The Morning Delivery

Katrina 5-Year Anniversary Timeline; New Orleans Update

 

 With President Obama planning a trip to New Orleans on August 29th to mark the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I compiled a timeline, chronicling the chaos, destruction, and havoc as reported by major news organizations for two tumultuous weeks.

But first an update on New Orleans since 2005.

The New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau is happy to report despite all the infrastructure damage and damage to its reputation as result of Katrina, including the damage incurred from the BP oil spill, the ``Big Easy’’ is once again greeting millions of tourists, hosting conventions and prominent corporate and association meetings, while earning awards as one of the hottest leisure destinations in America.

New Orleans, in fact, is doing better than it ever has. Since 2005 (pre-Katrina) It boasts 300 more restaurants, $400 million of improvements into local hotels,  $250 million of improvements into the Louisiana Superdome and $92.7 million of improvements into the Morial Convention Center.

In 2009, moreover, the annual visitor spending in New Orleans was $4.2 billion; just prior to Katrina, tourists spent $2.6 billion in New Orleans from January through June, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina Timeline: August 28-September 7, 2005

• August 28, 2005: After crossing South Florida and causing nine deaths, Hurricane Katrina pushed its way toward southeastern Louisiana, intensifying into a Category 5 Hurricane with severe wind speeds approaching 160 miles an hour, prompting a mandatory evacuation and sending hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing New Orleans, a city of 485,000 people, and located below sea level, right in the eye of the storm.

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, issued a grim warning to residents: ``We are facing a storm that most of us feared''

The storm shut down oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, sending the price of oil soaring to more than $4 a barrel.

Area residents, including scores of tourists without any form of transportation, numbering 10,000, began pouring into the Louisiana Superdome seeking shelter.

• August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina landed at 7:10 a.m. Eastern time near the Louisiana bayou town of Burasin, approximately 63 miles southeast of New Orleans, as it battered parts of the city for eight consecutive hours; but according to preliminary reports, the city was spared the devastation it feared, as most of the levees held with only one reported being damaged.

Katrina appeared to have inflicted the heaviest damage in neighboring Mississippi, where roofs were ripped off homes and 55 were reported killed, including 50 in Harrison County, Miss, which includes Gulfport and Biloxi.

  Insurance experts estimated the damage would exceed $9 billion, placing it as one of most devastating hurricanes in the United States. The loss of operating casinos in Mississippi alone was costing the state $400,000 to $500,000 a day in lost revenue.

The governors of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi declared search and rescue their top priority, while President Bush promised immediate assistance to storm victims.

• August 30. 2005: Just when New Orleans thought it had escaped the fury of Katrina, 80 percent of the city found itself below-sea-level, after two levees broke, sending a surge of water through the city, 20 feet deep.

Death tolls began mounting at unprecedented levels; Mississippi was reporting at least 100 dead. In New Orleans, thousands of people were said to be stuck on roofs and attics, the carnage had become so devastating that rescue boats were left with no recourse but to push aside dead bodies in order to save the living.

Every few minutes brought new chilling accounts of horror in a city that just a few short hours ago was known as ``The Big Easy’’--looting in the streets (with one police officer shot critically), tens of thousands of homes shattered, no electricity, gas leaks erupting into flames, hospital running out of room for patients, not even the water was drinkable. 

20,000 people were sandwiched inside the Superdome, a facility that normally requires 9,000 tons of air conditioning equipment to keep it a comfortable 72 degrees, had no place to go, no place to bathe, bins were reported overflowing with trash, the stench unbearable, prompting the New York Times to describe the stadium ``unfit for animals.’’  Three patients died in the dome.

The Associated Press reported one woman giving birth while fleeing New Orleans.

The staff of the Times-Picayune was forced from its editorial offices at 9:40 a.m., and could only publish online.

Storm damage estimates increased to more than $25 billion, making it one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in U.S. history, even worse than Hurricane Andrew, which racked up $21 billion in insured losses in 1992.

President Bush freed up some federal aid as he declared parts of Mississippi and Alabama major disaster areas; while the Pentagon ordered six Navy ships and eight maritime rescue teams to the region.

• August 31, 2005: President Bush cut his vacation short from Texas and ordered an additional 10,000 National Guard troops to the Gulf Coast to help with the evacuation effort, making it one of the largest military responses in U.S. history to a natural disaster, as the total number of troops stood at 28,000.

It was announced that the 23,000 refugees shoehorned in the Superdome would be bused to the Astrodome in Houston.

    Mayor Nagin, while acknowledging the death toll might reach into the thousands, called for a total evacuation of New Orleans, describing the city as uninhabitable for the 50,000 to 100,00 who remained, and said the city wouldn't be functioning again for another two to three months.

The Army Corps of Engineers estimated that it would take three to six months to drain New Orleans of the water that flooded the city.

Lawlessness was still in full swing. One man reportedly shot his sister in the head over a bag of ice; and another dozen carjackings were reported by the Associated Press, including a nursing home bus.

    The Red Cross was reporting $21 million had been received in relief aid.

• September 1, 2005: As the Bush administration was fending off heaps of criticism for not responding to the flood victims fast enough; Congress rushed through a $10.5 billion relief and rescue package for victims.

    The slowness of the aid to victims in a predominantly black metropolitan area quickly ignited a political firestorm, when some accused the president of abandoning a region of the country to which he owes no political favors.

``Last year, when the president's election was in question, his response to the hurricanes in the swing state of Florida was tremendously fast,” Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla. told the Associated Press. "Where was he in the immediate aftermath for the Gulf Coast? Where were the trucks of food?"

As the Houston Astrodome filled to capacity, San Antonio and Dallas were preparing to absorb 25,000 more refugees.

New Orleans was still filled with angry mobs, crying for help, and storming the helicopters bringing in food supplies.

• September 2, 2005: Five days after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, medical and food supplies begin pouring into the region on the same day President Bush visited the area to offer support and to defend the government's slow response. Another 10,000 National Guard troops were reportedly being dispatched to the region, bringing the total number to 40,000.

• September 3, 2005: Homeland Secretary, Michael Chertoff told The Associated Press that more than 100,000 people had received humanitarian aid and the Coast Guard had rescued 9, 500 people; President Bush ordered 7,200 more soldiers and Marines to the Gulf Coast, while commenting `in America we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need."

    Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao announced an emergency $62 million grant to provide 10,000 temporary jobs for displaced workers. Amtrak was also planning to pitch in by transporting stranded residents from New Orleans.

• September 4, 2005: What had long been feared, but only now acknowledged by the federal government, the death toll from Hurricane Katrina is likely to be in the thousands, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt.

    That sentiment was echoed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who told Fox News Sunday, "We need to prepare the country for what's coming. We are going to uncover people who died hiding in the houses, maybe got caught in floods. It is going to be as ugly a scene as you can imagine.''

    President Bush, still trying to make amends for reacting so slowly to the cries of help from flood stricken New Orleans residents, dispatched his top advisers to the region: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; while the first lady accompanied her husband to the Red Cross operation center to thank employees for their efforts.

    But the crisis was far from over.

    Chertoff told CNN that the ``we are still in the middle of an emergency. This is not the time when we can draw a sigh of relief''

    New Orleans Mayor Nagin worked the airwaves as well, telling NBC the way the federal government responded to his city helplessness was "a tragedy, a disgrace."

• September 5, 2005: Thanks to sheets of metal and helicopters unloading 3,000-pound sandbags along the 17th Street canal, engineers begin plugging a 200-foot-wide gap of the broken levee that inundated New Orleans with floodwaters nearly a week ago.

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told The Associated Press water was being pumped from the canal back into the Lake Pontchartrain.

    Reports of missing New Orleans police officers continue to be a growing concern for local and state officials.

    Four hundred to 500 officers of New Orleans' 1600-member force have not reported for duty. Two officers committed suicide; and another was shot in the head during the uncontrolled mayhem of the storm.

    While the final death toll from Katrina was far from final, New Orleans Mayor Nagin didn't rule out the possibility it could be as high as 10,000.

    President Bush continued to get pounded for his mismanagement of the disaster response; especially by the staff of the Times Picayune, who published an open letter to the president in the Sunday edition, calling for the firing of every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    Bush visited with victims in Poplarville, Miss., and Baton Rouge, La.

• September 6, 2005: The laborious task of draining New Orleans of an estimated 30 billion gallons of water continued at a snails pace, with the Army Corps of Engineers giving a time frame ranging from three weeks to nearly three months.

