President Bush said Saturday he has no intention of stopping his personal authorizations of a post-Sept. 11 secret eavesdropping program in the U.S., lashing out at those involved in revealing it while defending it as crucial to preventing future attacks.

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he said in a radio address delivered live from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States," Bush said.

Angry members of Congress have demanded an explanation of the program, first revealed in Friday's New York Times and whether the monitoring by the National Security Agency without obtaining warrants from a court violates civil liberties. One Democrat said in response to Bush's remarks on the radio that Bush was acting more like a king than the elected president of a democracy.

Bush said the program was narrowly designed and used "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." He said it is used only to intercept the international communications of people inside the United States who have been determined to have "a clear link" to al-Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

Appearing angry at points during his eight-minute address, Bush said he had reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and plans to continue doing so.

"I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups," he said.

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."

[snip]

The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.

For her 17th wedding anniversary, Jeanette Yarborough wanted to do something special for her husband. In addition to planning a hotel getaway for the weekend, Ms. Yarborough paid a surgeon $5,000 to reattach her hymen, making her appear to be a virgin again.

"It's the ultimate gift for the man who has everything," says Ms. Yarborough, 40 years old, a medical assistant from San Antonio.

Hymenoplasty, a controversial medical procedure known mostly for its prevalence in the Middle East and Latin America, is becoming popular in the U.S. Although there are no hard data, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says vaginal surgery, including hymenoplasty, is one of the industry's fastest-growing segments. Gynecologists are marketing hymenoplasty in magazines, local newspapers and online. They report business is booming.

Restoring innocence this way has sparked criticism. Religious groups that value abstinence until marriage say hymen repair is a deception. Some feminists liken hymenoplasty to female genital mutilation. In addition, hymen repair, unlike other types of reconstructive surgery, isn't taught in medical residencies. Some medical associations worry that surgeons might be improperly trained.

"Revirgination" costs as little as $1,800 at Ridgewood Health and Beauty Center, a spa and cosmetic-surgery center in the New York City borough of Queens. To promote the procedure, the center's owner, Cuban-born Esmeralda Vanegas, has given away hymenoplasties on a Spanish-language radio station. She also promotes them in her eponymous magazine, Esmeralda.

Ms. Vanegas isn't a doctor and doesn't perform the procedure. Instead, she leases space to five plastic surgeons. Luis Palma, a doctor at Ridgewood, went to medical school in his native Argentina and was a resident at the Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass., among other places. Dr. Palma says he performs about five hymen repairs a month at Ridgewood, almost double the number of five years ago.

Ms. Vanegas says many of her patients risk disgracing their families if they're not virgins on their wedding night. Many are Latin American immigrants. "Losing your virginity is like losing a member of your family," Ms. Vanegas says. "We can make it seem like nothing ever happened."

Marco Pelosi II, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Bayonne, N.J., has been performing hymen repair since 1975 but started marketing the procedure only a year and a half ago. He now performs up to 10 repairs a month, compared with just two annually a decade ago.

"No one used to talk about it, but that's changing," Dr. Pelosi says. "Really, it's not like a heart transplant -- it's like a very simple procedure."

Dr. Pelosi says an increasing number of patients are trying to "improve their sex lives" by combining hymen repair with an operation to tighten their vaginas. He says one patient did it to surprise her husband on a second-honeymoon cruise. Another patient, a 51-year-old Manhattan attorney and mother of three, had him reattach her hymen and tighten her vaginal walls in 2003. "I thought it would add that extra sparkle to our marriage," says the woman.

Named after Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, the vaginal membrane has since primitive times been a marker of virginity, even though it can be ruptured by nonsexual activity, such as athletics. At one time, a bride's intact hymen was considered the only way to be certain about the paternity of any ensuing children. A small number of traditional cultures still require brides' hymens to be examined.

Hymen repair has just as long a history, says June Reinisch, director emeritus at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Ind. Ms. Reinisch says midwives used to disguise a broken hymen with a needle and thread, sometimes using membrane material from goats and other animals.

The modern version of hymenoplasty requires a local anesthetic and no hospitalization. A doctor uses dissolvable stitches to reconnect the skin membrane that once partially covered the opening to the vagina. Intercourse will tear the membrane causing pain and bleeding.

Recovery from surgery takes about six weeks. The risk of fever and infection is low, says V. Leroy Young, a St. Louis plastic surgeon who also heads the American Society of Plastic Surgeons' emerging-trends task force.

