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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (22577)	1/2/2004 3:08:46 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793718

The number of flight cancellations keeps growing. Just heard that one from London to Riyadh, SA was just cancelled...... British Airways Cancels Another Flight to D.C. Friday, January 02, 2004 WASHINGTON — Yet another intercontinental commercial flight was canceled Friday as the U.S. government ratcheted up its vigilance against potential terrorism. British Airways (search) Flight 223 from Heathrow Airport (search) in London to Washington was canceled Friday for the second time in three days on orders from the British government over some sort of intelligence information. Its return flight was also canceled. The flight was canceled less than two hours before takeoff and some of the 300 passengers had already begun to check in. Flight 223 was also delayed Wednesday night. While the United States continues to operate at its second highest alert status, orange, authorities concerned about terrorism canceled or delayed four flights in 24 hours between London and Washington Dulles International Airport (search). On Thursday, an Air France (search) plane from New York to Paris made an emergency stop in Canada because of security concerns, airport authorities said Friday. The flurry of activity over New Year's took place a week and a half after the Bush administration raised the national terrorism alert to orange. No terrorist incidents have taken place. Based on security advice from the British government, BA Flight 223, one of three daily flights to the U.S. capital, on Thursday canceled the same flight from London, and its return flight, that U.S. authorities had boarded on New Year's Eve after it landed at Dulles. U.S. authorities re-screened passengers on the Thursday night flight. That same flight was canceled again Friday following security advice from the British government, as was its Saturday return flight, Flight 222. That's a total of four cancellations and one delay. U.S. authorities delayed the Wednesday flight scheduled to leave at 6:35 p.m. EST after passengers were "re-screened because of security concerns," said a Dulles airport official. U.S. officials acted on intelligence information and not just suspicious passenger names when they boarded the British Airways jet at Dulles, a national security official said. Investigators found no evidence of terrorism as 247 passengers from London waited more than three hours before getting off the plane while some of them were questioned. Security personnel did weapons screening of passengers, and the plane was kept several hundred feet from the terminal during the questioning. The plane left shortly after 10 p.m. EST. "We had concerns with individuals on the flight, but threat reporting information led us to make the decision to have the flight escorted," a national security official said. FBI agents questioned a woman who appeared to be from the Middle East, asking her repeatedly why she was not traveling with her husband, one passenger said. A Department of Homeland Security official told Fox News that DHS had "specific information about potential threats" to Flight 223, and they notified the British authorities. But when asked why so many flights had been grounded recently, another U.S. official told Fox News that the government had received "unsubstantiated threat information" about flights coming into the country. The official said that there was concern about British Airways Flight 223 but the threat information was not very specific. Another official described the information as "vague." "We just don't know enough information to dismiss it, so when you have actionable intelligence -- even if unsubstantiated -- you move on it,'' the official said. "We are taking whatever precautions necessary,'' the official said, adding that in the past few years, other flights have been delayed or canceled for similar reasons and did not receive the same level of media attention. A statement on the British Airways Web site says it's expected all other flights will operate on a normal schedule on Friday. Air France Screening 'Mistake?' The U.S. government has ordered international airlines to put armed marshals on certain flights, and dispatched U.S. fighter jets to escort some incoming Air France flights, some news outlets reported Friday. The Air France flight that made the emergency stop in Canada on New Year's Day with 260 passengers on board was on its way to Paris from New York when the pilot was told to land in Newfoundland, airport authorities said Friday. After a comparison between luggage and passenger lists, authorities believed there was unaccompanied baggage on the plane. A search found nothing suspicious and the flight resumed four hours later. Meanwhile, FBI officials said Friday some of the intelligence that led to the grounding of three Air France flights during Christmas week involved a terror plot involving a Tunisian who is named on the U.S. master terror watch list. A name similar to the Tunisian's appeared on the manifest of one of the flights, but turned out to be a youth, FBI officials said. Interrogations of people with other names that concerned the FBI turned up nothing sinister, the officials said. "We had a name connected with terror plot and it showed up on the manifest and we didn't have a full biographical information, so we take those precautions until you can assure yourself things are OK," a senior FBI official said. The Wall Street