"Mama said there'd be days like this..."

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Senate Rejects Flag Desecration Amendment

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 6:53 PM

The Senate today fell one vote short of passing a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed Congress to prohibit the desecration of the American flag.

The proposed amendment went down when the Senate voted 66-34 to approve it. At least 67 votes -- two-thirds of the 100-member body -- were needed to pass the amendment, which was passed by the House last year.

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CIA flights 'must not reoccur'
Europe's human rights body has called for steps to ensure terror suspects never again "disappear into thin air" from European soil. The Council of Europe accused states of colluding with the CIA on secret flights transferring prisoners to third countries where they could be tortured.

It urged governments and parliaments in each state to hold their own inquiries.

The US admits renditions have taken place but denies that people sent overseas are subjected to torture.

It is essential that the states concerned clarify the situation in their own countries in the light of the initial findings of the investigations carried out at European level
Franco Frattini,

EU Justice Commissioner
"People should not be allowed to disappear into thin air, regardless of the crimes of which they accused," said Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis.

"If we want to be safe we must be fair.

"The only effective measures against terrorism are those which stop more terrorists than they help to recruit."


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June 27, 2006

'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid

By ERIC LIPTON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/eric_lipton/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
WASHINGTON, June 26 — Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.

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Court Rejects Changes to Federal Employee Personnel System


By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 4:40 PM


A federal appeals court delivered another legal blow to the Bush administration's sweeping plan to overhaul the federal employee personnel system, ruling today that the proposed changes would illegally limit the scope of collective bargaining.

The opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said new Homeland Security Department personnel rules dealing with working conditions and employee appeals were illegal. The court upheld two earlier rulings by a U.S. District judge that found the government overstepped the authority given by Congress to rewrite personnel rules when it created the department in 2002.

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June 27, 2006
Rain Continues to Fall on Nation's Capital

By FELICITY BARRINGER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/felicity_barringer/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and MARIA NEWMAN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/maria_newman/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
WASHINGTON, June 26 — Rain continued to fall on the nation's capital today, as work resumed to clean up government offices shut down by flooding and electrical problems and mass transportation systems tried to resume their regular schedules after delays and washouts caused by scattered flooding over the last two days.

The National Weather Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_weather_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) said a tropical storm forming near Cape Fear in South Carolina would bring more precipitation and heavy winds up the Atlantic coast to the lowlands of eastern Maryland and northern Virginia, which in the past few days have been battered by storms and flooding.

A total of 12.92 inches of rain has been recorded at Ronald Reagan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ronald_wilson_reagan/index.html?inline=nyt-per) Washington National Airport so far this month, with most of that in the last three days, the National Weather Service reported, exceeding the monthly record for June since the service began keeping records in 1871.

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I went down virginia, seekin shelter from the storm.
Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow.
Five year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains.
And I wonder, still I wonder who'll stop the rain?

.... verbatim from Credence Clearwater Revival lyrics!!

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NASA seems internally very violently divided about the readiness of Saturdays' flight. My guess is the WH is desparate for good news like a successful flight and is leaning on the the NASA director, who is of course a WH nominee/operative/hack, and is pro-flight, to ignore the high-level NASA naysayers and light the fuse anyway, even if it means we lose another one. Whatevers end is best for the Repugs, all means are justified.

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for days and days and days.....

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Court Nixes Part of Texas Political Map
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 10:14 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out part of a Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, saying some of the new boundaries failed to protect minority voting rights.

The fractured decision was a small victory for Democratic and minority groups who accused Republicans of an unconstitutional power grab in drawing boundaries that booted four Democratic incumbents out of office.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said Hispanics do not have a chance to elect a candidate of their choosing under the plan.

Republicans picked up six Texas congressional seats two years ago, and the court's ruling does not seriously threaten those gains. Lawmakers, however, will have to adjust boundary lines to address the court's concerns.

At issue was the shifting of 100,000 Hispanics out of a district represented by a Republican incumbent and into a new, oddly shaped district. Justices had been told that was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voting rights.

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June 29, 2006

Supreme Court Blocks Trials at Guantanamo

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a strong rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.

The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.

The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of about 450 men still being held at Guantanamo and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them.

It also seems likely to further fuel international criticism of the administration, including by many U.S. allies, for its handling of the terror war detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere.

Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim that he had authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this follow-up case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.

The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in most of the ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.

Thursday's ruling overturned that decision.

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Dissenters were unsurprising. No doubt 5-4 if Roberts could have voted.

The Repug Administration: The Corrupt, Outlaw Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight