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Today’s complete daily news: http://media.progressnowaction.org/digest/030707.htm
TOP STORIES
U.S.
Releases Rights Report, With an Acknowledgment
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/washington/07diplo.html
The Bush
administration acknowledged Tuesday that its treatment of terrorism suspects
was being questioned, even as it used an annual report to criticize the human
rights records of Iraq, Afghanistan and a long list of other countries. “Our
democratic system of governance is accountable, but it is not infallible,”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in releasing the Congressionally
mandated report. It weighs the human rights situation in 193 countries — but
not the United States, and Ms. Rice did not specifically cite any American
violations. But Barry Lowenkron, an assistant secretary of state, said the
State Department was “issuing this report at a time when our own record, and
actions we have taken to respond to terrorist attacks against us, have been
questioned.” He referred to American laws “governing the detention, treatment
and trial of terrorist suspects.”
Libby
'Pilloried' For Leak, Panel Members Believed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602365.html
The jurors who huddled
around two pushed-together conference tables for 10 days, meticulously filling
34 pages of facts from the trial on a large flip chart, believed that Vice
President Cheney's former chief of staff had been "pilloried" for a
CIA leak that other top White House aides had committed along with him,
according to one member of the panel. Still, the juror said yesterday, the jury
concluded that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had lied to FBI agents and a
federal grand jury that investigated the leak. Sifting through mounds of
evidence convinced the panel that Libby's memory of conversations with
colleagues and journalists was not as faulty as the defense contended.
RELATED: Cheney's Suspected Role in Security Breach Drove Fitzgerald
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030601969.html
RELATED: For an Opaque
White House, A Reflection of New Scrutiny
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602589.html
RELATED: Questions
About Cheney Remain
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/washington/07cheney.html
RELATED: Talk floats
of a possible pardon by Bush
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-libbypol7mar07,1,1919312.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Prosecutors
Say They Felt Pressured, Threatened
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030600606.html
Six fired U.S.
attorneys testified on Capitol Hill yesterday that they had separately been the
target of complaints, improper telephone calls and thinly veiled threats from a
high-ranking Justice Department official or members of Congress, both before
and after they were abruptly removed from their jobs. In back-to-back hearings
in the Senate and House, former U.S. attorney David C. Iglesias of New Mexico
and five other former prosecutors recounted specific instances in which some
said they felt pressured by Republicans on corruption cases and one said a
Justice Department official warned him to keep quiet or face retaliation.
RELATED: Ex-prosecutors felt intimidation
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703070091mar07,1,5460132.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
RELATED: Prosecutors
Describe Contacts From Higher Up
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/washington/07attorneys.html?ref=us
RELATED: Statement
from Congresswoman Heather Wilson
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030600192.html
RELATED: Email From
Cummins to Attorneys
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602049.html
Today’s complete national news
Colorado
Critics
assail private prisons
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5399656,00.html
Critics say Colorado's private prisons are driven by shareholder profits and that, ultimately, society
pays when businesses "cut corners" on staffing costs and inmate
rehabilitation. The result is incidents such as a 2004 riot at a CCA prison in Crowley County, witnesses told a House Judiciary Committee hearing on private prisons
Tuesday. State Department of Corrections officials had to come to the rescue of
33 private prison officers who lost control of 1,112 inmates. The state fined
CCA $126,000 in June for short-staffing at Crowley and another facility after
the state auditor blasted CCA for having a staff-to-inmate ratio that was
one-seventh of a state prison at the time of the Crowley riot. "That's a
direct result of you get what you pay for," testified Ryan Sherman, an
official for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which is
crusading nationally against private prisons. He cited a U.S. Department of
Justice report saying that private prisons have a 50 percent higher violence
rate than their public counterparts.
RELATED: Private-prison operator pitches savings
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5370979
RELATED: House panel
has more questions about private prisons
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1173282581/13
House
committee opposes Army plans to expand
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5399224,00.html
A House committee
voted 7-4 Tuesday to side with southeast Colorado ranchers who oppose Fort
Carson's planned Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site expansion, even though the
representatives acknowledged the state cannot halt the federal government's
taking of the vast acreage through eminent domain. "We got in there the
part we wanted," said State Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, the bill's
sponsor, taking a half-a-loaf-is-better-than-no-loaf approach to the vote after
almost four hours of testimony. He said language to guarantee that ranchers are
paid fair prices for the land, which in some cases has been in families for
generations, will be added to his bill as it advances. Lon Robertson, a Branson
rancher who is president of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition,
said the hearing "got attention for the issue." He said the vote
"makes a statement." An unusual coalition of patriotic ranching
families, who cited the veterans in their families, and anti-war activists, who
bashed the Army, joined ranks to support the bill.
RELATED: Bill bars use of eminent domain for Army expansion
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5370978
RELATED: Panel passes Pinon Canyon protest bill
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1173282581/2
Lawmakers
will consider new health rules for oil and gas drilling
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070306/NEWS/103060047
Deb Meader said she
never considered the potential health impacts when gas drilling rigs started
springing up around Parachute. Over the past 10 years, she said, she has
suffered weakness, nauseous and burning eyes, and her granddaughter was born
with congenital defects. Two of her friends with a well in their back yard died
of cancer, she said, and she was forced to sell her horse, a paint named Lady,
when the horse's eyes got bloody and her hair started falling out. "It's
the benzene," she said, citing one of the 245 chemicals experts have tied
to the gas industry in western Colorado. On Wednesday, the Agriculture,
Livestock, & Natural Resources Committee will take up a measure (House Bill
1223) that would require the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to
set rules by next July to protect public health in oil and gas operations and
bar drilling until those rules have been followed.
Today’s complete Colorado news
Today’s complete daily news: http://media.progressnowaction.org/digest/030707.htm
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