Journal Europe reported Friday that the Air France groundings was a mistake. The newspaper said the FBI gave French police a list of six suspects' names on Dec. 22 and information indicating militants linked to Al Qaeda (search) were planning to hijack an Air France jet. Another "terrorist" was a Welsh insurance agent while a third was an elderly Chinese woman who once ran a restaurant in Paris, the newspaper said. The other three on the list were French citizens. But a law enforcement official emphatically told Fox News that, "This was not a mistake." The official said that when you spot a name that could be a match to a potential terrorist, you wait until the person shows up to determine who exactly the person is. "This was not a mistake," the official said. "This is the process." The U.S. government also shared threat information with the Mexican government, which canceled a scheduled U.S.-bound flight from Mexico because of security concerns. Agustin Gutierrez, Mexico's presidential spokesman, said Mexico did not receive convincing information for the cancellation. "The question is what threat?" Gutierrez said. "This question must be answered by Homeland Security. If we are going to have a good climate of cooperation, the least that we can hope for are reasons." Gutierrez also said the cancellation came after United States authorities said they would refuse to allow the plane to land, but Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied that. Clamping Down on the Homefront In Alaska, meanwhile, oil tankers on Thursday resumed loading at the terminal at Valdez, Alaska, which officials had closed down Tuesday. The ships load Prudhoe Bay oil destined for the Lower 48 states at Valdez, the end of the 800-mile pipeline, which carries 17 percent of the nation's domestic oil supply. Law enforcement personnel strengthened security last week in the Prince William Sound community after U.S. officials said Al Qaeda operatives could target remote sites such as oil facilities in Alaska. Officials also said then they could not corroborate a report about an Al Qaeda threat against the Valdez oil terminal. Fox News' Mike Emanuel, Anna Stolley and The Associated Press contributed to this report. foxnews.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (22577)	1/2/2004 4:28:45 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793718

Reform immigration law now Lou Dobbs is anchor and managing editor of CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" President Bush in his year-end news conference called for an "immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee." We already know there are plenty employers in this country willing to break the law and hire illegal aliens. And there are 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens already living in this country, so we know there are plenty of willing employees. I'm sure the White House staff will clean up the language a bit in the coming months. But for all the world, President Bush sounds like his idea of an immigration policy is a national job-fair for those businesses and farms that don't want to pay a living wage and for those foreigners who correctly think U.S. border security is a joke and who are willing to break our laws to live in this country. Bush's plan, which would permit immigrants to legally cross the border if they have a job waiting, would be the most aggressive immigration reform since the controversial bill signed by President Reagan in 1986 granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. The 1986 amnesty was widely criticized for rewarding illegal behavior and virtually ignoring those who had been waiting for legal entry into the United States. And now there are those in Congress who want to simply make illegal aliens legal. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) is sponsoring the "Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act," which would make it easier for foreign workers seeking U.S. employment opportunities and simplify the permanent residency application process. Similar legislation, the "Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act of 2003," is sponsored by Sens. Larry E. Craig (R., Idaho) and Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) and would allow undocumented farmworkers and their families to qualify for permanent residency after a specific tenure of work. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) has introduced legislation called "The Dream Act" that would allow states the ability to grant in-state tuition to children of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, out-of-state legal parents of legal residents would get no such break. Each of these politicians is doing nothing more than pandering to the business and agricultural lobbies, and none of these legislative initiatives addresses the economic and social impact of their passage. Powerful lobbying groups have a lot to gain from illegal immigration, while the burden of the real costs of illegal immigration fall on the rest of us who pay our taxes. Over the past 10 years, more than 2 million low-skill American workers have been displaced from their jobs. And each 10 percent increase in immigrant workers decreases American wages by 3.5 percent. Steve Camarota, of the Center for Immigration, says our lawmakers don't understand what unchecked illegal immigration is doing to our workforce: "To them it looks like immigrants are doing jobs nobody wants. But what they really mean is that they are doing jobs that they as middle- and upper-class people don't want." The