    Engineers started filling 45-foot hole with rocks and sandbags, so than more pumps can start running.
    Only three of the 148 drainage pumps were operating.

    With a patch of residents still refusing to leave New Orleans, the Pentagon sent 5,000 paratroopers in an attempt to clear the remaining 10,000 residents from the city; and Mayor Ray Nagin issued an urgent warning that fetid water could carry a disease, while natural gas was leaking throughout the city.

    With the lack of water, sporadic fires were reported throughout the day; and doused by National Guardsmen and helicopters.

    The Associated Press quoted New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass as saying the lawlessness had ``subsided tremendously''; and warned anyone caught looting was looking at up to 15 years in prison during a national emergency.

    Paul Getman, chief executive officer of Economy.com, estimated the economic loss from the hurricane would total around $175 billion.

• September 7, 2005: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, government tests showed the amount of sewage-related bacteria in the floodwaters to be lat east 10 times higher than the acceptable safety level, prompting Mayor Nagin to step-up his evacuation of the remaining 5,000 to 10,000 residents from New Orleans even by force if necessary.

    CDC was reporting three deaths in Mississippi and one in Texas from exposure to Vibrio vulnificus, cholera-like bacteria found in salt water.

    The Associated Press reported 100 military officers and seven armed personnel carriers arrested a suspect who was firing a gun at workers trying to restore cell phone towers in a housing project.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency had ordered 25,000 body bags. The official death toll was still under 100.

    The number of water pumps working was only 23 or 10 percent of the city's normal contingent of 148 pumps

    Back at the nation's capital, the House and Senate said a joint investigation into the government's slow response to Katrina would be undertaken. ``Americans deserve answers'', said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

    President Bush was expecting to make his second budget request for hurricane relief, this time for $51.8 billion;  while FEMA director Michael Brown  announced debit cards totaling $2,000 would distributed to those affected by Hurricane Katrina for clothing and other immediate needs.
    The New York Times was reporting more than 319,000 had already filed for federal disaster relief.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
***
 Select Quotes:

    August 28, 2005
    `We are facing a storm that most of us have feared...God bless us.''
    -New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin issuing a dire warning to New Orleans residents of the impending Category 5 hurricane bearing down on the city and urged all residents to evacuate immediately.

    September 2, 2005
    ''Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.''
    -President Bush in Mobile Alabama with words spoken to FEMA Director Michael Brown for the job he was doing in responding to the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Brown ended up resigning for his incompetence 10 days later.

    September 5, 2005, ``We have advised people that this city has been destroyed,” "There is nothing here for them and no reason for them to stay, no food, no jobs, nothing."
    -Deputy Police Superintendent W.J. Riley

September 5, 2005
``We're still fighting over authority. "A bunch of people are the boss. The state and the federal government are doing a two-step dance."
    -New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

    September 5, 2005 (From The Washington Post)
"Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race,"
    -Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

    September 5, 2005
"They were told like me, every single day, the cavalry's coming, on a federal level,’’…."I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry.''
    -Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, just south of New Orleans, on NBC's "Meet the Press''

September 6, 2005 (From The New York Times)    
We're making great progress now," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on the "Today" program on NBC. "The momentum has picked up. I'm starting to see some critical tasks being completed."

***

Update on New Orleans since Katrina:

• June, 2008: The entire St. Charles Streetcar Line reopens, including the S. Carrollton Avenue leg. The St. Charles Streetcar Line had been a New Orleans tradition since the 19th century.

• December, 2008; New Orleans ends the year with 7.6 million in total visitors and $5.1 billion in spending.

• Louis Armstrong International Airport announced that the airport served 7.94 million passengers in 2008, a 5.5 percent increase over 2007.

• January, 2009: The new Mardi Gras World opened on the East Bank of New Orleans, adding thousands of square footage of venue space.

• January, 2009: After a $27 million renovation, The Mahalia Jackson Theatre of the Performing Arts re-opens, which includes a new orchestra shell and enhanced lighting.

• February, 2009: The Mardi Gras reached pre-Katrina crowd levels of approximately one million visitors

• February, 2009: The Lakewood Golf Course reopens to the public after undergoing a $9 million redesign.

• March, 2009: Jazz returns to Bourbon Street, when the Irvin Mayfield Jazz Playhouse at the Royal Sonesta opens to the public.

• April, 2009: New Orleans is awarded the site for the NCAA's 2012 Men's Final Four and the 2010 Women's Final Four basketball tournament.

• June, 2010: New Orleans is awarded the site for Super Bowl 2013, making New Orleans the site of the Super Bowl for the 10th time, tying them with Miami.

• June, 2010: The historic Roosevelt New Orleans, a Waldorf Astoria Collection, opens after a $145 million restoration.

• July, 2009: Approximately 428, 000 music fans attend the ESSENCE Festival, a three-day event at the Louisiana Superdome, featuring musical sensations: Beyonce, Maxwell, Anita Baker and Lionel Richie for the 15th annual festival.

• October, 2009: Broadway returns at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts, with the presentation of’ Broadway Across America-New Orleans'', which included performances of ``CATS’’, ``Wicked’’, ``The Color Purple’’ and ``Mamma Mia.’’

• December, 2009: New Orleans ends the year with 7.5 million total visitors and $4.2 billion in spending

• February, 2010: A record breaking 106.5 million television viewers tune into to watch the New Orleans Saints claim their first Super Bowl with a convincing 31-17 win over the Indianapolis Colts.

• March, 2010: $400 million of improvements and modernization projects are being worked on at the New Orleans Louis Armstrong International Airport with an expected completion date scheduled for September, 2011.

• April, 2010: The annual French Quarter Festival announces a record attendance of 512,000 over a three-day weekend

• August, 2010: Approximately $10.5 million will be spent to upgrade the former Dominion Tower into a sports entertainment venue now known as the Benson Tower, named for Saint’s owner Mr. Tom Benson and his family.

Source: New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau Inc.

Convictions for Lying to Congress Few and Far Between

Associated Press

Now that Roger Clemens has moved closer to jail and even further away from the Hall of Fame after having been indicted for perjury for denying he ever used performance-enhancing drugs during congressional testimony, it should be noted that he isn’t the only professional baseball player accused of lying to Congress.

In March, 2005, Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro stood before a congressional committee and stated unequivocally: “I have never used steroids. Period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that.’’ 

His testimony was so convincing that even President George W. Bush and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass) were impressed with the sincerity of his innocence, having believed Palmeiro never used performance-enhancing drugs.

Five months later, Palmeiro was suspended for 10 days for using steroids. When the question came up whether to charge the first baseman for lying to Congress, the House committee handling the steroids investigation cited lack of sufficient evidence and claimed the evidence they gathered was ``confusing and contradictory in many respects.”

So the indictment charging Clemens with perjury in lying to Congress appears to be rare. According to P.J. Meitl in a 2007 Quinnipiac Law Review, ``only six people have been convicted of perjury or related charges in relation to Congress in the last sixty years.’’

If convicted, the ``Rocket Man’ faces up to 30 years in prison, but under sentencing guidelines it could be reduced to 15-21 months.

The embattled pitcher can also take solace in knowing some individuals who have been convicted of lying to Congress, avoided prison time by challenging parts of their crime, such as Admiral John Poindexter, President Reagan’s National Security Advisor, who was convicted of making false testimony to Congress involving his role with the Iran-Contra affair, but was able to get his obstruction charge overturned on grounds the term ``corruptly’’ was unconstitutionally vague and avoid jail time.

And Clemens, of course, if convicted, could be spared jail time if the President of the United States chooses to pardon the eleven time All-Star pitcher.  In 1992, President H.W. Bush pardoned five former Reagan officials involving perjury crimes and making false statements relating to the Iran-Contra affair, including Elliott Abrams, Robert McFarlane, former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and CIA employee Duane Clarridge,

Ever since  1927, when the U.S. Supreme Court (in McGrain v Daugherty)  directly authorized Congress to conduct investigations, the lower body has been given the authority to call forth witnesses , experts and government officials  about important matters, including the use of subpoena powers to gather relevant materials and force witnesses to come forward to answer questions.

What follows are names of individuals who were convicted of lying to Congress.

• September 26, 1956: Harvey Matusow was sentenced to five years in prison for perjury after admitting in his book ''False Witness'' that his testimony before Congress in which he named more than 200 people as Communist or Communist sympathizer was nothing but a pack of lies.

