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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rich4eagle who wrote (2266)	1/24/2002 7:36:25 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

I wonder how Norton's trial turned out.- Mephisto ................................................. Norton Contempt Trial Opens Over Indian Trust By ROBERT L. JACKSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER December 11, 2001 E-mail story THE NATION By ROBERT L. JACKSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton went on trial Monday on charges of contempt of court, accused by a federal judge of lying to him about her efforts to clean up the long-mismanaged Indian trust fund system. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered testimony to begin about the Interior Department's mishandling of the multibillion-dollar fund, held in trust for 300,000 Native Americans. The trust holds and distributes fees for 54 million acres of land leased for drilling, grazing and logging. The fund, the department acknowledges, has been mismanaged almost since its inception more than a century ago. The Interior secretary, whose presence is not required at the civil proceeding, did not attend the first day of the trial. She is expected to testify later this month that she has made a good-faith effort to correct decades of fund mismanagement and tried to submit accurate reports to Lamberth, who has sought for five years to straighten out the tangled system. The trial could last for several weeks. Mark Nagle, an assistant U.S. attorney representing Norton, told Lamberth: "Evidence will demonstrate that contempt of court is not warranted." Nagle said he would provide a fuller explanation of Norton's case later. Thomas M. Thompson, the congressional overseer of the fund and the trial's first witness, said he found records in disarray dating back more than 100 years. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, a division of Interior, has been trying to establish an accurate database, "but it's pretty clear there wasn't anyone managing the process on a day-to-day basis," Thompson said. He began looking into the trust fund at the request of Congress in January 1999. The government has admitted that it cannot determine how much money is involved because the records are, in Thompson's words, "jumbled and confused." About $500 million in royalties is believed to be deposited into the fund each year. Many documents were mishandled, destroyed by floods or simply lost, and Thompson said he found a lack of security for records stored electronically, leaving them open to tampering. Besides money owed to living Native Americans, there is a backlog of 15,000 probate cases in which Interior officials have not been able to determine how much is owed to the heirs of deceased Indians, he told the court. These probate accounts, which may total as much as $100 million, have been locked up for as long as six years awaiting determination of who owns the leases, Thompson said. To protect the trust-fund records, the judge last week ordered all Internet and computer connections in the Interior Department shut down after finding them particularly vulnerable to hackers. But after protests of the U.S. Geological Survey, a division of Interior, that its Web site was needed for public information in event of a major earthquake, Lamberth issued a formal order Monday that any connections not related to the trust fund could be restored. Crediting Norton's actions since she took office early this year, Thompson told the court that she had instructed her aides to undertake a historical accounting of trust-fund money and to consider how to "prioritize" this work. More recently, Norton announced she was reorganizing management of the fund under one official and would consult with representatives of Native Americans and other interested parties on reform efforts. An initial meeting is to take place Thursday in Albuquerque. latimes.com

To: rich4eagle who wrote (2266)	1/24/2002 9:17:18 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Those defense numbers speak for themselves and it "ain't good". If you are a sensible man or woman and you compare the spending worldwide, it is hard to justify such an exorbitant amount. What shocked me is that all the so-called rogue nations, when combined together only amounted to a small fraction of what we spend. So that means we need to spend another trillion just in case they develop a nuclear warhead. If they have any brains, and we know they do, they will sneak it in in using a means other than ballistic. We are playing with fire by ignoring the ABM treaty and militarizing space. We are setting ourselves up for a mistake that could cost this world dearly. It doesn't appear that we have done enough basic research on the technology. I know that many people want to link Sadham to Bin Laden, but I never have seen a link. They would end up killing each other............I can't see Sadham sharing the reins. This whole Iraq thing is about the ego of another fat head........Papa Bush. I truly believe that he is behind the scene pushing his own agenda. He doesn't want his legacy to be tarnished by being remembered as the Pres that left Sadham in power. Junior's whole residency is about finishing up the loose ends that Papa couldn't finish when he got defeated in 1992. The team is back in place.