On the other hand, Dr. Young says, "it's a pretty expensive thing to do for one night."

Who cares about whether the Patriot Act gets renewed? Want to abuse our civil liberties? Just do it.

Who cares about the Geneva Conventions. Want to torture prisoners? Just do it.

Who cares about rules concerning the identity of CIA agents. Want to reveal the name of a covert operative? Just do it.

Who cares about whether the intelligence concerning WMDS is accurate. Want to invade Iraq? Just do it.

Who cares about qualifications to serve on the nation's highest court. Want to nominate a personal friend with no qualifications? Just do it.

And the latest outrage, which I read about in "The New York Times" this morning, who cares about needing a court order to eavesdrop on American citizens. Want to wiretap their phone conversations? Just do it. What a joke. A very cruel, very sad joke.

Look, the problem here, again, is not one of just spying on Americans, as repulsively totalitarian as that is. It's that the administration adopted John Yoo's theory of presidential infallibility. But, of course, it wasn't really John Yoo's theory at all; it was Dick Cheney's muse, Richard Nixon who said, "when the President does it, that means it's not illegal."

This was not some off the cuff statement. It was based upon a serious constitutional theory --- that the congress or the judiciary (and by inference the laws they promulgate and interpret) have no authority over an equal branch of government. The president, in the pursuit of his duties as president, is not subject to the laws. Citizens can offer their judgment of his performance every four years at the ballot box.

[snip]

He, like Nixon, believes that the president has only one "accountability moment" while he is president. His re-election. Beyond that, he has been given a blank check. And that includes breaking the law since if the president does it, it's not illegal, the president being the executive branch which is not subject to any other branch of govenrment.

John Yoo, the former deputy attorney general who wrote many of the opinion undergirding these findings (on torture as well as spying) explains that the congress has no right to abridge the president's warmaking powers. Its only constitutional remedy to a war with which they disagree is to deny funding; they can leave the troops on the field with no food or bullets.

I suspect that there are many more of these instances out there in which the administration has simply ignored the law. They believe that the constitution explicitly authorizes them to do so.

In 1961, the Kennedy Administration talked the Times into spiking an article that would have prevented the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, the trigger for a series of unfortunate events that stretched to Watergate and, according to H.R. Haldeman, JFK's assassination.

Now, the Times -- again, at the request of the White House -- has held onto a national security bombshell: President Bush's unlawful authorization of domestic spying on international phone calls and emails of hundreds and possibly thousands of people inside the U.S.

The story in and of itself is a shocker, even as it comes right after the NBC report that an obscure Pentagon agency has monitored the activities of peaceful anti-war protestors. It's too early to gauge reaction, but we expect that it will be highly negative, not just from the usual suspects on the left but also from the vast political middle -- the heartland types who just barely propelled Bush to re-election in 2004.

And there lies the real story behind the story. Because it appears it may have been possible for the Times to publish at least some of the details of the Bush-ordered domestic spying before Nov. 2, 2004, the day that the president nailed down four more years. Although Bush won by 2 percent nationally, a switch of just 59,302 Ohio voters from Bush to John Kerry would would have put the Democrats back in the White House.

Would Bush won the election if the extent of his seemingly unconstitutional domestic spying had been known? We'll never know. For roughly a year, the White House successfully leaned on the Times to keep the story under wraps. It's not known when the Bush lobbying of the Times began. But it is clear that the warning signs about the program -- the alarm bells that likely triggered the Times investigation in the first place -- were going off by mid-2004, months before the vote.

Here's the money shot from today's Times article:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

We'd like to know a lot more about how this all transpired -- who talked to whom at the Times, and when did they talk? Did the pleading come before Nov. 2, 2004, or after? Was anyone on the White House political side -- i.e., Karl Rove --involved? You would think that after the Judy Miller fiasco, the Times would be much, much more transparent in the backstory of how this story was published. But you would think wrong.

[snip]

Simply put, the Bush White House gamed the media in 2004. They used every trick in their playbook: Manipulating the comatose post-9/11 media and its gullible trust in authority, playing on kneejerk protection of sources, and when that failed, either resorting to bullying (as in the case of CBS) or pleading national security on barely defendable grounds.

And we fell for it, big time. Voters could have gone to the polls on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2004, knowing that Bush was spying on Americans, that a key White House aide was charged with felonies, and that the initial rationales for Iraq were bogus.