• January 1, 1975: Former White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, along with former Attorney General John Mitchell,  both who served under Richard M. Nixon were convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury stemming from testimony before the Senate Select Committee in the cover up of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters.

• January 9, 1984: Rita M. Lavelle, former chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's toxic waste programs, was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $10,000 for lying to a Congressional investigative subcommittees surrounding the extent of her knowledge about her former employer (Aerojet General Corporation) disposing of toxic wastes at the Stringfellow Acid Pits near Riverside, Calif.

• October 26, 1993: Deborah Gore Dean, an executive assistant at the Department of Housing and Urban Development was convicted of 12 felony counts, including steering HUD contracts to favored developers, lying to Congress and taking bribes

• October 18, 1994: Jerry Weissman, the Chief Financial Officer of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges he lied to a Senate subcommittee and obstructed its investigation of financial regularities at the company. On March 4, 1997, Weismann was convicted of concealing  $80 million in losses his company had suffered under his reign.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Source: ``The Perjury Paradox: The Amazing Under-Enforcement of the Laws Regarding Lying to Congress'' By P.J. Meitl, Quinnipiac Law Review, 2007;  The New York Times Historical Archives

A Short History of Troubled Governors

Source: Associated Press

 Rod Blagojevich survived round one with his head still intact.

With the jury falling one vote short on convicting the former Illinois governor, except on one lesser charge of  lying to the FBI, federal prosecutors now have to prepare for an unpleasant hearing with U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel on August 26th to decide whether to take Blagojevich to court again.

The decision, though, seems to have already been made. ``It is absolutely our intention to retry this." prosecutor Reid Schar told reporters yesterday.

Ever since December 9, 2008, when the two-term governor was arrested on federal corruption charges (on conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery) leading up to his impeachment on January 8, 2009, Blagojevich has been a household name, giving late night talks show hosts enough material to last for a lifetime, while providing a forum to columnists and pundits to lament on all the ills of Illinois politics.

According to the Council of State Governments, Rod Blagojevich was the 18th governor impeached; and the eighth convicted ,eight others were acquitted; while three were threatened with impeachment but resigned before any such proceedings could be brought against them.

So as we wait to learn whether Mr. Blagojevich will be forced to step into the ring for round two with the federal prosecutors on corruption charges, I compiled a list of other governors who had their share of legal troubles.

• John A. Quitman (D-Miss.), faced a criminal indictment over liberating Cuba and was charged with violating American neutrality laws.
Quitman resigned on February 3, 1851.

• Len Small, Democrat Governor of Illinois from 1921 to 1929 was acquitted on June 24, 1922 on charges of embezzling $500,000 during his term as State Treasurer.

    • Warren T. McCray (R-Ind) was convicted of mail fraud and resigned on April 29, 1924.  McCray served three years in federal prison before being pardoned by President Herbert Hoover.

    • William Langer (I-N.D.) was charged with soliciting money from state employees, and removed from office by the North Dakota Supreme Court on July 17, 1934.
NOTE: Langer was acquitted on all charges in 1936; and was reelected to his second gubernatorial term in 1936.

• March 12, 1965: A federal court in Chicago found former Illinois Governor William G. Stratton not guilty of income tax fraud after being charged with failing to report $93, 595 in income taxes during his second term as governor. Stratton, a Republican, was governor of Illinois from 1953 to 1961.

• February 19, 1973: Otto Kerner was convicted of accepting race track stock in return for favors to race track owners in 1962 while serving his first term as Illinois governor. He was also convicted of income tax invasion and lying to Internal Revenue Service Agents. Kerner was governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968.

    • Marvin Mandel (D-Md.) was convicted on August 23, 1977, along with five co-defendants in a bribery case on 17 counts of mail fraud and one count of racketeering in which the Maryland governor accepted $350,000 in gifts over a six year period.
Mandel resigned from office.

• Removed from office three days before his term expired, former Tennessee Gov. Ray Blanton was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison on June 9th, 1981 for extortion, conspiracy and mail fraud in the awarding of liquor store licenses to political friends. During his final days in office, the embattled governor signed executive clemency documents for 52 prisoners, including a prisoner who had been convicted of murder

• On January 4, 1988, Daniel Walker began serving a seven year sentence for bank fraud and perjury stemming from improper loans arranged for him from his savings and loan institution before it went bankrupt. Walker, a Democrat, was governor of Illinois from 1973 to 1978.

    • H. Guy Hunt (R-Ala.) was convicted and immediately removed from office on April 23, 1993 on felony charges of funneling $200,000 from his inaugural fund to banks near his home for personal use.

    • J. Fife Symington (R-Ariz.) was convicted on September 4th 1997 on seven felony counts for defrauding lenders as a real estate developer in the 1980’s. Efective September 5th, 1997 at 5:00 p.m., the Arizona governor was removed from office.

    • After being threatened with impeachment, Governor John G. Rowland (R-Conn), announced on June 21, 2004, he was resigning from office on charges of accepting free work from contractors on his private lakeside cottage.

• George Ryan, Illinois' 39th governor was convicted on federal corruption charges on April 17, 2006, three years out of office, which stemmed from charges while in office, including steering lucrative contracts to friends in return for payments and personal vacations.

    • On March 11, 2008, after being caught in a federal wiretap for being a client of a high-priced prostitution ring, Eliot Spitzer (D-New York) resigned from office. The resignation took effect March 17th.

  ***
Non-Criminal removals/resignations:
    • Thomas L. Moodie (D-N.D.) was removed from office by the state Supreme Court in 1935 on allegations he didn’t meet the constitutional residency requirements.

    • On October 7, 2003, Gray Davis (D-Calif) became only the second governor in U.S. history recalled by voters.

    • Shortly after it was reported he had an affair with another man; James McGreevy (D-N.J) announced his resignation on August 12, 2004; which took effect on November 15th.
***
Governor’s Impeached
    • In 1870, William Holden (R-N.C.) was the first governor to be impeached on charges of ``high crimes and misdemeanors’’; among them for suspending the right of habeas corpus and sending the militia to confront the Ku Klux Klan who had been intimidating blacks from voting.

    • In 1871, David Butler (R-Neb) was impeached and convicted on a number of charges, including appropriating funds into the treasury that was to be used for his personal use, and loaning money that was used ``recklessly’’ without proper authority.

    • In August, 1913, the New York Assembly impeached and removed from office William Sulzer (D-N.Y.) on charges of filing false campaign receipts and misusing contributions to his campaign fund.

 • In 1917, the House prepared 21 articles of impeachment against James Ferguson. (D-Texas). The Senate subsequently convicted the governor on 10 charges, nine of them involving criminal activity, including the misuse of public funds.
A day before the Senate was to vote, Ferguson resigned from office.

    • On November 19, 1923, Gov. John C. Walton (D-Okla.) was convicted and permanently removed from office on a number of charges, including illegally collecting campaign funds, abusing his pardoning powers and ``general incompetence’’.

· On March 20,1929, the Senate convicted and removed Gov. Henry S. Johnston of Oklahoma from office on the charge of general incompetence,  making him the second governor of the ``Sooner State’’ to be impeached.  Johnston who came into office on a platform that supported the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition, quickly loss favor with voters for hiring an ex-bank robber as a state investigator, along with his alleged political connections to Klan members.

    • In April 1988, Evan Mecham (R-Ariz.) was removed from office when the Senate convicted him of obstructing justice and misusing $80,000 in state money that he was charged with funneling into his car dealership, making him the first governor to be impeached and removed from office in 59 years.
    NOTE: On June 17, 1988, Mecham along with his brother Willard, were acquitted of concealing a $350,000 campaign loan.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Source: The Council of State Government’ (CSG);  National Governors Association (NGA)

U.S. Mosques: Historic Background Notes

A  depiction of the proposed $100 million mosque and community center on Park Place near Ground Zero
***

With troubles in Afghanistan and a gloomy economy staring him straight in the face, President Obama placed his feet even closer to the fire, first by appearing to endorse the building of Park51, the planned mosque in lower Manhattan; only to parse his words the following day; saying he wasn’t actually endorsing the ``wisdom’’ of the mosque.

Hmm!

Mr. Obama’s waffling on such a controversial issue as a building of a mosque on Park Place , two blocks north of the World Trade Center, was seized upon my many leading Republicans, including Liz Cheney, who wrote in a text message to Politico’s Mike Allen: ``I guess President Obama was for the mosque before he was against it.’’

Let the fighting begin.

