FORMER CONGRESSIONAL AIDE MARK D. ZACHARES PLEADS GUILTY TO PUBLIC CORRUPTION CHARGE

TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

WASHINGTON - A former high-level staffer of the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, the Department of Justice announced today.

Mark D. Zachares, 48, entered his plea to the one-count criminal information today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. Zachares faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and supervised release following his incarceration. As part of a plea agreement, Zachares has agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation into the activities of former Washington, D.C., lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others.

According to plea documents, Zachares met Abramoff in the mid-1990s when Zachares was a government official for the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), then an Abramoff lobbying client. After a failed attempt to secure for Zachares an appointment as head of the Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs in Washington, D.C., Abramoff ultimately helped Zachares secure what became a series of positions as a high-level staffer to the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. Zachares admitted that his job search with Abramoff, which started in late 2000, marked the beginning of a conspiracy that continued through April 2004, wherein Zachares corruptly solicited and received a stream of things of value from Abramoff and his lobbyists in exchange for agreeing to take, and taking, official action to benefit Abramoff, his lobbyists, and their lobbying clients. Zachares left the House committee in November 2005.

According to plea documents, the things of value received by Zachares included tens of thousands of dollars worth of tickets to concerts and sporting events, a luxurious golf trip to Scotland on a private jet, free meals and drinks, and multiple rounds of free golf at Abramoff's country club. Zachares also admitted receiving $10,000 from an Abramoff-controlled entity shortly before he started working on Capitol Hill.

Zachares also admitted that he and Abramoff entered into what they called a "two year plan," whereby Zachares would work as a Capitol Hill staffer to benefit Abramoff's interests, while making political contacts necessary to eventually be hired as a highly-paid lobbyist with Abramoff's firm.

Zachares admitted that the actions he agreed to take, and took, to benefit Abramoff, his lobbyists, and their clients included securing for Abramoff non-public information, referring potential lobbying clients to Abramoff's firm, reaching out to administrative agencies on behalf of Abramoff clients, using his position to exert "payback" on entities that had retained competing lobbying firms, and actively participating in the strategic planning of a new "maritime lobbying practice" at Abramoff's firm, which was explicitly designed to take advantage of Zachares' then-position with the House subcommittee with maritime oversight responsibilities. Zachares further admitted that he intentionally failed to disclose the gifts he had received from Abramoff and his lobbyists, as required in annual financial reports.

The Zachares case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Richard C. Pilger and Matthew L. Stennes of the Public Integrity Section, which is headed by Chief William M. Welch II. The case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The broader investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff is being conducted by a task force including special agents of the FBI, the Department of Interior Office of the Inspector General, the General Services Administration Office of the Inspector General, and the Criminal Investigation branch of the Internal Revenue Service, as well as prosecutors in the Public Integrity and Fraud Sections of the Criminal Division and the Criminal Tax Section of the Tax Division. To date, the investigation has yielded guilty pleas from several defendants, including public officials such as former Congressman Robert Ney and former Deputy Secretary of the Interior James Steven Griles. The investigation has also resulted in the conviction by jury trial of the former chief of staff for the General Services Administration, David Safavian.

Articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney

Kucinich's Impeachment Proposal Takes Antiwar Stand to New Lengths
By Marie Horrigan
Congressional Quarterly
Tuesday 24 April 2007

Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich on Tuesday introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney for "high crimes and misdemeanors" related to his participation in the buildup for the war in Iraq - and what the longshot Democratic presidential contender said was belligerent rhetoric toward Iran.

In an 18-page draft resolution, Kucinich outlined three charges against Cheney: that he "manipulated the intelligence process ... by fabricating the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" to justify the war in Iraq; that he deceived citizens and Congress "about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda" to justify the war; and that he has "openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran, absent any real threat to the United States, and has done so with the United States' proven capability to carry out such threats."

"In all this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as vice president, and subversive to constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States ... [and] by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office," the resolution concluded.

Kucinich introduced the articles at a news conference held at 5 p.m. Tuesday on Capitol Hill, which was delayed for several hours. The event was originally planned for noon, but Kucinich initially postponed it based on news reports Cheney was undergoing emergency medical treatment for a chronic blood clot condition in his leg. When subsequent news reports indicated the tests were more routine, Kucinich rescheduled the event.

Democratic leaders, who have stated repeatedly they have no intentions of pursuing the impeachment of either President Bush or Cheney, do not support the impeachment effort. Kucinich said Tuesday that he did not have any co-sponsors for the resolution. But he proclaimed that he had the support of "millions of Americans."

Speaking at the news conference, Kucinich said he was pursuing impeachment of Cheney, and not Bush, for practical reasons. "It's significant and responsible to start in this way, because if the same charges would relate to the president as relate to the vice president, you would then have to go through the constitutional agony of impeaching two presidents consecutively," he said.

Kucinich posted his proposed articles of impeachment on his congressional Web site.

Pentagon May Be Shorting Troop Benefits

By Hope Yen

The Associated Press
Monday 23 April 2007

Washington - An injured soldier's disability should be determined by Veterans Affairs officials - and not the Pentagon - because the Army might be shortchanging troops, a presidential commission was told on Monday.

At a public meeting, the nine-member commission on veterans care chaired by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala delved into ways to cut down on paperwork and problems in the disability ratings system.

Under the current system, each of the armed services assign ratings to service members when they become injured. The ratings determine whether the service member is discharged from active service and if so, the amount of disability benefits to which he or she is entitled. The VA operates a separate system to determine benefits for retired veterans.