And so it turns out that the media had the power to alter this country's disastrous direction back in 2004, after all. And we didn't even have to click our heels three times.

We'd only needed to do our job.

This is against the law. I have put references to the relevant statute below the fold; the brief version is: the law forbids warrantless surveillance of US citizens, and it provides procedures to be followed in emergencies that do not leave enough time for federal agents to get a warrant. If the NY Times report is correct, the government did not follow these procedures. It therefore acted illegally.

Bush's order is arguably unconstitutional as well: it seems to violate the fourth amendment, and it certainly violates the requirement (Article II, sec. 3) that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

I am normally extremely wary of talking about impeachment. I think that impeachment is a trauma for the country, and that it should only be considered in extreme cases. Moreover, I think that the fact that Clinton was impeached raises the bar as far as impeaching Bush: two traumas in a row is really not good for the country, and even though my reluctance to go through a second impeachment benefits the very Republicans who needlessly inflicted the first on us, I don't care. It's bad for the country, and that matters most.

But I have a high bar, not a nonexistent one. And for a President to order violations of the law meets my criteria for impeachment. This is exactly what got Nixon in trouble: he ordered his subordinates to obstruct justice. To the extent that the two cases differ, the differences make what Bush did worse: after all, it's not as though warrants are hard to get, or the law makes no provision for emergencies. Bush could have followed the law had he wanted to. He chose to set it aside.

And this is something that no American should tolerate. We claim to have a government of laws, not of men. That claim means nothing if we are not prepared to act when a President (or anyone else) places himself above the law. If the New York Times report is true, then Bush should be impeached.

Section 201: Gives federal officials the authority to intercept wire, spoken and electronic communications relating to terrorism.

Section 202: Gives federal officials the authority to intercept wire, spoken and electronic communications relating to computer fraud and abuse offenses.

Subsection 203(b): Permits the sharing of grand jury information that involves foreign intelligence or counterintelligence with federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigration, national defense or national security officials

Subsection 203(d): Gives foreign intelligence or counterintelligence officers the ability to share foreign intelligence information obtained as part of a criminal investigation with law enforcement.

Section 204: Makes clear that nothing in the law regarding pen registers -- an electronic device which records all numbers dialed from a particular phone line -- stops the government's ability to obtain foreign intelligence information.

Section 206: Allows federal officials to issue roving "John Doe" wiretaps for spy and anti-terrorism investigations.

Section 207: Increases the amount of time that federal officials may watch people they suspect are spies or terrorists.

Section 209: Permits the seizure of voicemail messages under a warrant.

Section 212: Permits Internet service providers and other electronic communication and remote computing service providers to hand over records and e-mails to federal officials in emergency situations.

Section 214: Allows use of a pen register or trap and trace devices -- a device that records the originating phone numbers of all incoming calls on a particular phone line -- in international terrorism or spy investigations.

Section 215: Authorizes federal officials to obtain "tangible items" like business records, including those from libraries and bookstores, for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations.

Section 217: Makes it lawful to intercept the wire or electronic communication of a computer hacker or intruder in certain circumstances.

Section 218: Allows federal officials to wiretap or watch suspects if foreign intelligence gathering is a "significant purpose" for seeking a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act order. The pre-Patriot Act standard said officials could ask for the surveillance only if it was "the" sole or main purpose.

Section 220: Provides for nationwide service of search warrants for electronic evidence.

Section 223: Amends the federal criminal code to provide for administrative discipline of federal officers or employees who violate prohibitions against unauthorized disclosures of information gathered under this act.

Section 225: Amends FISA to prohibit lawsuits against people or companies that provide information to federal officials for a terrorism investigation.

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.

"This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."

Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight.

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

Saying Christmas is under attack, Virginia Rep. Jo Ann Davis sought passage Wednesday night of a resolution expressing support for "the symbols and traditions of Christmas."

The largely symbolic resolution, scheduled for a House vote as early as today, triggered a partisan culture clash in the House chamber. Conservative Republicans applauded the measure, but many Democrats criticized it as religiously insensitive.

Davis, an outspoken Christian conservative from Gloucester, said she was spurred to act after seeing news reports of retailers telling their employees to wish customers a "happy holiday," instead of "Merry Christmas," and schools forbidding everything from Christmas plays to Santa Claus.

"Christmas has been declared politically incorrect," Davis told colleagues on the House floor. "Any sign or even mention of Christmas in public can lead to complaints, litigation, protests and threats. America's favorite holiday is being twisted beyond recognition."