Asked to weigh-in on this emotionally charged issue, Peter Awn, professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University thinks the mosque and community center near Ground Zero are being used to promote political agendas, especially by Christians and Jews as a way to paint all Muslims as terrorists.

``The effort to blame all Muslims or see them all as potential terrorist’’ Awn thinks, `` is simplistic and bigoted. ‘’ ``If we are concerned about the sensitivities of the families who lost loved ones, some of them Muslim families I might add, then one could perhaps argue equally that all Jews should be barred from leadership roles in the financial services industry for twenty year out of sensitivity for the thousands of lives that Bernie Madoff destroyed.  This is, of course, ludicrous.  And we know that the opinions of the 9/11 families range from approval to violent disapproval.’’

Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, meanwhile, thinks that after all the political posturing is over and done with, the building of the mosque in Manhattan carries with it the real possibility  of mending Christian/Jewish/Muslim relations rather than damaging it beyond repair. 

``I personally think that the mosque near Ground Zero’’ Bagby wrote in an email, `` will eventually bring the faith groups closer together because I trust the leaders of that mosque and I am sure they will make great and effective efforts in that area’’. `` I also trust that most American people when exposed to the real face of Muslims will be accepting of Muslims and Islam.''

So as both Republicans and Democrats sharpen their arrows before the real sparring begins, this might be a good time to review a brief history of the Muslim community and mosques in the United States.

• 1870’s: The first wave of Muslims arrives in the United States voluntarily.

• 1893: The World’s Parliament of Religions meets in Chicago, a historic event which introduced Americans to different religions, including Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

• 1915: Albania Muslims started a mosque in Biddeford, Maine.  Another Masjid or mosque is built in Connecticut in 1919; Polish speaking Tartars opened a mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y.  beginning in 1926, while a group of African-Americans started a mosque in Philadelphia in 1930.

• In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a group calling itself ``The Modern Age Arabian Islamic Society’’ secured rental space for prayers in 1925, by 1934 a newly structured building, ``The Mother Mosque of America’’ becomes the first structure in the United States specifically designed to serve as a mosque.
NOTE:  ``The Mother Mosque of America’’ is listed in the National Historic Register; giving it legal protection from being altered or destroyed.

• Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower speaks during the dedication ceremony of The Islamic Center in Washington D.C. on June 28, 1957. The Center has material on Islam in 34 different languages, including video and audio resources. Since 1957, more than 14,000 Muslims have been married at the Center.

• 1963: Muslim students formed the ``Muslim Students Association’’ (MSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

• 1969: The Association of Muslim Scientists & Engineers (AMSE) was organized to help American Muslims re-establish traditions of Islamic Science, with a particular emphasis on Muslim Science in the Golden Age.

• A large number of recent mosques in the United States attempt to re-create the architecture of the traditional mosque with its towering minarets and doomed roofs, much like the Darul Islah mosque in Teaneck, New Jersey (built in 1986); the  Masjid Ibrahim mosque in Kingman, Arizona (built in 1990) and King Fadh Mosque in Culver City, California (completed in 1998).

• 1996: First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton hosts the Eid-al-Fitr at the White House, the festival marking the end of Ramadan.

• September 14, 2001: A mosque in Paterson, New Jersey, raised a sign protesting the actions of terrorists on September 11th.

• November 7, 2006: In Minneapolis, Keith Ellison, a 43-year-old defense attorney, becomes the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress.

• March 11, 2008: Andre Carson, grandson of the late Democrat Rep. Julia Carson, becomes the second Muslim elected to Congress in a special election in Indiana.

• Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with more than one billion Muslim followers worldwide and approximately six million in the United States

• In 1991, Imam Siraj Wahhaj makes history, becoming the first Muslim to offer the opening prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives.  A year later, Imam Warith Deen Mohammed offers the invocation in the U.S. Senate.

• There are more than 1,200 mosques in America with an average of about 360,000 Muslims attending services every Friday across the U.S.

• Two million Muslims in the United States associate themselves with activities of the mosque.

• More than 80 percent of U.S. mosques have been built since 1970; and since 1975, attendance at mosques have increased by 75 percent.

• About three-quarters of mosque attendees are comprised of males

• 81 percent of those who participate in mosque services are high school graduates, while almost half are college graduates.

• 29 percent are converts to Islam.

• One quarter of mosque attendees have household incomes of less than $20,000 per year.

• 15 percent of mosques are located in the West and Mountain regions; 33 percent are in the East, 26 percent in the South, and 29 percent are in the Midwest.

• In the United States, 93 percent of mosques provide cash for families; 77 percent offer counseling services; 69 percent provide a food pantry or soup kitchens; 64 percent organize collection drives for the less fortunate; and 33 percent sponsor voter registration drives.

• A full third of mosque attendees are from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan; another 30 percent are African-Americans and 25 percent are from Arab backgrounds

• Of the 1,510 Islamic institutions in the United States surveyed by authors Ilyas Ba-Humus and Kassim Kone, 801 (53 percent) were Islamic Centers; 194 (13 percent) were neighborhood Masajid or mosques; 101 (seven percent) were Musallas (a small mosque or a place where you prayer regularly) ; and 199 (13 percent) were full-time schools

• The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) documented more than 1,700 attacks on American Muslims from September 11 through February, 2002, including 289 acts physical violence and property damage and 166 reported incidents of discrimination in the workplace.

• There are approximately 5, 745, 100 Muslims living in the United States.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Source: ``Muslims in the United States’’ By Ilyas Ba-Yunus and Kassim Kone (Greenwood Press, 2006); ``Islamic Faith in America’ (Facts on File, Inc. 2008 ) By James A Beverly and J. Gordon Melton, Series Editor; ``Muslims in America: A Short History’’ by Edward Ed. Curtis IV (Oxford University Press, 2009).

***

Web sites to keep in mind:

Council on American-Islamic Relations

The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Islamic Society of North America

Self-Described Religious Identification of Adult Population (U.S. Census Bureau Historical Abstract)

Religious Bodies (U.S. Census Bureau Historical Abstract)

Christian Church Adherents-States: 2008 (U.S. Census Bureau Historical Abstract)

Reading News on your Favorite App

 
According to a 1993 article from Mac User, `` The future of application software is not the bulky dinosaurs of today but smaller, more focused products, documented and distributed electronically''

How right the biweekly computer magazine was in reading the tea leaves of what the 21st century had in store for online users.

Steve Jobs and his Apple company have clearly been one of the leading pioneers to have cashed in on the growing popularity of computer applications or apps with the opening of the Apple Store on July 11, 2008, which offers iPhone and iPod touch users a wide selection of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel.

In January, Apple announced more than three billion apps have been downloaded by users from its App Store ; and a company representative recently confirmed that the Cupertino, Calif. company, as of August, 2010, offers more than 225,000 apps on the App Store

News organizations have been especially anxious to take advantage of this new venue for disseminating information as more and more consumers abandon the print newspapers or watching television news from their living rooms; opting instead to read their news on the run-either from the gym, in their cars, during the lunch breaks, using their iphones or laptops.

Recent data from the Pew Research Center, shows that 59 percent of adults now access the internet wirelessly using a laptop or a cell phone.

Not only are news organizations going wireless in increasing numbers, but their very survival, especially print publications, hinges on how well they are able to market their products on the iphone and ipad.

According to Michael Gartenberg, a partner and analyst with the Altimeter Group, ``As consumers use their devices for more functionality and to consume more content, newspapers, magazines etc need to embrace this change with compelling apps and business models to keep their readers.’’

Despite the importance of media organizations developing creative online venues, there are still media analysts who question how profitable apps as a gateway to news information will be in the long run.

``Clearly some news organizations have hope they can use apps to add a powerful new revenue stream to their operations, but there isn’t enough data yet for us to know what kind of impact the apps environment will have on 1) consumer consumption habits; 2) consumer paying practices’’ Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project in Washington D.C. wrote in an email.

To give you a sense of the variety of news available on mobile devices, I compiled a brief list of apps that are on the Apple Store.

• The Wall Street Journal: unveiled their app for the ipad in April, which provides updated news and information, full-screen video, market data and customizable features, including the ability to save articles and full sections, such as ``What’s News’’, ``Marketplace, Money & Investing’’ and Personal Journal, for later or offline reading. The Wall Street Journal for iPad is available as a stand-alone subscription for $3.99 per week from the App Store on iPad. According to the company press release, the app is free to download with a subscription required for full access to all content and features.  Current Journal subscribers will receive full access free for a limited time. 