Critics say the Army rates its injured soldiers at a lower level of disability compared with the other armed services and the VA so it can save on the costs of disability payments.
Veterans groups urged the commission to make a change so injured soldiers aren't underpaid disability benefits.

Such a proposal would be a major shift in how disability benefits are administered, with both critics and supporters acknowledging it would likely add significantly to costs since the VA takes into account all the disabilities a soldier has - not just one.

"We want to add our voice to others deeply disturbed by concerns of lowballing in Army disability ratings," said Robert Norton, deputy director for the Military Officers Association of America. "The ratings gaps are unacceptable."

In recent weeks, a separate review group found consistently lower disability ratings by the Army and suggested it might be because officials didn't want to pay benefits. The Army says it is perplexed by the finding but would investigate.

Bradley Mayes, director of compensation and pension service at the VA, told the commission that shifting the ratings work to the VA could be done. But he cautioned that the Pentagon would still need to be involved in making judgments on whether an active service member was fit for duty, as well as his level of military and severance pay for service. As a result, changing the current system could add to the level of bureaucracy.

Flipping The Switch On Climate Change

by William Thomas April 8th 2007
http://www.willthomas.net/Convergence/Weekly/Global-Warming.htm

Thanks to an American Senator, the world is being set straight on climate change. Working tirelessly to scuttle former elected President Al Gore's upcoming Capitol Hill celebration as part of a seven-continent “Live Earth” concert tour intended to rally the planet in cheerfully addressing runaway global warming, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe speaks with the conviction of a Holocaust denier when he calls climate change "The greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people!" [The Hill Mar 28/07]

A least since the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, WMD in Iraq, the Iranian “threat”, the Bush Terror War On Terror, and the constitutional curtain-closing Patriot Acts 1, 2 and 3.

Apparently unafraid of facing future Nuremberg-style environmental trials, Climate Change Deniers as influential as the U.S. National Science Teachers Association have refused 50,000 free DVDs of Gore's Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth" in fear of alienating heavy corporate funders like Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute, which gets scientists fired, publishes expensive ads in newspapers ridiculing melting glaciers, and helpfully provides “teaching aids” such as coal coloring books and classroom videos asserting, “You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel."

That means you, Mr. and Mrs. Penguin.

In sharp contrast, Tony Blair’s government is sending a copy of Gore's global warming documentary to every high school in England, where it will form part of a year-long environmental program in state schools. [Cybercast News Service Feb 9/07]

“I'm confident that the environmental path that I announce will benefit the entire world. It is based on… economic growth.” –GW Bush [NOAA Feb 14/02]

GLACIAL INDIFFERANCE
It’s not easy debating a destabilizing 10,000-foot thick glacier. Despite sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets already at the upper limits of the next 30 year projections… another 500,000 square miles of reflective Arctic sea ice melted into heat-retaining dark water and Alaska’s glaciers decanting more than 13 trillion gallons of meltwater into world ocean circulations each year… and Greenland’s fast-shrinking 2,000 kilometres of solid ice increasing its melting rate over the past five years from a metre a year to a metre a month… and polar bears drowning a hundred miles offshore while looking for ice floes retreating another 300 miles out… and thousands of Canadian harp seal pups experiencing 100% mortality from the same lack of ice… and the first month of 2007 3.4°F hotter than the any January ever recorded… and the snowpack serving drinking water to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest shrinking toward bare rock… and more than a quarter of the American West in either severe or exceptionally severe drought while Arizona cactus wither and die from lack of water—Inhofe and the White House insist, this planet can’t be heating up! [Reuters Mar 23/07; CBC Aug 3; Aug 20/04; BBC Radio 4 Aug 7/05; Independent Oct 2/05; Knight Ridder News Service July31/03; New York Times Mar 10/06; www.cejnewsviews.blogspot.com; [www.realclimate.org]

“A polar bear might be able to swim 100 miles. But not 400.” -Nupiak elder Charlie Johnson [CBC Aug 3/04]

“It’s happening much sooner than we thought.” -Ted Scambos, lead scientist U.S. National Snow and Data Center [Guardian Sept 29/05]

“Everyone’s quite shocked at the speed at which these things are changing.” -Bill Wareham, acting director marine conservation, David Suzuki Foundation [AP July 8/05]

"Things are happening a lot faster than anyone predicted. The last 12 months have been alarming." -Bill Chameides chief scientist, Environmental Defense & professor of atmospheric chemistry. [Time Mar 26/06]

On the other hand, an 18-inch rise in sea level will see salt water flowing into the Sacramento River Delta, destroying the drinking water for 23 million Californians. A 20-foot ocean level rise will put half of Florida under water— including Miami, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville—along with the new WTC memorial in Manhattan, and much of Washington DC, where Senator Inhofe is busily blocking climate change-inspired discourse, dancing and music. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer Mar 11/07; BBC July28/04]

In more than 180 countries, one out of every ten people on this planet could soon be chuckling over the climate change hoax while swimming inland. Fortunately for U.S. legislators like Inhofe, only one of these countries is the United States. The rest—China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, Thailand and the Philippines have mostly expendable non-white populations who don’t buy much stuff from the United States, which today mostly exports self-deluding fictions, weapons and wars. [Inter Press Service Mar 28/07]

Meanwhile, the rapidly melting and slip-sliding Greenland ice sheet does not know it is a hoax and is set to raise world sea levels 20 to 30 feet, while far to the south, inland Western Antarctic glaciers uncorked by the calving Larson ice shelf are rushing to add another 20-feet or so to the rising sea level hoax. As for the melting Eastern Antarctic… think about relocating to a mountaintop with a dock in your front yard.