Get the Facts Newsletter, June 2006
June 2006 -- Volume 2, Issue 6
FULL APPEALS COURT TO HEAR BOEHNER V. MCDERMOTT
I want to share some good news about my nine-year court battle with House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). On June 26, 2006, I learned that the full panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear Boehner v. McDermott. This decision is the result of a petition I filed with the court two months ago. I filed this petition because of the recent 2 - 1 ruling against me by a divided three-member appeals court panel. My feeling was that this was too small a margin for such an important constitutional issue, and it inconsistent with an earlier Supreme Court ruling supporting my position.
This new hearing provides an opportunity to prove that my First Amendment defense is valid. By allowing public access to the taped conversation between former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his leadership team -- where they plotted to evade the no-spin provision of a plea agreement with the Ethics Committee -- I was acting to preserve the people's right to know what their government and elected representatives are doing.
The full-panel hearing is set for September 28, 2006. As happy as I am about this turn of events, the reality is the legal fees for this hearing alone could cost as much as $100,000.
Please help me keep up the fight: Make a contribution today.
Sincerely,
Jim McDermott
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NEWS ITEMS OF NOTE
A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY AND STATE SECRETS
I want to call your attention to another monstrous miscarriage of justice allegedly perpetrated by our government. Which one, you ask? It was the case of Khalid el-Masri, a German citizen who tried and failed to sue the U.S. government for allegedly abducting, drugging, and torturing him. And, turns out, he wasn't even the person they were looking for!
The outcome? His case was thrown out by a federal court in Virginia that agreed with the government's argument: that its actions were state secrets that would pose a threat to national security, if revealed. Slate writer Henry Lanman explains how the Bush Administration is expanding the meaning of this previously narrow government privilege to feed its own obsession with secrecy.
He writes: "Traditionally, this privilege was most often used to prevent plaintiffs from getting a hold of very specific, sensitive evidence in an ongoing lawsuit. . . . The troubling shift today is that in el-Masri and other similar lawsuits -- almost all of which involve important challenges to the government's conduct since Sept. 11 -- the administration has been routinely asserting the privilege to dismiss the suits in their entirety . . . In other words, in addition to relying on the state secrets doctrine to an unprecedented degree, the administration is now well on its way to transforming it from a narrow evidentiary privilege into something that looks like a doctrine of broad government immunity."
-- Read the full article
EYE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
THIS MONTH'S FOCUS: UNITED NATIONS:
China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria. What do these countries have in common? Well, not only are they notorious violators of basic human rights, but they also each have a seat on the new United Nations Human Rights Council. You think I'm kidding? See for yourself. As you peruse the list, you'll note that I've mentioned only a few of the countries that have no business being there.
The new council is supposed to be an improvement on its corrupt predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, which counted Sudan and Syria among its members. But I don't see how swapping one set of rights-crushing regimes for another is going to make a whit of difference. In fact, this is probably the first time I have found myself agreeing (just slightly) with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton. He said, "Simply to replace the Commission with the word 'Council' after 'Human Rights' would be a grave disservice to us all . . . Re-creating the Human Right Commission with only a name change, while replicating all of its flaws, will simply serve to undermine the goal that most of us, but sadly not all, share -- namely, the promotion of freedom, liberty, and human rights."
Of course I realize that if the U.S. were on that council right now, we would also appear suspect, given the Bush Administration's abysmal human-rights record. That's probably why we elected not to run for a seat on the council. As current opinion polls show, the majority of American people don't trust this administration to honestly and effectively represent our true interests. And if there's one thing American's truly stand for, it's every human's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
-- Learn more about the new U.N. Human Rights Council
-- Read Ambassador Bolton's full statement
-- Read Human Rights Watch's call for "No Business as Usual at New Rights Council"
STEPPING UP TO THE PLATFORM
ON THE AGENDA: NATIONAL SECURITY
I have never subscribed to the theory that military arms are the key to ensuring national security. While I certainly would not argue that we should disband the Department of Defense, there are other ways of solving this problem that are being undercut by the massive investment we've made in the military and waging a needless war.
If we really want to overcome our national security woes, we have to understand why people want to attack us and work to change the way we treat the rest of the world. That would more effective than any machine we could create to scan every cargo container that comes into the Port of Seattle or wall we might construct along our borders.
One key step the U.S. should be taking right now is to significantly step up its efforts to eliminate extreme poverty around the world. We could start by giving a higher percentage of our gross domestic product to the cause. Countries like Sweden give .9 percent while we contribute a measly .2 percent. Also, if the U.S. could manage to scrounge up $20 billion (which, incidentally, is equal to the cost of 20 weeks of waging the Iraq War), we could drastically reduce -- maybe even eliminate -- extreme poverty. Luckily, some really rich and powerful folks have created the Seattle Initiative to take on this very problem.
However, we can't just leave it to the benevolent rich to deal with a crisis this far-reaching and this devastating. The U.S. should regain the moral high ground and give serious attention and funding to the war on poverty.
-- Find out more about the Seattle Initiative
WEBSITES I LIKE:
Here are just a couple of the Web sites I rely on to get the facts:
Carbon Footprint
Calculate, reduce, and offset the negative impact your activities have on the environment.
-- http://www.carbonfootprint.com/
Public Disclosure Commission
-- http://www.pdc.wa.gov/
Rick Steves' Europe
-- http://www.ricksteves.com/
BOOKS I'M READING:
A Matter of Opinion
By Victor S. Navasky (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2005)
Victor Navasky, publisher and editor of the Nation, reflects on his 30 years of rabble-rousing at that magazine and his other journalistic pursuits. Definitely a fun read for the summer.
-- More about the book
Wounded: Vietnam to Iraq
By Ronald J. Glasser (George Braziller; July 10, 2006)
Author Ronald J. Glasser, M.D., served as an Army hospital physician during the Vietnam War. In his hot-off-the-presses book, Glasser focuses on wounded soldiers from the Iraq War and how they awakened in him an understanding of how similar their experiences are to those suffered by soldiers in Vietnam. This quote from his Web site describes it well: "With over 17,000 American troops and 100,000 Iraqis already injured, Wounded is tragically relevant. . . . a powerful reminder of the physical, financial, and psychological costs of war . . ."
-- More about the book
TAKE ACTION
MAKE A DONATION
Help Jim McDermott fight to preserve your right to know what your government is doing.
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Revision date: September 27, 2006