• The New York Times features the ``Editors Choice'' application , a free app and in sync for Wi-Fi or through a cellular network, which downloads the latest news directly to your device.

Besides the Journal and the Times, leading television news networks can be found at the Apple Store, including:

• CNN  launched the international iPhone app last month, a free application, featuring global news through text, video and photos, which also includes user-generated content capture and upload functionality through iReport. The app additionally provides access to an extensive selection of on-demand video clips across many categories, including World, Most Popular, Sport, Business, U.S., Entertainment, Tech and CNN en Español.

And last year, CNN came out with the CNN iPhone, which according to a company representative, ``carries with it a dual revenue stream - ads and a $1.99 price tag.’’

• Fox News, meanwhile,features Fox News for the iphone, which according to a Fox spokesperson, is the number one free news application through the Apple Store,

FoxsNews for the iphone features the latest news, top videos, FOX News shows, the Fox Business Network, live video streaming (including clips on demand) and Fox News Radio.

• ABC News features an app specifically tailored to the ipad in which the user with a mere spin of the globe reads breaking news stories, has the option of customizing news to their particular interests with access to a rich archive of historic news stories.

• National Public Radio (NPR) in August, 2009, launched its news app which uses location-based technology so that users just type in their zip code to access the nearest NPR station. Users are able to read news articles and listen to some of the best programs NPR has to offer, including the ``Morning Edition’’, ``All Things Considered’’, ``Car Talk’’ and ``Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me’’!

If you like sports, new apps geared to rabid fans seem to be popping up like toasters on the Apple Store. Two of the most popular are what Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association offers.

• MLB features an extremely popular app (At Bat 2010) available for the iphone and ipad touch for a annual subscription of $14.99, in which users can stay connected to their teams by listening to play-by-play, or the means to monitor a live scoreboard, view a batter-pitcher icon, which displays the type of pitch, including the speed. The app additionally provides video highlights and a free game of the day.

• During the 2009-2010 season, the NBA launched more than 100 mobile devices on a variety of platforms, including NBA Team Game Time Courtside,  an app designed exclusively for the ipad during the NBA playoffs , which included bracket break downs, play-by-play features and video highlights for an in-depth look at every game. Also available on the Apple Store is NBA Game Time,  another free application which offers fans access to game recaps and highlights, along with live play-by-play audio for every game
***
App Store Milestones

July 14, 2008: Three days after the opening of its new App le Store, Apple announces that iPhone and iPod  touch users have downloaded more than 10 million applications. Apple reports it has more than 800 applications available on the App Store, with more than 200 offered for free and more than 90 percent priced at less than $10.

September 9, 2008:  Apple announces more than 100 million applications have been downloaded by users

April, 2009: Apple announces one billion applications have been downloaded from its App Store. The one billionth app was ``Bump’’ created by Bump Technologies, which was downloaded by Connor Mulcahey, age 13, of Weston, CT.

September 28, 2009: Apple announces more than two million apps have been downloaded from the App Store. Apple additionally reports more than 85,000 apps are available to the more than 50 million iPhone™ and iPod touch® customers worldwide.

January 5, 2010:  Apple  announced that more than three billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store by iPhone® and iPod touch® users worldwide.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Kagan Confirmed: A Historical Overview of the Supreme Court

 

 With the U.S. Senate having approved Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court in a 63-37 vote to become the fourth woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, while for the time women comprise one-third of the nine sitting justices, I compiled some historic background on other nominees over the years.

• The only reference to the appointment of Justices in the U.S. Constitution is found in Article II, Sec. 2, Cl. 1, which states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the Supreme Court.”

• There is no constitutional requirement a Supreme Court Justice must have law degree.

 • For the first 75 years of the nation, law schools didn’t exist. Some of the more privileged Justices, therefore, traveled to England to study at one of the four Inns of Court, which, from the 14th century to the middle of the 19th century, provided legal training to laypersons and admitted them to the bar. A vast majority of the Justices, rather, trained through an apprenticeship, during which they “read the law.” In this apprenticeship, an aspiring attorney would be trained by a practicing attorney., while other lawyers were self-taught.

 • The first law school graduate to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court was Benjamin R. Curtis in 1857. Not until 1957 were all members of the Supreme Court comprised of law school graduates. The last Justice to serve without a law degree was Stanley F. Reed (1957). The last Justice to serve without even had attended law school was James F. Byrnes (1941-42).

  • The reopening of Harvard Law School in 1829 is considered the beginning of legal education in the United States. Since 1909, a majority of justices received their legal education at Harvard,
Yale or Columbia. On the current court, Justice John Paul Stevens, who received his law degree from Northwestern University in 1947, is the only sitting Justice who did not graduate from Harvard, Yale, or Columbia.

  • Elena Kagan is now the fifth members of the Court to claim Harvard as their law school alma mater.

  • On July 6, 1835, John Marshall died after 34 ½ years on the bench, administering the oath of office nine times to five U.S. presidents, more than any other in history.

 • Of the 159 nominations that have been made to the Supreme Court over the course of more than two centuries, 36 were not confirmed by the Senate. Of the 36 not confirmed, 11 were rejected by the Senate (all in roll-call votes), 11 were withdrawn by the President, and 14 lapsed at the end of
a session of Congress without a Senate vote cast on whether to confirm.

 • Only two nominees-George Williams in 1873 and G. Harrold Carswell in 1970 were defeated due to ``mediocre judicial records and lack of professional qualifications.’’

 • Samuel Chase and William Douglas were the only two Supreme Court Justices threatened with impeachment. Chase was acquitted, while two impeachment resolutions failed to pass in the House against Douglas.

 • Of the 22 nominees to the Court from 1900 to 1937, only three had Judiciary Committee hearings.(Louis D. Brandeis in 1916, Harlan F. Stone in 1925, and John J. Parker in 1930 (whose nomination was eventually rejected) of the 41 nominees after 1937, only three did not have hearings.  Nominees did not begin regularly testifying at their own hearings until John M. Harlan did so in 1955.

 • Public confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominations did not become a regular practice of the Judiciary Committee until the late 1930s

  • In 1930, less than a half dozen reporters covered the U.S. Supreme Court on a regular basis.

  • William Howard Taft is the only person to have served both as president (1909-13) and as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1921-30).

 • Ray Sprigle, a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a six day series of articles chronicling Hugo L. Black’s KKK membership from Sept, 1923 to July, 1925. Black was confirmed anyway by the committee by a vote of 34: 14 and by the Senate: 63:16.

• February 6, 1937: The New York Times begins the first of 50 editorials ("Remaking The Judiciary") attacking President Franklin Roosevelt on his court-packing scheme.

• All five Court vacancies occurring between 1946 and 1954 were due to death of a sitting Justice. Since 1954, however, retirement has been the most common way in which Justices have left the bench (19 of 23 vacancies occurring after 1954 resulted from retirements). Of the 23 vacancies since 1954, though, no Justice had died while still on the Court until Chief Justice Rehnquist in 2005.

  • Between 1900 and 2009, three Justices resigned to pursue other formal public service. In 1916, Justice Charles Evans Hughes resigned to pursue the Republican nomination for President.  Justice James F. Byrnes resigned on October 3, 1942, becoming Director of Economic Stability for President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and Justice Arthur Goldberg resigned in 1965 to become the U.N. Ambassador to the United Nations.

 • Justice Abe Fortas resigned in 1969 during a storm of controversy after it was reported he took on some consulting work while on the bench.

 • On 12 occasions in our nation’s history (most of them in the 19th century), Presidents, exercising their power under the Constitution to make “recess appointments” (when the Senate was not in session), have made temporary appointments to the Supreme Court without submitting nominations to the Senate. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last U.S. president to make a recess appointment. Of the five persons whom he nominated to the Court, three first received recess appointments and served as Justices before being confirmed—Earl Warren (as Chief Justice) in 1953, William Brennan in 1956, and Potter Stewart in 1958

NOTE: The U.S. Senate in 1960 passed a resolution prohibiting the president from making recess appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 • Since 1900, three sitting Senators—Hugo L. Black of Alabama (1937), James F. Byrnes of South Carolina (1941), and Harold H. Burton of Ohio (1945)—have been nominated to the Court, and all were quickly confirmed.

  • Senators George Sutherland of Utah (1922) and Sherman Minton of Indiana (1949) were nominated to the Court after having concluded their Senate service.

  • The court began recording oral arguments in 1955.