Her resolution, if adopted, would put the House on record as supporting the use of Christmas symbols and traditions, while opposing "attempts to ban references to Christmas."

"It was just something that was burning inside me," Davis said in an earlier interview.

"At what point did Christmas become so offensive?"

But many Democrats protested the resolution, saying that Congress has no business praising one religious holiday over others.

"I'm offended by this," said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., who's Jewish. "You've drawn me out. Why not protect my symbols?"

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y, asked Davis to amend her resolution to include symbols of other holidays, such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, but Davis refused.

"The attack has not been on the menorah or any symbols of the other religions," Davis said, referring to the Jewish candelabrum used to celebrate Hanukkah.

"I will leave it as the resolution stands."

U.S. Jewish leaders say they are increasingly worried that Christian conservatives want to turn America politically and culturally into a country that tolerates only their brand of Christianity.

"There is a feeling on all sides that something is changing," said Abraham Foxman, director of the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.

"The polls indicate a very serious thing -- that over 60 percent of the American people feel that religion and Christianity are under attack," he said on Thursday in an interview.

"Some are saying we are attacking (Christianity). This whole movement is not anti-Semitic or motivated by anti-Semitism. But sometimes unintended consequences are much more serious than intended" he added.

Foxman recently arranged a meeting in New York involving six Jewish organizations to discuss the problem. He said that while participants did not agree on the exact level of the problem, they felt a strategy was needed.

"It‘s not a war room strategy," he added. "It‘s to understand what‘s out there."

He said Jews are a people of faith but are opposed to anyone who would say only they know the truth and want to impose it on everyone else.

While every December brings disputes over what to call the "holiday season" and its trappings, the level of lobbying by those who fear Christmas is becoming something generic has been particularly high this year.

But the issues raised by Foxman and others goes much deeper into American society, ranging from challenges to teaching evolution to bans on abortion and same-sex marriage or deciding

what kind of people who should serve on the U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Supreme Court.

"Every room (from bedroom to classroom) in the American mansion is under assault to impose either de facto or de jure a Christian theocracy -- I call them Christocrats," said Rabbi James Rudin, former head of interreligious activities for the American Jewish Committee.

"They are people who believe there should be a legally mandated Christian nation, where the concept of separation of church and state is weakened or abandoned," he added.

Rudin said he has met pastors "who say that Jesus Christ is the ultimate leader of America and that God‘s law trumps the Constitution ... I‘m very concerned."

While far from all evangelical Christians hold those views, he said, the influence of those who do is strong.

It's the one thing they can't stand -- the notion that their religion and their holidays and their slogans are just another constellation in the pantheon. That's why a Wal-Mart employee was fired for his e-mail about the origins of Christmas; not because he denied its religious message, but because he exposed the fact that it was a hodge-podge of elements from other religions. They don't care whether Christmas is commercialized. They don't care whether Christmas loses the original religious (or spiritual, if you must) message.

Because modern-day, American, conservative Christianity is not about active pursuit of the principles and social radicalism attributed to a guy named Jesus in a book of questionable authorship. Modern-day, American, conservative Christianity is all about claiming a personal relationship with a god that just happens to endorse all the stuff you believe.

That's why Fox News commentators want Christmas acknowledged by name, but not in principle. I originally thought they and the Christian right were losing the alleged Christmas war by fighting for commercialization of Christmas, and for its osmosis into a generic, essentially secular event, devoid of challenging Jesus stuff. But that's not a loss for them. That's a victory. They want something they can use, not something they have to serve. Because the Christianity they want to see prevail isn't a text-based Christianity; it's the Christianity of President Bush, a Christianity that makes no demands, that requires no introspection, that elevates one's alleged "heart" to the status of divine interlocutor.

The Christianity they want to see triumph is just as valid an interpretation of the Bible as any other (that's the beauty of a vague, self-contradicting, maybe-it's-literal-maybe-it's-metaphorical, committee-edited mess). But its validity isn't the point. The point is that they want their version of Christmas, and Christianity, to triumph not in order to serve some beneficial ethic underlying it, but because their version serves them.

It is a manufactured crisis. Christmas is a holiday that is primarily celebrated in churches and in the home, and by all accounts it is thriving. The reason conservative media outlets have to keep pounding away at the theme, clearly, is that most Americans who are busy celebrating Christmas with family and friends are probably under the impression that the holiday is doing just fine.

