Last Week's Under-Reported Stories

While most of the mainstream U.S. media devoted substantial time to the JonBenet Ramsey non-story, the following stories that effect your life and mine went virtually unreported.. plk


From the Progress Report
a publication of The American Progress Action Fund


Since the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Education has "shared personal information on hundreds of student loan applicants" with the FBI for counterterrorism purposes, in an operation known as "Project Strikeback."

60: Percentage of Americans who think there will be more terrorism in the U.S. because of the Iraq war.

In terms of health benefits, doctors believe "breast milk is something of a magic elixir" for infants. Yet a class system is developing for working mothers: "for lower-income mothers -- including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military -- pumping at work is close to impossible."

"A crowd of thousands cheered Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson" at a protest of President Bush's appearance in town yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Anderson called Bush a "dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights violating president."

"As many as one in five members of the armed services are being preyed on by loan centers set up near military bases that can charge cash-strapped military families interest of 400% or more, a new Pentagon report has found."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) "will probably be fined" and face other penalties for falsely telling the Tennessee Department of Health he had fulfilled all the requirements that doctors with active licenses must maintain in the state.

"The United States has expanded its force in Iraq to 140,000 troops, the most since January and 13,000 more than five weeks ago, the Pentagon said on Thursday, amid relentless violence in Baghdad and elsewhere."

"Federal agents raided the offices of at least six Alaska lawmakers Thursday," including the office of State Sen. Ben Stevens, son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). The search was "for any ties between the legislators and a large oil field services company...whose executives are major contributors to political campaigns."

In a move to satisfy his "most conservative supporters," President Bush on Wednesday nominated five "extremely divisive" people as appeals court judges, "including one whom Democrats have threatened to block with a filibuster."

Violent crime is up for the first six months of 2006, according to statistics shared by 170 local officials. "At the summit, city officials shared stories about their challenges in fighting growing crime, particularly among juveniles, amid cuts in community programs for youths as well as an uneven economic recovery."

28 percent: The drop in the number of white-collar crime prosecutions from five years ago, according to a new analysis of federal data, apparently due to a shift to homeland security cases.

"The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of almost 10 percent from 1998 to 2004, with brands most popular with young people and minorities registering the biggest increases and highest nicotine content."

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from HATEWATCH
An e-newsletter monitoring hate in the news
For the week of Aug 30, 2006
published by the Southern Poverty Law
Center's Intelligence Project.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/ey2G0I8GrT0FgK0CEVX0ET



Phelps clan pickets Oregon funeral
Salem-News
Published on August 27, 2006

Hood River may not always be the quietest place in Oregon. It is a popular recreational area with plenty of boats on the water, and it is the place where Navy SEAL Marc Lee grew up. It's also the place where Marc's Memorial was held Saturday, following his recent death in Iraq...

A hate group from Kansas that disrupts military funerals drug American flags on the ground, carried anti-American and anti-gay signs, and did their best to harass people. None of the veteran's whose funerals they picket were selected because they were gay...

Scowling and yelling insults at the veterans, the Westboro Baptist Church members from Kansas showed their colors and many people said the outward hatred they profess seems contrary to anything like Christianity.
Confrontational right down to the last word, Margie Phelps hurled more insults than a bully on an elementary school playground. Any chance of making a sound point was lost as the irrational blabber droned on. [...]

» The Salem-News reports



Racist candidate calls himself 'European Activist'
The Associated Press
Published on August 25, 2006
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_4235468

A civil rights group is calling a candidate for the North Idaho College Board of Trustees a racist, citing his association with a white-supremacist group.
''Someone like him should never be on a government entity,'' Heidi Beirich, a spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center that tracks hate groups, told the Spokesman-Review from the group's headquarters in Montgomery, Ala.
The candidate at issue, Stan Hess, said he's not a racist.

''I am the white Jesse Jackson,'' Hess said. ''I'm a European activist. I've also been married to a Jewish woman.'' [...]

''I am a hate-crime survivor,'' he said. ''I was shot in the face by an African-American. I have bridge work and lost two teeth. I was called a 'white boy.' " [...]

» The Associated Press reports


Klansman trooper reinstated
The Associated Press
Published on August 27, 2006

Robert Henderson was not fired as a state trooper because he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan and another white supremacist group, authorities said. Instead, he was ousted because he could not uphold public trust while participating in such groups, they said.

An arbitrator disagreed, ordering the State Patrol to reinstate Henderson within 60 days and pay him back wages. The state went to court Friday to keep him off the force...

He said Henderson was entitled to his First Amendment rights of free speech and that the state violated the troopers' contract, in part when it fired Henderson "because of his association with the Knights Party ... and the Ku Klux Klan."
According to a copy of Caffera's ruling, Henderson was interviewed by a patrol captain in February. He confirmed he had been a member of the Knights Party since June 2004 and made postings on its members-only website while off-duty.
Henderson also said he had joined the KKK, according to the arbitrator's report. He did so, he said, for two reasons: His wife had "divorced him for a minority" and the KKK gave him an avenue to vent his frustration...

» The Associated Press reports

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From Grist Magazine

Rotten to the Corps
http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2006/08/29/grunwald/index.html?source=daily

In the year since Hurricane Katrina triggered the devastation of New Orleans, plenty of fingers have pointed toward the "villains" of the story: FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, inept local and national leaders, poverty, climate change. But Washington Post reporter Michael Grunwald says the real scoundrels can be found in the Army Corps of Engineers, which designed and built the levee system that failed so disastrously. The Corps has a long history of spending enormous sums on politicians' pet projects, many of them ineffective and many of them environmentally calamitous -- and it doesn't seem to have learned any lessons from last year's failures.