 • ``Project Hermes’’ was introduced in 1990 that made Supreme Court opinions immediately available through a variety of computer programs, namely, Lexis, Westlaw, CompuServe, and the Government Printing Office.

  • Yale Law Professor Robert Bork was on President Gerald R. Ford’s short list of U.S. Supreme Court nominees before nominating John Paul Stevens.

 •  When President Clinton had to fill a vacancy after the retirement of Justice Byron R. White on March 31, 1993 after 31 years on the high bench; Clinton’s first choice was Mario Cuomo, the governor of New York, who turned him down. Clinton settled on Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 • Solicitor General Kagan has never served as a judge at the federal or state level.

 • Through history, 71 (64.0%) Justices came to the Supreme Court with prior judicial experience in a lower federal or state court.

 • Solicitor General Kagan would also be the first Justice appointed without judicial experience since the 1971 appointment of William Rehnquist and the first to have served as the Solicitor General since the elevation of Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1967.

   • Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s July 2005 retirement announcement marked the first pending Court vacancy since 1994.

  • The first 50 years of the Court, all Justices were affiliated with Protestant Christian churches. In 2010. for the first time in the Court’s history, not one Justice would claim an affiliation with a Protestant Christian Denomination.

   • The first Catholic Justice, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, was appointed in 1836; the first Jewish Justice, Louis Brandeis, was appointed in 1916.

• When Samuel Alito, a Roman Catholic, joined the Court in 2006 to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, an Episcopalian, a majority of the Court’s membership was Roman Catholic for the first time in the nation’s history. This Roman Catholic majority grew from five to six justices with the confirmation of Justice Sotomayor.

 • Kagan’s appointment will mark the first time that three Jewish Justices have shared the bench. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, who serve on the Court, are also Jewish.

 • In the past 20 years, especially, three Ivy League law schools—Harvard, Yale, and Columbia—have been disproportionately represented on the Court. Of the nine sitting Justices, eight have attended one of these three law schools, including recently confirmed Justice Sotomayor, who is a graduate of Yale Law School.
 
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
 
Source: Congressional Research Service; ``Justices, Presidents and Senators: A History of U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Clinton’’ By Henry J. Abraham; ``Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics’’ By David M. O’Brien.
 
***
Glossary of Select U.S. Supreme Court Terms

 Amicus curiae: ``A friend of the court’’; a person not party to litigation, who volunteers or is invited by the court to give his views on a case.

De jure: As a result of the law; as a result of official action.

Exclusionary Rule: An evidentiary rule requiring that evidence obtained in violation of an individual’s constitution rights under the Fourth Amendment must be excluded at  trail.

Ex parte: From, or on, only one side. Application to a court for some ruling or action on behalf of only one party.

Stare decisis-Let the prior decision stand.

Writ of Certification: A method of taking a case from the appellate court to the U.S. Supreme Court in which the lower court ask that some question or interpretation of law be certified, clarified, , and made more certain.

Writ of Mandamus: ``We command’’ an order issued from a superior court directing a lower court or other government authority to perform a particular act.

Per curiam: ``By the court; an unsigned opinion of the court.

Subpoena duces tecum: An order to produce specified documents or papers.
Writ: An order commanding someone to perform or not perform acts specified in court.
 
Source: ``Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics By David M. O’Brien
 
 ***
Web sites to keep in mind:
 
U.S. Supreme Court Opinions (from Find Law )

U.S. Supreme Court Cases: 1792-(The Oyez Project)

Biographical snapshots of Justices by Court, dating back to 1795. (The Oyez Project)

Solicitor General of the United States

Federal Judicial Center Database
 
Members of the U.S. Supreme Court
 
C-Span Video Archive of Elena Kagan
 
The Scotus Blog (Supreme Court of the United States Blog)

Key Dates of U.S. Presence in Iraq

 

 Making good on his campaign pledge to wind down the war in Iraq, President Obama during a speech to Disabled American Veterans on Monday in Atlanta, announced U.S. troops would be sliced to 50,000 from 144,000 by the end of the month with the remaining troops responsible for the training and supporting of Iraqi security forces.

According to Mr. Obama's timetable, all U.S. forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

What follows are key dates of the U.S. presence in Iraq

Key Dates of U.S. Presence in Iraq

• October 16, 2002: President Bush signs the authorization for use of military force against Iraq.

• June, 2004:  U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 1546, reaffirming the authorization for the multinational force in Resolution 1511, while noting that its presence in Iraq “is at the request of the incoming Interim Government of Iraq.”

• May 1, 2007: President George W. Bush vetoed the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, H.R. 1591, partially due certain measure that would have limited the U.S. military role in Iraq.

• November 26, 2007:  U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamel Al-Maliki signed a ``Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship’’ between the Republic of Iraq and the United States of America.

• November 17, 2008: U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari sign a withdrawal agreement, which among other provisions, calls for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces no later than December 31, 2011.

• January 1, 2009: The U.S. signs a security agreement with Iraq that requires all U.S. combat troops to move outside of cities by the end of June 2009, while all U.S. troops leave Iraq by December 31, 2011.

• February 27, 2009: President Obama delivers a speech to U.S. Marines at Camp Lejeune, stating the U.S. strategy in Iraq was complete and calls for U.S. troops to be reduced to 50,000 troops by August 31, 2010; and a complete withdrawal by December 31, 2011.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Source: Congressional Research Service

WikiLeaks We Need to Know

 

Imagine our frustration after 92,000 military field reports and other documents were made public by WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, that we really haven’t learned anything earth shattering about the war in Afghanistan.

Americans are in the same position before all this commotion: We’re still stuck in the fog of war.

I still haven’t decided whether I support or reject the disclosure of so many classified documents. Were these revelations a boon to democracy; or have they put so many brave men and women in the U.S. armed forces in harm’s way, while undercutting  America’s foreign policy mission at a  critical juncture in hunting down Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network?

While I’m trying to decide which side to throw my support behind;  I would like to vent my unhappiness that WikiLeaks didn’t disclose more useful information that could have enlightened Americans on a whole range of subjects.

What follows are some questions that I would have liked to have seen answered by WikiLeaks, but remain mysteries.

• I’m one who firmly believes that all the trouble Tiger Woods got himself into off the golf course is no one’s business but his own.  Still, I’m ashamed to admit I would love to know the circumstances which prompted Elin Nordegren Wood, Tiger’s soon to be ex-wife, to take batting practice on his Cadillac Escalade at 2:30 a.m. on November 27th, 2009, using a nine-iron.

• I’m still holding out hope that the Australian internet activist, will shed some light on which is the best personal motto to follow: ``Good things happen to those who wait’’ OR ’’ ; ``He who hesitates is lost.’’ ?
Time is of the essence.

• I was hoping WikiLeaks would reveal the secret ingredients which go into making Dunkin Donuts coffee.  I pay $5.67 a day (39.69 a week,  $170 a month) for three large black coffees’.
 I once bought a pound bag of Dunkin Donuts coffee, hoping to save some money by brewing it at home. But it was only after my purchase and discovered it didn’t come close to tasting like the original that a sweet Pakistani woman in South Florida told me behind the counter that I would need a special pot with the right temperatures before it would taste like the original.  I nodded as if I accepted her answer; but I knew deep down there was actually some conspiracy afoot that was withholding the secret ingredients.

• Before Larry King passes the baton to the new CNN host, many I’m sure, would love to know how many suspenders Larry King has in his closest? How many different colors of suspenders does he own? Does Larry own more suspenders than he has ex-wives? When was the first show he wore red suspenders? Also, WikiLeaks could have revealed whether or not Larry worked in a grandfather clause, which requires his successor to also wear suspenders? So many questions, so little time.

• With Google so adept at tracking which websites we’re visiting ; even keeping an archive of  our web search history,  privacy advocates are growing more alarmed having ``Big Brother’’ supervising our every keyboard stroke. Will WikiLeaks ever alert us when Google develops new software that will allow them to look to within our souls to monitor what search terms we’re thinking about?

• WikiLeaks could have performed a great public service if they made known the whereabouts of the N.Y. Mets pitching staff.  The assumed pitching staff in Queens  coughed up 14 runs to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday; they’ve dropped six out of their last 10 games, and now find themselves 6 ½ games out of first place with hopes of earning a wild card bid fading faster than my bank account.

• When Mr. Assange said he was publishing WikiLeaks because he was a strong believer in ``transparency’’; I assumed, naively it turns out, that we would finally find out the next cast on ``Dancing with the Stars’’ along with who will replace Simon Cowell as lead judge on ``American Idol.”