Religious conservatives are using Christmas for a political purpose: as a cudgel to push the prayers and displays of their own form of Christianity into public spaces, including public schools, and to make America more like a theocracy.

The Christmas defenders' real enemy is not secularism, but inclusiveness. Department stores have been using phrases like "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" because they want to make themselves appealing to as many customers as possible — including the nearly one-quarter of Americans who do not call themselves Christians — not because they hate Christmas. Governments walk a careful line regarding holidays because they don't want to fall afoul of the First Amendment, and because they want to make all of their constituents feel included in holiday celebrations.

Despite all of the attention the conservative media have given the "War on Christmas," it does not appear to be catching on with the general public. The reason Christmas defenders are unlikely to win in the long run is not because they are up against a liberal plot, but because they are on the side of intolerance.

It may be the latest evidence of global warming: Polar bears are drowning.

Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.

In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan coastline before 2004, researchers from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said they typically spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean far from ice about once every two years. Polar-bear drownings were so rare that they have never been documented in the surveys.

But in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska, researchers counted 10 polar bears swimming as far as 60 miles offshore. Polar bears can swim long distances but have evolved to mainly swim between sheets of ice, scientists say.

The researchers returned to the vicinity a few days after a fierce storm and found four dead bears floating in the water. "Extrapolation of survey data suggests that on the order of 40 bears may have been swimming and that many of those probably drowned as a result of rough seas caused by high winds," the researchers say in a report set to be released today.

Tirhas Habtegiris was an East African immigrant and only 27 when she died Monday afternoon.

She'd been on a respirator at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano for 25 days.

"They handed me this letter on December 1st. and they said, we're going to give you 10 days so on the 11th day, we're going to pull it out," said her brother Daniel Salvi.

Salvi was stunned to get this hand-delivered notice invoking a complicated and rarely used Texas law where a doctor is "not obligated to continue" medical treatment "medically inappropriate" when care is not beneficial.

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Even though her body was being ravaged by cancer, this family says Tirhas still responded and was conscious. She was waiting one person.

"She wanted to get her mom over here or to get to her mom so she could die in her mom's arms," says her cousin Meri Tesfay.

Ten days was not enough time, they say, to get a mother from Africa to America.

The family and hospital desperately tried to get Tirhas moved to a nursing home but they say no one would take her.

"A fund issue is what I understand. Because she is not insured and that was the major reason the way I understood it," Salvi said.

Congressional Republicans made progress on twin tracks Wednesday toward their end-of-year budget goals, passing a bill freezing or cutting back spending on medical research and education and nearing agreement on cuts to the Medicaid health care program for the poor.

The first measure, a $602 billion bill funding a wide variety of health, education and labor programs, passed the House on a 215-213 vote. It would cut federal aid to education for the first time in a decade, and spread about $1.4 billion in cuts across the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

The separate budget bill is a cornerstone of the Republican agenda in Congress, and the House and Senate continued to struggle to find a way to advance a Senate plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., signaled he may try to move the hotly contested oil drilling plan from the budget cut bill to the must-pass defense budget bill, setting up a major confrontation with Democrats and a likely filibuster. But because the bill will also carry new money for hurricane relief and to combat the avian flu, GOP leaders hoped they might be able to jam the measure through.

Official conference talks on the budget plan have yet to convene, but behind-the-scenes negotiations have produced a number of tentative agreements. Negotiators eased House-proposed cuts aimed at Medicaid beneficiaries, shifting more of the pain to drug companies. Negotiators also killed Senate-passed increases to the Pell Grant program and were likely to drop a House proposal to narrow eligibility for food stamps.

Republicans hope to produce more than $40 billion in deficit savings through the end of the decade, combining curbs to Medicaid, Medicare, and subsidies for farmers and student loans with revenues from leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and auctions of television airwaves to wireless companies.

[snip]

The companion $602 billion spending measure covers education, health research, and medical and job training programs, among others. After years of budget increases, the measure essentially imposes a 1 percent cut to programs funded at lawmakers' discretion, providing $142.5 billion for them. The rest of the funding in the bill represents mandatory payments, chiefly for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The cuts in the bill, a compromise between very different House and Senate versions, would be magnified by an additional 1 percent across-the-board cut to all agency budgets that GOP leaders promise to pass before Congress adjourns. Taken together, about $3 billion worth of cuts would be spread across budgets for the departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services.

