Sinful parents

Coalfield residents lobby on Capitol Hill

During the second week of March more than 200 people from 27 states gathered in Washington, D.C. to lobby federal legislators to support the Clean Water Protection Act, HB 1310, as a way to stop or seriously curtail mountain top removal mining.

“It (the House bill ) would effectively end the valley fill process that's used in mountain top removal, and it would end the greatest majority of mountain top removal mining thereby,” said Bob Kincaid, whose reporting appears on the Horn

Lenny Kohm, Campaign Director for Appalachian Voices, said on Tuesday the bill has 164 co-sponsors.

“These are people who have actually signed on to the bill, and are registered in the Congressional Record as co-sponsors,” Kohm said.

Kohm said the House bill is broader than the Appalachian Restoration Act, S. 696, which was introduced in the Senate almost a year ago.

U.S. surveillance blimp fights harsh criticism

BANGKOK, Thailand -- An Arlington, Virginia-based company is defending its harshly criticized US $ 9.7 million sale of a helium-filled blimp, equipped with infrared thermal cameras, to Thailand's army for hunting Islamist guerrillas in the south. Scathing criticism of the California-built Sky Dragon blimp, and its cameras, has been repeatedly published in Thailand's media during recent weeks, and voiced by worried politicians.

They describe the airship as a waste of money, not fully able to fly on operational missions, and impractical for Thailand's low-intensity guerrilla war where Muslim rebels hide in hilly jungles.

"The demand to fly the ship daily is there, but it's pointless to fly it if the entire surveillance system is not operational," said Aria International's President and CEO Mike "Bing" Crosby in an e-mail interview. "We are completing these tasks now, and should have the system turned over to the RTA (Royal Thai Army) in the very near future."

Dear Eric Holder: Try accused criminals in courts of law

The Robert Jackson Steering Committee, a group of lawyers and journalists founded to uphold the principles of the Nuremberg Trials, is urging the Department of Justice to proceed with trying Khalil Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and other suspected 9/11 terrorists in federal criminal court, and not in military commissions.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Committee enumerates several substantial problems with military commissions:

(1) Admissibility of statements following torture in certain circumstances,
(2) Evidence derived from impermissible interrogation methods is not barred,
(3) Evidence seized outside the US without search warrants is not excluded,
(4) The accused is entitled to one "reasonably available" defense counsel,
(5) No mention of the attorney-client privilege,
(6) In a capital case, the accused is entitled to additional counsel "to the greatest extent practicable",
(7) Ex post facto law may be applied,
(8) No right to speedy trial,
(9) Trials may be closed to public,
(10) Conviction by two thirds of jurors rather than unanimity,

War in a box

The event on the House floor Wednesday (March 10) was monumental -- the first major congressional debate about U.S. military operations in Afghanistan since lawmakers authorized the invasion of that country in autumn 2001. But, as Rep. Patrick Kennedy noted with disgust on Wednesday, the House press gallery was nearly empty. He concluded: “It’s despicable, the national press corps right now.”

Sure enough, the Thursday edition of the New York Times had no room for the historic debate on its front page, which did have room for a large Starbucks ad across the bottom.

Despite the news media and the lopsided pro-war tilt on Capitol Hill (reflected in the 356-65 vote Wednesday against invoking the War Powers Act), antiwar organizing has a lot of hospitable terrain at the grassroots. National polling shows widespread opposition to the Afghanistan war effort -- a far cry from the dominant lockstep conformity in Congress.

Alternative reading of the Al-Mabhouh murder

The killing of Palestinian activist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on January 19, 2010 was clearly a well-planned, violent and sadistic act, committed by Israeli assassins in the supposed safety of a sovereign country.

Yes, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was a Palestinian activist. We have no reason to believe otherwise. He spent years of his life in Israeli prison – and one year in an Egyptian jail – for his political activism. This, however, gives no credibility to Israel’s accusation that al-Mabhouh was a killer of Israelis. This assertion becomes even more problematic when considering that al-Mabhouh’s assassination was, according to British media, ordered by accused Israeli war criminals and rightwing politicians.

According to the Sunday Times, Meir Dagan, the current director of Mossad briefed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the assassination plan during a meeting in early January. "The people of Israel trust you. Good luck," Netanyahu reportedly said at the end of this meeting.

In NYTimes: Voting-machine flaws and paper ballots

To the Editor:

Your Feb. 26 editorial “The Voters Will Pay” opposes a merger between manufacturers of electronic voting machines, but avoids the question of why we use them at all. As you say, “numerous studies have shown that electronic voting machines are particularly vulnerable to software glitches, intentional vote theft or sabotage.”

In a real democracy, there is no room for such shortcomings, especially when there is no reason to tolerate them. Having observed the fiasco in Ohio in 2004 firsthand, I believe that the conclusion is unavoidable that we need universal hand-counted paper ballots.

They are not perfect. But they are cheaper, trackable and subject to far fewer abuses than the electronic systems that have failed us so badly in recent years.

Harvey Wasserman
Bexley, Ohio, Feb. 26, 2010

The writer has co-authored four books about election protection.

Support the Coalition to Ban Ohio Dog Auctions

As the month of March unfolds we find ourselves looking forward to the many changes of spring. We witness warmer weather and disappearing snow drifts, spring break and the break out of shorts and sandals. Unfortunately for many Ohioans, there is one change that we are not seeing. Dog auctions, a spectacle banned in many states, continue to take place. Dog auctions function to trade breeding stock between puppy millers and act as a means for millers to dump unprofitable pups and females. These auctions take place every month in Farmerstown Ohio, drawing shady breeders from across the nation. The next Ohio dog auction is set for March 27th and expects over 300 dogs to be bartered off.

Jay Bybee questioned as prelude to prosecution

Susan Harman, who by now deserves some kind of medal and who will be joining in a protest of John Yoo on March 19th, questioned Jay Bybee yesterday about his crimes. Here's her report:

    "Yesterday Jay Bybee sat with the 9th Circuit as they modeled appellate court for 140 law students at the University of NV's law school in Las Vegas. I sent out a plea to PDA's Vegas list of edresses, and about 10 people responded. Of them, two showed up with signs and we handed out Impeach Bybee postcards and talked with the law students as they waited to get through security to go inside. I was appalled at their ignorance and/or lack of outrage. Two older students said he was a friend (he lives in Henderson, just outside Vegas), and a young one said his parents were friends of Bybee.

    "We finally got inside, and listened quietly to the cases, as usual. We were ready to speak out at the end, but instead they announced they would hold a Q&A for the students. We moved down to the second row, and I asked the first question:

The Dispatch goes for the re-kill of Arthur Shapiro

The specter of Arthur Shapiro continues to haunt Columbus, Ohio. A partner in the prominent Columbus law firm Schwartz, Shapiro, Kelm, and Warren that represented transnational corporations like The Limited, Shapiro took two bullets in the head 25 years ago in a Mob-style slaying.

Columbus' daily monopoly, owned by the conservative Wolfe family, ran a bizarre front page Metro section article entitled: "25-year-old killing still puzzles." The intent of the Dispatch's article is clear by the second paragraph: "Twenty-five years later, the slaying remains unsolved, but investigators point to the same man they suspected from the beginning."

The paper points its finger at the late Berry L. Kessler who died while incarcerated in 2005. The fact that the late sheriff of Franklin County Earl Smith had other more distinguished suspects, as did the state's former inspector general, a former city of Columbus safety director, as well as sources in the FBI and IRS, eludes the self-proclaimed "Ohio's Greatest Home Newspaper."

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