• I was hoping WikiLeaks would have disclosed which was the bigger crime: Former CBS producer Robert "Joe" Halderman shaking down David Letterman for $2 million or Conan O’Brien squeezing $40 million out of NBC before he would go away.

• Forget the war in Afghanistan for a moment and just consider how many would have benefited if WikiLeaks disclosed information that would have allowed us to tell the difference between a cold and an allergy. How can we know for sure, for example, if sneezing, runny nose, congestion, and fatigue is just a common cold or a respiratory allergy? What about watery eyes? Cold or allergy? How about a dry hacking cough? Cold or allergy?  
Are we being lied to about what effects mold, pollen and swelling sinuses have on our immune systems?

• Finally, I can’t hide my disappointment that WikiLeaks weren’t able to produce some critical documentation that would have linked America’s addiction to foreign oil with America’s obsession with McDonald’s French Fries.  Imagine what a greener slimmer country America would be if we could kick our French Fries habit and break our oil addiction in one fell swoop?

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Rangel Floats in a Sea of Ethics Charges

 

 On Thursday, a House Ethics committee will disclose charges against Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York over a variety of violations believed to be involving failure to pay taxes on a Caribbean villa, misusing his rent- controlled apartments, and improperly using his congressional seat to solicit a $1 million pledge to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College. The subcommittee will also set a date for the trail.

While the popular Harlem Democrat and 40-year veteran of the House of Representatives claims he’s done nothing wrong, if the subcommittee proves the allegations against him, it would likely result in a formal reprimand or censure, making Rangel one of a long list of other members who have been censured by the House.

Here, then, is a brief look back at other members who have been disciplined in the House of Representatives.

Background Notes on Ethics Violations in the House of Representatives.

• An ``expulsion’’ action by the House of Representatives requires a two-thirds vote; while a ``censure’’ or ``reprimand’’ is a legislative procedure in which the full House (by a majority vote) express a formal disapproval of the conduct of one of its members.

• The House of Representatives has expelled five members in its history, three of them coming during the Civil War for disloyalty to the Union.

• ``Expulsion’’ from the House of Representatives beyond removal from Congress carries no further penalties or disabilities.

• The term ``censure’’ although it doesn’t appear in the Constitution (unlike ``expel’’) bases its authority on Article I, Section 5, clause 2, concerning the authority of each House of Congress to “punish its Members for disorderly Behavior.”

• Eight House members have been “reprimanded” by the full House for a variety of misconduct violations.

• There have been 22 “censures” of House members (21 members and 1 Delegate), including two censures of former members who, in 1870, had resigned before the House adopted expulsion motions for selling military academy appointments.

• There have been six ``censures’’ in the House for ``unparliamentarily behavior’’; one for insulting the Speaker of the House; and one for assaulting another member.

• Prior to the 1970’s,  the terms “reprimand” and “censure” were often considered synonymous and used together in a resolution. Beginning in 1976, however, the term “reprimand” was used explicitly to indicate a less severe rebuke when it reprimanded a member for failing to disclose certain personal interests in official matters and for the apparent use of his office to further his own personal financial interests.

• Upon making a report recommending to the House a “censure” or a “reprimand,” the House
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct may also include in that report a recommendation for an additional action such as a fine, a restitution or payment of funds, or recommendations for the loss of seniority or privileges, when such actions are deemed appropriate

Members Expelled from Congress

July 13, 1861: Rep. John B. Clark of Missouri was expelled in a 95-45 vote for taking up arms against the United States.

December 2, 1861: John W. Reid of Missouri was expelled (no vote was recorded) for taking up arms against the United States.

December 3, 1861: Henry C. Burnett of Kentucky was expelled for engaging in ``an open rebellion against the government of the United States.’’ No vote was recorded.

October 2, 1980: Michael J. Myers , Democrat of Pennsylvania ( in 376-30 vote) was expelled after being convicted of bribery, conspiracy, and Travel Act violations for receiving a payment in return for using his ``influence’’ on immigration bills in the FBI’s ABSCAM investigation.

July 24, 2002: James A. Traficant, Democrat of Ohio  (in a 420-1 vote) was expelled after being convicted (on April 11, 2002) of conspiracy to violate federal bribery and gratuity statutes, receipt of illegal gratuity, obstruction of justice, defrauding the government, racketeering, and tax evasion

Members Reprimanded

July 29, 1976: Robert L. F. Sikes, Democrat of Florida (in a 381-3 vote), was reprimanded for among other allegations, failing to report his ownership of bank stock as required by all members of the House; as well as using his influence to advance legislation that would have removed restrictions on the development of a stretch of land Sikes and his business associates financially benefited from.

October 13, 1978: Rep. Charles H. Wilson, Democrat of California, reprimanded (in a 329-41 vote) for making false statements on an answer to the Standards Committee when he denied he received anything of`` value’’ from Tongsun Park, a South Korean rice dealer accused of attempting to bribe members of Congress in a Korean Influence Investigation. Wilson later amended his answer by admitting he received a $1,000 wedding gift from Mr. Park.

Also reprimanded were John J. McFall, Democrat of California for failing to report campaign contributions from a Korean lobbyist; along with Edward J. Roybal, also a California Democrat, for failing to report campaign contributions and making a false sworn statement before the Standards of Official Conduct Committee investigating the Korean influence matter.

July 31, 1984: George V. Hansen, an Idaho Republican (in a 354-52 vote), was reprimanded after being convicted of four counts of making false statements  and neglecting to report nearly $334,000 in loans and profits from 1978 through 1981.

December 18, 1987: Austin J. Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat, (in a 324-68 vote) was reprimanded  for having an undisclosed person cast a vote for him on July 14th and August 9th of 1978 while he was out of Washington ; and for maintaining an employee on his staff who was not performing duties commensurate with pay.

July 26, 1990: Democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts was reprimanded (in a 408-18 vote) for using his political influence to fix 33 parking tickets for a friend; and making improper contacts with a probation office on behalf of a personal friend who was on probation for sex and drug convictions.

January 21, 1997: House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, was reprimanded in a 395-28 vote and fined $300,000 for allowing a member-affiliated tax exempt organization to be used for political purposes; and providing inaccurate and unreliable information to the ethics committee.

September 15, 2009: Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, is reprimanded in a 240 to 179 vote for yelling out ``You lie!'' during President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9th, 2009.

Select cases of censure in the House of Representatives

March 22, 1842: Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, an abolitionist, resigned his seat after the House of Representatives censured him (125-69 vote) for supporting the freedom of slaves who rebelled on the slave ship Creole.

July 15, 1856: Laurence M. Keitt, a South Carolina Democrat, was censured for not acting to prevent a fellow South Carolinian, Rep. Preston S. Brooks, from striking Sen. Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts Republican with a cane while he was sitting in the Senate chamber.

February 24, 1870: Rep. Benjamin F. Whittemore of South Carolina was censured (``condemned’’) in a 187-0 vote for selling appointments to military academies, a violation which forced his resignation before expulsion.

March 1, 1870: John T. DeWeese of South Carolina was censured in a 170-0 vote for accepting money for recommending appointments to a military academy. DeWeese resigned before expulsion; as was Roderick R. Butler of Tennessee on March 16, 1870 in 150-0 censure vote.

February 27, 1873: Oakes Ames of Massachusetts and James Brooks of New York were censured for selling $33 million in Credit Mobilier stock to Members of Congress and officials of the executive branch at an undervalued price with the intention of influencing votes. The Judiciary Committee voted against expulsion on the grounds their violations took place three years before being elected to the 42nd Congress.

July 31, 1979 Charles C. Diggs, Democrat of Michigan, was censured in a 414-0 vote after being convicted on October 7, 1978 on 11 counts of mail fraud and 18 counts of making false statements. Diggs apologized and agreed to make restitution of $40,031.66

June 10, 1980: After having already been defeated in the June 3rd primary, Charles H. Wilson, Democrat of California, was censured in a voice vote for violating House rules by converting $25,000 in campaign funds for his own use and for accepting $10,500 from an individual who had direct interest in legislation.