Medical research funded by the National Institutes of Health — whose budget was doubled over recent years — would be frozen at last year's levels, which promises to limit the amount of new research projects.

Programs funded under President Bush's No Child Left Behind education law would face a 4 percent cut, while aid for special education and Title I funding for disadvantaged children would be frozen at last year's levels, assuming the across-the-board cut is imposed.

Less than two weeks after the Ford Motor Company said it would all but eliminate its advertising in publications that cater to gays, the company reversed itself Wednesday.

The decision followed a wave of criticism from gay rights groups, who had accused Ford of bowing to the threat of a boycott from the American Family Association.

Ford's announcement, which gay advocates immediately praised, also included other steps to broaden the automaker's relations with gay consumers and repair damage from the initial decision to stop advertising.

In a letter Wednesday to gay advocacy groups, Ford said that in addition to its current advertising campaigns in gay media, it would expand the ads to encompass all eight Ford brands. Previously, only Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo ran ads in gay publications. Now, the company has said it will advertise its Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda and Aston Martin brands in the gay press.

"It is my hope that this will remove any ambiguity about Ford's desire to advertise to all important audiences and put this particular issue behind us," Ford's vice president for corporate human resources, Joe W. Laymon, said in the letter.

Ford also said it would continue to sponsor gay groups and events but plans to cut back on all charitable donations because of declining profits.

During a meeting with senior Ford executives on Monday, the heads of several gay groups asked Ford to reinstate its advertising and distance itself from the American Family Association, which in the past has put pressure on corporations that support gay causes. On Wednesday, leaders of gay groups said they were pleased with Ford's actions.

"This really proves that at Ford Motor Company, fairness and equality win out," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. "Occasionally in this process we hit a bump in the road, and that's what happened here. The good and important thing is Ford is back on track."

A spokeswoman for the American Family Association said the group had no comment. A Ford spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the company's letter.

Ford's letter did not repudiate its relationship with the association, which it met with after the group's boycott was announced in May. But Mr. Laymon wrote, "We expect to be measured not by the meetings we conduct but by our conduct itself."

Ford now hopes to end an embarrassing public relations problem that left many puzzled. Ford has long sponsored gay rights groups and provided the same health care benefits to homosexual couples as it does to heterosexuals.

Teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers will fan out to bus and train stations, ferries, and mass transit facilities across the country this week in a new test program to conduct surveillance and "counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all modes of transportation," according to internal federal documents.

According to internal Transportation Security Administration documents, the program calls for newly created "Visible Intermodal Protection and Response" teams -- called "Viper" teams -- to take positions in public areas along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Los Angeles rail lines; ferries in Washington state; and mass transit systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Viper teams will also patrol the Washington Metro system.

A Viper team will consist of two air marshals, one TSA bomb-sniffing-canine team, one or two transportation security inspectors, one local law enforcement officer, and one other TSA employee. Some members of the team will be obvious to the traveling public and wear jackets bearing the TSA name on the back. Others will be plainclothes air marshals scanning the crowds for suspicious people. It is unclear how many Viper teams will be on patrol through the New Year holiday, but air marshal officials confirm that they will be at seven locations across the country.

"TSA is going to extend its outreach into other modes of transportation," said David Adams, spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service. "We think this is a very good approach to test our tools and quickly deploy resources in the event of a situation or a threat. It shows we could be at any of these places."

Air marshals will remain on flights this holiday season, while at several airports -- including Dulles International -- TSA is training dozens of screeners in behavior recognition techniques to identify suspicious passengers. Such training had, for the most part, been limited to air marshals. In addition, travelers will be able to take some sharp items previously prohibited, such as small scissors and tools, in carry-on luggage.

TSA officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the agency is expanding training for a limited group of screeners at other airports in preparation for the holiday travel season. Those airports serve Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth, Cincinnati, New York, Houston, Detroit and Chicago. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said the techniques include taking notice of high levels of stress, anxiety or deception. "This is a part of a larger effort to add more complex layers of security that cannot be manipulated by those seeking to do us harm," Clark said.

Federal officials said there is no new intelligence indicating that terrorists are interested in targeting transportation modes. Rather, the Transportation Security Administration is trying to expand the role of air marshals, who have been eager to conduct surveillance activities beyond the aircraft, and provide a beefed-up law enforcement presence at bus, train and public transit stations over the busy holiday period.