average working American knows what our political leadership is ignoring. Illegal immigration carries a steep cost to society. States spend more than $7 billion each year on K-12 education for illegal aliens and hundreds of millions more in treating illegal aliens in our hospitals in border states. More than three-quarters of Americans say we need stricter controls on immigration in this country. However, a Chicago Council on Foreign Relations survey found that only 14 percent of our political leaders agreed that current immigration levels represent a critical threat. I can think of no issue on which there is greater disconnect between our political leaders and the American middle class than on the issue of illegal immigration. Congress and the President must create a national immigration policy that is far more than a job fair for illegal aliens and gift of citizenship to those who break our laws. We desperately need a national immigration policy that is effective in securing our borders and is rational both economically and socially. The only way we can meet those goals is for our politicians to rise above pandering to lobbyists, special interests and voting groups and to talk honestly about the issues that now confront us. Don't hold your breath. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- philly.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (22577)	1/2/2004 4:42:51 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793718

Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO Friday, January 2, 2004 1:45 p.m. EST Shut Up, the Former Enron Adviser Explained The election year has dawned, and former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, tribune of the Angry Left, has a message for Democrats who don't share his madness: Shut up already! Krugman likens almost all the Democratic presidential candidates to Ralph Nader: The Democratic Party has its own internal spoilers: candidates lagging far behind in the race for the nomination who seem more interested in tearing down Howard Dean than in defeating George Bush. . . . Some of Mr. Dean's rivals have launched vitriolic attacks that might as well have been scripted by Karl Rove. And I don't buy the excuse that it's all about ensuring that the party chooses an electable candidate. . . . Let me suggest a couple of ground rules. First, while it's O.K. for a candidate to say he's more electable than his rival, someone who really cares about ousting Mr. Bush shouldn't pre-emptively surrender the cause by claiming that his rival has no chance. Yet Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Kerry have done just that. To be fair, Mr. Dean's warning that his ardent supporters might not vote for a "conventional Washington politician" was a bit close to the line, but it appeared to be a careless rather than a vindictive remark. More important, a Democrat shouldn't say anything that could be construed as a statement that Mr. Bush is preferable to his rival. Yet after Mr. Dean declared that Saddam's capture hadn't made us safer--a statement that seems more justified with each passing day--Mr. Lieberman and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Kerry launched attacks that could, and quite possibly will, be used verbatim in Bush campaign ads. (Mr. Lieberman's remark about Mr. Dean's "spider hole" was completely beyond the pale.) So here's the Krugman strategy for beating President Bush: Nominate a candidate who (1) thinks Osama bin Laden may be innocent, (2) wishes Saddam Hussein were still in power, (3) wants to raise taxes through the roof, and (4) says that "dealing with race is about educating white folks." And while you're at it, divide the party by angrily attacking any Democrat who has the temerity to point out that Emperor Dean has no clothes. It sounds like a great way to build a majority coalition--for the GOP. A Taxonomic Clarification We've written a lot about the Angry Left, but it occurs to us that we may need to refine our taxonomy a bit. First of all, not all Democrats are members of the Angry Left, though there is considerable overlap between the two groups. More interestingly, not all angry Democrats are members of the Angry Left. What prompts us to make this observation is a column earlier this week by the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, in which he argues that hatred of President Bush is a "rational response": Bush didn't want to be Dwight D. Eisenhower, a nonpartisan leader who unified the country without being much help to his party. . . . Bush wanted to realign the country and create a Republican majority for bold conservative policies at home and abroad. And so, even as he was shoveling money out the door for national defense and new engagements abroad, Bush went for more tax cuts for the wealthy. He moved from Afghanistan to Iraq and ridiculed Democrats who held off on full endorsement of the war against Saddam Hussein pending strong United Nations support. In September 2002, shortly before the midterm elections, Bush mocked such Democrats as saying, according to Bush: "Oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I'm going to wait for somebody else to act." And just before the elections, Bush went after Democrats for their stand on the homeland security bill, turning the very ground on which bipartisanship had been built into an electoral battlefield. Republicans won in 2002, but Bush lost most Democrats forever. Conservative critics of "Bush hatred" like to argue that opposition to the president is a weird psychological affliction. It is nothing of