July 21, 1983: Daniel B. Crane, Republican of Illinois, and Gerry E. Studds, Democrat of Massachusetts were both censured for having sexual relations with a minor: Mr. Crane for having sexual relations with a 17 year-old female House page in 1980; and Studds for having sexual relations with a male House page in 1973.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Source: Congressional Research Service; U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Standards of Official Conduct; The New York Times Historical Archives

The Ups and Downs of the U.S. Housing Market: A Timeline

 On Thursday,RealtyTrac, a private marketer of foreclosure properties, reported that banks could repossess more than one million households this year due to foreclosures, while the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reports about 612,000 loans entered foreclosure in the first quarter of 2010.  ``Based on recent trends’’ a FDIC spokesperson said,`` it looks like a safe bet that the annual total will once again be between two and three million this year.’’

And keep in mind that if wasn’t for the 600,000 and 700,000 who applied for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in the first four months of the year, the foreclosure rate could easily have been much higher without the modifications.

So as a way to examine the U.S. housing market over the last decade, I compiled a brief timeline of key moments and contributing factors that led to its precipitous fall.

• Industry analysts contend the growth of the subprime lending debacle was precipitated by two pieces of legislation, which liberalized home buying loans: Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (DIDMCA) of 1980 (abolishing interest rate ceilings);  and the Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act (AMTP) of 1982, which  allowed for the total costs of loans to become obscured, and led to the availability of various new mortgages, such as adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), interest only mortgages, and balloon payment mortgages

• Technically, mortgage “default” occurs when a borrower has missed three payments and a fourth is due. The default leads lenders to initiate the foreclosure process.

• Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancies and Homeownership Survey (CPS/HVS) reported that the national homeownership rate rose from 65 percent at the end of 1995 to a record 69 percent at the end of 2005.

• During the 1990’s, home prices rose at an average annual rate of slightly less than three percent. From 2000 through 2006, by comparison, home prices jumped nationally by an average of nearly nine percent.

• In 1998, the Chicago-based National Training and Information Center (NTIC) noted a sharp increase in foreclosures, linking the alarming rise to the increase of subprime lending in minority neighborhoods in Chicago.

• The share of subprime loans nearly tripled from 7.2 percent in 2001 to 20.1 percent in 2006.

• Subprime mortgage originations increased from $160 billion in 2001 to $625 billion in 2005.

• The share of subprime mortgages that were seriously delinquent increased from about 5.6 percent in mid-2005 to over 23 percent in September 2008.

• Between 2000 and 2003, home prices increased by 41 percent.

• In 2000, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a report, documenting “the rapid growth of subprime lending during the 1990s” and called for increased scrutiny of subprime lending due to “growing evidence of widespread predatory practices in the subprime market.”

• The housing boom first begins to slow in the middle of 2005, when mortgage rates rise and house price appreciation first began to slow. Nonprime lending leveled off in 2006, dropped dramatically in the first half of 2007, and became practically nonexistent through most of 2008.

• Existing home sales fell nationwide by 29 percent from the 4th quarter of 2005 to the 4th quarter of 2007.

• As measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, home prices rose at an average annual rate of 11 percent from 2000 through 2005, stagnated, and then fell at an average annual rate of 10 percent from mid-2006 to mid-2008

• In 2006, Miami posted an average home price increase of 17.1 percent; Los Angeles 16.1 percent; and Las Vegas 14.0 percent.

• December 19, 2006, The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), estimated (based on forecasts by Moody’s Economy.com) that more than one million recent subprime loans would end in foreclosure, carrying with it the potential of producing the worst foreclosure crisis in the modern mortgage era.

• According to the State of the Nation’s Housing Report from 2006, researchers from the Joint Center for Housing Studies observe the combination of rapidly rising home prices and interest rates had eroded the affordability of homeownership.

• In 2007, the number of prime loans entering foreclosure nearly doubled to about 500,000; by 2008, it had exceeded 850,000.

• On February 24, 2007, The Daily Telegraph was one of the first newspapers to report on the housing crisis,  carrying the headline, ``US Mortgage Crisis Goes into Meltdown  ; followed by The New York Times on March 5, 2007: “Mortgage Crisis Spirals, and Casualties Mount  ; and USA Today on March 13, 2007: ``Record Foreclosures Hit Mortgage Lenders,”

• With the start of the national foreclosure crisis in 2007, the number of states with foreclosure start rates above 0.50 percent increased dramatically, reaching 35 in 2007 and 46 in 2008.

• 48 states report an increase in the foreclosure start rate between 2006 and 2007, according to the MBA’s National Delinquency Survey, but interestingly enough, over this same time period, only 16 states had an increase in the unemployment rate, and in 10 of these states, the increase was 0.2 percentage points or less.

• Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana were the first states to report significant increases in delinquency rates, rising to 14 percent at the beginning of 2007, well above the 8.5 percent delinquency rate nationally.

• June 8, 2007: Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank at San Francisco define ``subprime’’ as a lender-given designation for borrowers with low credit scores with low credit history, or with other types of observable credit impairment.

• July, 2008: The Housing and Economic Recovery Act authorized the Federal Housing Authority to guarantee up o $300 billion in new 30 year-fixed-rate mortgages for subprime borrowers.

• The Mortgage Bankers Association estimated that roughly 1.7 million foreclosures were started in the first three quarters of 2008, an increase of 62 percent from the 1.1 million in the first three quarters of 2007.

• As of mid-2008, over half of borrowers in California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada, over a third of borrowers in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, and over 10 percent of borrowers in the rest of the United States had negative equity.

• Approximately 26 percent of 2006 subprime mortgage originations and 18 percent of 2007 subprime mortgage originations in California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada were in default by the middle of 2008.

• RealtyTrac reported that more than 573,000 properties nationwide were in some stage of foreclosure in the first half of 2007.

• Between February through March, 2007, more than 25 subprime lenders declare bankruptcy.

• July 31, 2007: Two Bear Stearns hedge funds file for bankruptcy

• 46 states saw home prices fall in the 4th quarter of the 2007.

• Homeownership rates fell 67.9 percent in the third quarter of 2008.

• From August, 2007 through August, 2008, home prices in Miami declined by 28.1 percent, Los Angeles by 26.7 percent; and Las Vegas by as much as 30 percent.

• September 7, 2008-U.S. seizes Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, two of the largest mortgage finance lenders

• Subprime mortgages accounted for less than five percent of total originations in 1994; in 2000, their share increased to 13 percent; and topped 20 percent in both 2005 and 2006. Their shared dropped to 7.9 percent in 2007 and shrank to less than one percent in the third quarter of 2008.

• In 2008, median home prices fell 9.8 percent from the previous year.

• November 12, 2008: The U.S Dept of Housing and Urban Development began to require mortgage lenders and brokers to provide borrowers with easy to read standard of good faith estimates (GFE) that will clearly answer key questions they have when applying for a mortgage. The new standardized GFE takes effect January 1, 2010.

• July 15, 2010: RealtyTrac, releases its 2010 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows a total of 1,961,894 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 1,654,634 U.S. properties in the first six months of 2010, a five percent decrease in total properties from the previous six months but an eight percent increase in total properties from the first six months of 2009.  The report also shows that 1.28 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 78) received at least one foreclosure filing in the first half of the year.

• Nearly six  percent of all Nevada housing units (one in 17) received at least one foreclosure filing in the first half of 2010, giving Nevada the nation’s highest foreclosure rate during the six-month period despite decreasing foreclosure activity.

• Arizona registered the nation’s second highest state foreclosure rate in the first half of 2010, with 3.36 percent of its housing units (one in 30) receiving a foreclosure filing, while Florida registered the nation’s third highest state foreclosure rate, with 3.15 percent of its housing units (one in 32) receiving a foreclosure filing during the six months.

• July 15, 2010: Congress passes the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Changes relating to mortgage reform, include:
1.) Prohibits the financial incentives for subprime loans that encourage lenders to steer borrowers into more costly loans, including the bonuses known as "yield spread premiums" that lenders pay to brokers to inflate the cost of loans. Prohibits pre-payment penalties that trapped so many borrowers into unaffordable loans 
2.) Establishes penalties for irresponsible lending.
3.) Establishes an Office of Housing Counseling within HUD to boost homeownership and rental housing counseling. 
4.) Lenders must disclose the maximum a consumer could pay on a variable rate mortgage, with a warning that payments will vary based on interest rate changes 
5.) Establishes an Office of Housing Counseling within HUD to boost homeownership and rental housing counseling

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Source: ``Report to Congress on the Root Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis’’ from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research, January 2010; “The Rise in Mortgage Defaults,” from the Journal of Economic Perspectives 23 (1): 27–50; ``The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Mortgage and Credit Markets'' By James R. Barth (Milken Institute); RealtyTrac; U.S Senate Banking Committee Report