With the country's parliamentary elections slated for Thursday and early voting already under way, a truck carrying what are believed to be fake ballots was detained in the Iraqi border province of Wasit, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

U.S. investigators were being sent to examine the ballots in Wasit, located on the Iranian border southeast of Baghdad.

The Pentagon has a secret database that indicates the U.S. military may be collecting information on Americans who oppose the Iraq war and may be also monitoring peace demonstrations, NBC reported on Tuesday.

The database, obtained by the network, lists 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the United States over a 10-month period and includes four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, some aimed at military recruiting, NBC's Nightly News said.

The network said the document was the first inside look at how the Pentagon has stepped up intelligence collection in the United States since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The report quoted what it said was a secret briefing document as concluding: "We have noted increased communication between protest groups using the Internet," but not a "significant connection" between incidents.

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

[snip]

The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.

The Department of Defense declined repeated requests by NBC News for an interview. A spokesman said that all domestic intelligence information is “properly collected” and involves “protection of Defense Department installations, interests and personnel.” The military has always had a legitimate “force protection” mission inside the U.S. to protect its personnel and facilities from potential violence. But the Pentagon now collects domestic intelligence that goes beyond legitimate concerns about terrorism or protecting U.S. military installations, say critics.

Four dozen anti-war meetings
The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.” Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense — yet they all remained in the database.

As The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively late last week, the filing of a securities fraud class action litigation against the company, O'Dell and other current and former members of their Board of Directors is now imminent. The BRAD BLOG has learned that the case may be filed in Ohio Federal District court as early as today or tomorrow. We will, of course, have more details when that occurs.

O'Dell has faced a great deal of criticism for his statement to Republican fundraisers, prior to the 2004 Presidential Election, that Diebold he (see correction explanation below) was committed to delivering the electoral vote of the state of Ohio to George W. Bush. O'Dell was part of Bush's "Rangers and Pioneers," a group of individuals who had raised at least $100,000 each for Bush/Cheney's 2004 re-election campaign.

[snip]

Diebold, along with Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) are the two largest Voting Machine Companies in America. Between them, they account for equipment which tallies more than 80% of America's votes.

The North Canton, Ohio-based company has faced several recent financial and upper-level management problems. A recent plummet of 15.5% in the once-venerable company's stock price occurred just days after another BRAD BLOG exclusive in which we reported on a company insider, dubbed "DIEB-THROAT", who had drawn comparisons in the companies management to the now-bankrupt Enron.

A source (not DIEB-THROAT) familiar with the company is intrigued by the news and expressed amazement that O'Dell is stepping down as both CEO and Chairman of the Board. "This was his baby," commented the source to BRAD BLOG. The source suggests this move "has the earmarks of an internal coup d'etat" given the dearth of other explanations beyond "personal reasons" as given by the company for O'Dell's departure.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) threatened yesterday to strip Democrats of the power to filibuster if they block the vote on Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

"It would be against the intent of the Founding Fathers and our Constitution to deny Sam Alito an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) today celebrates the record-breaking box office success for the opening weekend of "Brokeback Mountain," which bowed in five theaters in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco for an estimated three-day box office take of $544,549, an average of $109,000 per screen. This is both the highest per-screen average for any film released in 2005, and the highest per-screen average ever for an adult drama, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

There's controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.

"When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made," said John Holley.

John and Stacey Holley, who were both in the Army, made some calls, and with the help of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Matthew was greeted with honor and respect.

"Our familiarity with military protocol and things of that sort allowed us to kind of put our foot down -- we're not sure other parents have that same knowledge," said Stacey Holley.

The Holleys now want to make sure every fallen hero gets the proper welcome.

The bodies of dead service members arrive at Dover Air Force Base.

From that point, they are sent to their families on commercial airliners.

Reporters from 10News called the Defense Department for an explanation. A representative said she did not know why this is happening.

We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.

There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.

At this moment the reconstruction is a rudderless ship. There is no effective leadership that we can identify. How many people could even name the president's liaison for the reconstruction effort, Donald Powell? Lawmakers need to understand that for New Orleans the words "pending in Congress" are a death warrant requiring no signature.

The rumbling from Washington that the proposed cost of better levees is too much has grown louder. Pretending we are going to do the necessary work eventually, while stalling until the next hurricane season is upon us, is dishonest and cowardly. Unless some clear, quick commitments are made, the displaced will have no choice but to sink roots in the alien communities where they landed.

The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this year's estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives.

Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?

Losing a major American city.