the sort. It is a rational response to getting burned. What Dionne describes isn't really a rational response; it is an emotional one--but one that sane people can comprehend: Democrats are angry because they lost. Fair enough. But for the real Angry Left--call them the Krugman Democrats, to distinguish them from the Dionne Democrats--Bush hatred really is a weird psychological affliction. These people aren't just sore about losing; they inhabit a paranoid fantasy world in which civil liberties are under assault, dissent is being repressed, and a Jewish cabal is pulling the president's strings. Last weekend found us in a bar near Phoenix populated by Angry Left types. (We were visiting an old friend who, alas, has fallen in with a dubious crowd.) One guy demanded that we prove the Bush administration isn't Nazi Germany all over again. Such tinfoil-hat ravings can be found in the pages of major newspapers, and not only in Krugman's column. Here's one screed that appeared the other day in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("intelligent as a post"): Pending is Patriot Act II, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, to legalize indefinite detention without charges, to end court-imposed limits to spying on religious and political organizations and to withdraw citizenship for civil disobedience. Constitutional lawyers claim the First Amendment is violated by letting the FBI investigate those engaged in free expression, free association and unfettered practice of religion. The Fourth Amendment is violated by intrusive surveillance without probable cause, infringing privacy of targeted individuals. Human rights to moral order are maimed as aliens are tried in military tribunals able to impose death sentences without appeal. Ponder even more zealous implementation by Attorney General John Ashcroft should the United States be attacked by terrorists with a nuclear weapon. The prospect of terrorists nuking America doesn't seem to bother this author--except inasmuch as it might lead to "even more zealous implementation" of measures designed to prevent such an eventuality! The same author complains that "the military-industrial-congressional complex controls half the national budget and subverts priorities preferred by the electorate." Back in the real world, as blogger Edward Morrissey notes, Congress controls the entire federal budget. Dionne concludes with a bit of wishful thinking: "Democrats are so hungry to beat Bush that they will let their nominee do just about anything, even be pragmatic and shrewd. . . . Watch for the appearance of the new, pragmatic Howard Dean, the doctor with an unerring sense of his party's pulse." But Dionne notwithstanding, a significant portion of the Democratic electorate could stand to see a psychiatrist. Dean has done as well as he has precisely because--as we argued last March--he is in tune with his party's bitter mood. Let's concede Dionne's point that some Dems are bitter without being insane. With the Republican Party united behind President Bush, how is Dean going to continue stoking his party's anger while appealing to the center, people who by and large don't hate Bush? Vote for Me, I'm a Chump--II "Five Democratic Presidential candidates voted for the No Child Left Behind Act as members of Congress," reports the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader. "Now they complain they were victims of a legislative bait and switch, tricked into supporting a sweeping reform bill they say is underfunded by the Bush administration." Hmm, this sounds an awful lot like John Kerry's explanation of why he voted for war in Iraq. President Bush "misled every one of us," the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, said in June. To paraphrase the first Republican president, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but President Bush can fool all of these guys all of the time. Kerry's War on Cancer The Boston Globe asked John Kerry "if his successful bout with prostate cancer affected his outlook on life." Here's the answer (ellipses in original): The cancer, frankly, was--it's strange. I think it's a reflection of the experience that I went through in Vietnam, that I didn't feel particularly threatened. That I felt: "I'm going to conquer this." And it's why I had a confidence that I could run for president, even trying to do it. Now, in honesty, I remember sitting there through Christmas [2002], surfing through the Internet, trying to read--get some books and figure out every alternative that there was and think through what it meant to me and what my options were with respect to it. . . . But attitudinally, which is really what the question is about, I've always said that those of us who came back from Vietnam, we sort of have this saying that "Every day is extra." And I think there's always been a feeling in me that that's a very liberating experience, that, you know, because of Vietnam, you kind of feel, "Hey, let the chips fall where they may. Speak your mind, say what you have to do, go out and do it." And in fact when we screwed around in Vietnam, which we often did, and were tempting, you know, getting in trouble for one reason or another, we always used to look at each other and say, "Well, what the hell can they do to us? Send us to Vietnam?" Wow, is this guy a war hero or what? Even his prostate served in Vietnam. Good News Watch Well, it seems Howard Dean was lying--at least in the sense that Bush haters use the term when speaking of the president--when he said Saddam Hussein's capture didn't make