Hi. Here are interesting slants on topics of the day. Olmert will indeed be prime minister and will continue to live with his family as well as the political divisions reported in today's media. Feingold will be taking on the Senate Judiciary Committee this Friday as well as cowards in his own party, but bolstered by this poll and results of Bush's policies as reported in "Massacre." I almost never send you more than 3 items but decided to offer as paliative what should be a wonderful concert this Friday eve, headed by great musicians I've know since they were kids, and wonderful supporting acts in a rare visit and trilogy. Ed
Olmert defends his 'peacenik' family in Israeli election By Harry de Quetteville in Jerusalem The Telegraph Tuesday 28 March 2006 Three days before an election that is almost certain to propel him to office as Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert has been forced to defend not himself or his policies - but his family. At the end of a vicious campaign, during which Mr Olmert, the country's acting premier since Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke in January, has struggled to cast himself as the guardian of Israel's safety, his opponents have accused his wife and children of being peaceniks, pacifists and army rebels. The accusations have prompted an icy response from Mr Olmert, who is keen to defend a family whose Left-leaning politics are largely at odds with his own. "It doesn't make me happy," he said of the attacks. "It doesn't smell good." The barrage of criticism has been launched from Mr Olmert's old Likud Party, and has been directed against his wife, Aliza, and three of his five children: Shaul, Ariel and Danna. Shaul Olmert, 31, who lives in New York and works for an online computer games company, signed a petition a decade ago - when he was a staff sergeant in the Israeli army - refusing to serve in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Signatories declared that they would "take no part in the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people". Meanwhile, according to hostile advertisements, Mr Olmert's younger son, Ariel, who lives in Paris, refused to serve in the Israeli army - while the politician's wife is reportedly a member of a movement that campaigns against Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza. His daughter, Danna, who is a lesbian, has courted controversy by her participation in Machsom Watch, a group which monitors the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers at military checkpoints in the territories. So as Mr Olmert's chief rivals - the Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, on the Right and the Labour leader, Amir Peretz, on the Left - both exploit their families to boost their appeal, Mr Olmert has been trying to keep his quiet. "Unlike some candidates I have never used my family to advance my career," he said. "What do they expect to gain by saying that my two sons emigrated from Israel?" He has, however, defended Mrs Olmert, saying: "My wife is unique. She engages in a million things. There are many institutions, for children at risk, for battered women, for culture and art, that exist only thanks to her." In one newspaper interview he said: "Of course my wife and children influenced me. Aliza and I have a special bond. There is a complex and fascinating dialogue between my children and me." The campaign against Mr Olmert's family is unlikely to hinder his centrist Kadima Party from winning Tuesday's election, becoming the largest single party, with a predicted 35 seats in the 120- seat Israeli Knesset. Labour, which is widely expected to form a governing coalition with Kadima, is on course to become the second largest party with 20 seats, while Likud is trailing, with an expected 15. It is the first time that a spotlight has shone so intensely on Mr Olmert's family, despite a decade until 2003 spent as mayor of Jerusalem. Then Mr Olmert was known only as an hot tempered, bespoke-suited cigar lover, whose twice weekly hawkish speeches fired the enthusiasm of supporters on the Right and earned the disgust of the Left. Now he adopts a more sober tone. Gone are the unscripted speeches. Gone, too, is the adoration of the Right, as Mr Olmert carefully repositions himself in the political centre - promising an end to the conflict with the Palestinians, but on Israel's terms. In this election campaign, Mr Olmert has couched every political promise in terms of what his ailing friend, "Arik" (Mr Sharon), would have wanted. Now friendship and fate look certain to propel him to Israel's top job. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/26/wmid26.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/26/ixnewstop.html *** http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032606Y.shtml Feingold's Standing Boosted Among Voters The Associated Press Sunday 26 March 2006 Wahsington - While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, insists his proposal has nothing to do with his political ambitions. But he does challenge Democrats who argue it will help energize Republicans. "Those Democrats said that within two minutes of my announcing my idea," Feingold said in a telephone interview last week. "I don't see any serious evidence of that." A Newsweek poll taken March 16-17 found that 50 percent of those surveyed opposed censuring Bush while 42 percent supported it, but among Democrats, 60 percent favored the effort. Feingold's resolution would censure the president for authorizing a warrantless surveillance program, which the senator contends is illegal. Co-sponsors are Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California. The White House argues that Bush was authorized to order eavesdropping on American citizens under his wartime powers as commander in chief. Feingold said his sole purpose was to hold Bush accountable, but he argued that it's also good politics. "These Democratic pundits are all scared of the Republican base getting energized, but they're willing to pay the price of not energizing the Democratic base," he said. "It's an overly defensive and meek approach to politics." Some Democrats have accused Feingold of putting his 2008 presidential ambitions over helping Democrats try to recapture the House and Senate in this year's midterm elections. Should Feingold run, his opposition to the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and the spying program would help position him as the liberal candidate. Many also see his effort as a distraction at a time when the Bush administration was on the ropes over Iraq and a since-scuttled port deal. "It just takes us off discussions we ought to be having in this country on issues that really matter in people's lives," said Rep. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat from Ohio who is running for Senate. Some Republicans have been thanking Feingold for what they consider a political fumble. "This is such a gift," Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show. The National Review came to the same conclusion. In an online editorial titled, "Feingold's Gift to the GOP," the conservative magazine wrote that Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman would hug Feingold if given the chance. The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing Friday on Feingold's resolution. Mehlman, visiting Wisconsin last week, skipped the hug and instead criticized Feingold. That reinforced an RNC radio ad buy in the state, in which a narrator says, "Call Russ Feingold and ask him why he's more interested in censuring the president than protecting our freedom." Feingold's response, essentially, is bring it on. "I welcome their attempt to make a campaign issue of the question of whether there will be accountability for the president's breaking the law," he said. "They will remind people every minute that the president thumbed his nose at the law." *** "A local police commander, Lt. Col. Farooq Hussain, interviewed by a Knight Ridder special correspondent in Ishaqi, said autopsies at the hospital in Tikrit "revealed that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed." Efforts to reach hospital spokesmen Sunday were unsuccessful." http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14138980.htm Knight-Ridder March 19, 2006 Iraqi police report details civilians' deaths at hands of U.S. troops By Matthew Schofield Knight Ridder Newspapers Baghdad, Iraq - Iraqi police have accused American troops of executing 11 people, including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant, in the aftermath of a raid last Wednesday on a house about 60 miles north of Baghdad. The villagers were killed after American troops herded them into a single room of the house, according to a police document obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers. The soldiers also burned three vehicles, killed the villagers' animals and blew up the house, the document said. A U.S. military spokesman, Major Tim Keefe, said that the U.S. military has no information to support the allegations and that he had not heard of them before a reporter brought them to his attention Sunday. "We're concerned to hear accusations like that, but it's also highly unlikely that they're true," he said. He added that U.S. forces "take every precaution to keep civilians out of harms' way. The loss of innocent life, especially children, is regrettable." Accusations that U.S. troops have killed civilians are commonplace in Iraq, though most are judged later to be unfounded or exaggerated. Navy investigators announced last week that they were looking into whether Marines intentionally killed 15 Iraqi civilians - four of them women and five of them children - during fighting last November. But the report of the killings in the Abu Sifa area of Ishaqi, eight miles north of the city of Balad, is unusual because it originated with Iraqi police and because Iraqi police were willing to attach their names to it. The report, which also contained brief descriptions of other events in the area, was compiled by the Joint Coordination Center in Tikrit, a regional security center set up with United States military assistance. An Iraqi police colonel signed the report, which was based on communications from local police. Brig. Gen. Issa al-Juboori, who heads the center, said that his office assembled the report on Thursday and that it accurately reflects the direction of the current police investigation into the incident. He also said he knows the officer heading the investigation. "He's a dedicated policeman, and a good cop," he said when reached by phone in Tikrit from Baghdad. "I trust him." The case involves a U.S. raid conducted, according to the official U.S. account, in response to a tip that a member of al-Qaida in Iraq was at the house. Neighbors, interviewed by a special correspondent for Knight Ridder, agreed that the al-Qaida member was at the house. They said he was visiting the home's owner, a relative. The neighbors said the homeowner was a schoolteacher. According to police, military and eyewitness accounts, U.S. forces approached the house at around 2:30 a.m. and a firefight ensued. By all accounts, in addition to exchanging gunfire with someone inside the house, U.S. troops were supported by helicopter gunships, which fired on the house. But the accounts differ on what took place after the firefight. According to the U.S. account, the house collapsed because of the heavy fire. When U.S. forces searched the rubble they found one man, the al-Qaida suspect, alive. He was arrested. They also found a dead man they believed to be connected to al-Qaida, two dead women and a dead child. But the report filed by the Joint Coordination Center, which was based on a report filed by local police, said U.S. forces entered the house while it was still standing. "The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men," the report said. "Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals." The report identified the dead by name, giving their ages. The two men killed were 22 and 28. Of the women, one was 22, another was 23, a third was 30 and the fourth was 75. Two of the children were 5 years old, two were 3, and the fifth was 6 months old, the document said. The report was signed by Col. Fadhil Muhammed Khalaf, who was described in the document as the assistant chief of the Joint Coordination Center. A local police commander, Lt. Col. Farooq Hussain, interviewed by a Knight Ridder special correspondent in Ishaqi, said autopsies at the hospital in Tikrit "revealed that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed." Efforts to reach hospital spokesmen Sunday were unsuccessful. *** Songfest for Justice featuring Emma's Revolution Conjunto Jardín Triple Chicken Foot Friday, March 31 8pm $10 Tropico de Nopal gallery/art space 1665 Beverly Blvd. (Echo Park) Los Angeles, CA 90026 213 481 8112 Local son jarocho aficionados Conjunto Jardín host this special evening honoring visiting friends Emma's Revolution, the duo of award-winning activist singer/songwriters Pat Humphries & Sandy O. With new Chicano bluegrass band Triple Chicken Foot opening the show, Songfest for Justice promises to be a multicultural string-fling celebrating common threads of resistance, renewal and celebration. Inheriting the mantle from her friend and mentor Pete Seeger, activist musician Pat Humphries has been writing moving, socially conscious anthems for more than 20 years. Her songs "Keep On Moving Forward (Never Turning Back)" and "Swimming to the Other Side" are sung at peace and justice events around the world and have been translated into 7 languages. Featured on NPR's "All Things Considered" and Pacifica's "Democracy Now!" Emma's Revolution's debut cd, "one x 1,000,000 = change," includes "If I Give Your Name," Grand Prize Winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and includes songs written for organizations such as Refugee and Immigrant Women's Network, School of the Americas Watch, Rachel Carson Center, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and CodePINK Women for Peace. "The epitome of great contemporary political music." - Sing Out! www.emmasrevolution.com www.conjuntojardin.com www.tropicodenopal.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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