they told us the technician had gone to lunch….
You can imagine how I'm thinking. It's called, 'You don't get lunch
today. Eat in your car.' "
[Fascinating anecdotes in the full story are highly recommended reading,
Internet viewers.]
Differing portraits emerge of rebel leader
Original article
By Susannah A. Nesmith
Knight Ridder Newspapers
[Excerpts]
CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti - Guy Philippe, the diminutive leader of Haitian rebels, sees himself as the quiet hero of a story he's directing himself.
He said the man he most admires, however, is former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who was known for concentrating, not separating, power. "Pinochet made Chile what it is." No. 2 on his list is former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
[Thanks to Andrew Grice on Sun Feb 29th, 2004 at 05:09:42 PM EST NarcoSphere for this one.]
Some Iowa Troops Returning from Iraq to be Punished for Failing Drug Tests
Original article
Tuesday, February 24, 2004, 12:35:12 PM
Video From The KCRG-TV9 Cedar Rapids Newsroom
Some Iowa soldiers will be in trouble when they return from Iraq.
The Iowa National Guard says it will punish 21 soldiers who failed drug tests before being sent overseas.
The Des Moines Register reports the soldiers will be discharged dishonorably. The troops were not discharged or put through rehab at the time of the drug tests.
Guard officials say that's because deployment schedules didn't allow for it.