Americans safer. "After suffering a month-high toll of 83 deaths in November, the U.S. military reported fewer than half that number--38--in December," reports the Washington Times. In a New Year's Eve briefing, Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who commands the Army's First Armored Division, said the number of attacks has "absolutely gone down" since Saddam's capture. Meanwhile, CNN reports that Chicago remains "America's murder capital," with 599 homicides in 2003--a hair under 50 a month. America must send in the U.N. and pull out of the quagmire that is Illinois! The World's Smallest Violin From the marble mansions of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's in-laws are leading the world's least likely human rights organisation, as families of the coalition's 55 most wanted men band together to appeal for fair treatment for them," reports London's Daily Telegraph. "We do not even know where our relatives are being held," Mustapha Kamal Mustapha Abdallah al-Sultan, whose father is Saddam's son-in-law and was secretary of the Republican Guard. Boo freaking hoo. But Saef Fadil Mahmoud, whose father is No. 47 on the most-wanted list, puts things in a little perspective: "At least with the Americans I know I will see my father again, that he will not simply disappear." One Can Hope "Chirac Makes Unemployment the Priority of 2004"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 31 Mommy, Mike's Hitting Me! "New York Mayor Hits Times Square Celebration Critics"--headline, Reuters, Dec. 31 Prepare for Takeoff "The federal security director at Philadelphia International Airport has been placed on leave while authorities investigate an undisclosed allegation of wrongdoing," the Associated Press reports. Among the allegations: "hiring a former exotic dancer to supervise screeners at the airport." She must've been the one who took dollar tips for frisking passengers. Post Haste We were slightly unfair in our item yesterday about the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. We noted that the paper's "Passages" article, which honored, among others, terror advocate Rachel Corrie, did not pay tribute to any of the U.S. servicemen who died in Afghanistan or Iraq. It turns out the paper ran a different article the same day that listed the seven fallen soldiers and one Marine from Washington state, as well as five other dead soldiers with "local connections." The only surviving relative quoted in the piece, however, is one soldier's father who says he and his wife "didn't feel the war in Iraq was necessary." Trudeau's Stock Falls What's going on with the Doonesbury comic strip? All this week it's been running with a story line about a character who's taken a bath in the stock market. "Great! I'm 66 years old, a successful lawyer, and I still can't afford to retire!" she exclaims in Monday's strip. "Our portfolio is down 20% so far this year! 20%! How can this be happening to us!" How indeed? Here is how the three major stock indexes performed in 2003: Index 2002 close 2003 close % change Dow Jones Industrials 8341.63 10453.92 +25.3% S&P 500 879.82 1111.92 +26.4% Nasdaq 1335.51 2003.37 +50.0% Here's a possible explanation: The table of contents over at Slate, which publishes the strip, lists "Today's Doonesbury Flashback Strip." It seems Garry Trudeau is on vacation. But you'd think he'd have picked substitute strips that don't make him look quite so out of date. Where's the Beef? On Limbaugh's Plate. "Mad Cow Case Not Creating Vegetarian Rush"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 1 What Would We Drink Without Experts? "Expert: Best Hangover Remedy Is to Abstain From Drinking"--headline, Capital Times (Madison, Wis.), Dec. 31 "Experts: One Good Hangover Remedy Is Time"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 31 So Much for 'The Late Great Planet Earth' "In a phenomenon that has scientists puzzled, the Earth is right on schedule for a fifth straight year."--Associated Press, Jan. 1 Not Too Brite--CXXXI "A New Mexico couple returned home from a week-long vacation to find the legs of a dead man dangling from their ceiling," Reuters reports from Santa Fe. Oddly Enough! (For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.) Great Moments in European Civilization "France witnessed an orgy of vandalism as rioters set more than 300 cars ablaze, in what has become something of a New Year tradition," the Scotsman reports. "By 3am on New Year's Day, 192 people had been arrested, including several dozen in Paris, where youths clashed with police on the Champs Élysées, smashing shop windows and injuring several officers." Meanwhile, "celebrations in New York passed off without incident"--apart, we assume, from Mayor Bloomberg's pugilism. Look, we're not the slightest bit ethnocentric, and we're the first to admit there are a few things to admire about French culture: the food, the wine, the tolerant attitude toward smoking. But for crying out loud, apart from these few bright spots, people over there are barbarians! No wonder they saw a kindred spirit in Saddam Hussein. (Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Greg Hartman, James Trager, Joel Goldberg, Jim O'Toole, Tom Linehan, Michael Dowding, John Wendler, Charlie Gaylord, Michael Segal, Raghu Desikan, S.E. Brenner, Howard Walker, Steve Susina, John Bauer, Steve Roberts, Rosanne Klass, Dan Carter, James Kaucher, Charles Matthews, Brad Torgersen, William Schanefelt, Edward Himmelfarb, Jonathan Yunger, Skip King and William Specht. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)