OTHER NEWS

42 STATES EXPECT SURPLUS

KAVAN PETERSON AND MARK K. MATTHEWS, STATELINE - Forty-two states
project to end this fiscal year with a surplus totaling $28.9 billion,
making it easier to balance budgets and reinvest in programs cut during
the fiscal downturn in the first half of this decade, according to a
report available April 10 from the National Conference of State
Legislatures. After weathering years of budget shortfalls between fiscal
years 2001 and 2005 when states fell more than $265 billion in the red,
state revenues soared beyond expectations in 38 states this fiscal year,
which ends June 30 for all but four states. Only Indiana, New Mexico and
Wisconsin have had to reduce their revenue projections midway through
the fiscal year, NCSL reported.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=
1&contentId=103277


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STATES CREATE OWN FOREIGN POLICIES

MARK K. MATTHEWS, STATELINE - Maine may not have a seat at the United
Nations, but its state lawmakers are dealing with Caracas, Havana and
Khartoum as if those foreign capitals were nearby Boston. In the past
few months, Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D) has engineered a controversial
oil deal with Venezuela, met with maligned Cuban dictator Fidel Castro
and supported an effort to divest state funds from Sudan to protest
human rights violations there. . . The diplomacy isn't limited to Maine.
States increasingly are becoming more assertive on the international
stage.

More than 30 states now export goods to Cuba despite tight U.S. trade
restrictions. Organizations in eight states brokered deals to import
heating oil for the poor this winter from Venezuela, despite strained
relations between the White House and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Three states -- Illinois, New Jersey and Oregon -- passed laws to divest
state funds from companies with interests in war-scarred Sudan. In the
Southwest, states are engaging in bilateral talks with Mexico to stop
crime along the border.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=
1&contentId=103597

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FILM TAKES ON GIULIANI MYTH

DAVID SALTONSTALL, NY DAILY NEWS - Rudy Giuliani better hope that a new
documentary on his mayoralty, "Giuliani Time," never makes it to
cineplexes in Iowa, New Hampshire and other presidential battlegrounds.
The two-hour film, which debuts May 12, casts Giuliani not as the hero
of 9/11 - the role that won him acclaim as America's Mayor - but rather
as the iron-fisted ruler of a city where children went hungry, the poor
were forgotten and many city cops were racists.

In short, "Giuliani Time" seeks to do for Giuliani what Michael Moore's
"Fahrenheit 9/11" did for President Bush - namely, shine an unsparing
light on the darker corners of his life and career, just as he starts to
run for President. . .

Perhaps the most startling comments come from former schools Chancellor
Rudy Crew, a one-time pal of Giuliani's who emerges as one of his
toughest critics. "There's something very deeply pathological about
Rudy's humanity," says Crew, now the Miami-Dade schools superintendent.
"He was barren, completely emotionally barren, on the issue of race."

Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton adds his two cents, saying that
"the great failing" of Giuliani was his inability "to put himself in
[the] shoes" of the city's vast immigrant population.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/408248p-345436c.html

GIULIANI AT LARGE
http://prorev.com/rudy.htm

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GREAT SENATE SPEECHES

SENATOR HARRY REID, SENATE SPEECH - Mr. President, no matter how many
times I call this lectern a car, it does not matter, this is not a car.
This is a lectern, used here in the Senate for us to put our papers on
and deliver a speech. This is not a car. If I come to the Senate floor
and, day after day, hour after hour, call this a car, it is not a car.
It is a lectern. If I come to this Senate floor day after day and say
what the Democrats have done is unusual, unwarranted, unbelievable, it
is wrong, it is as wrong as this lectern being called a car. . .

The leader and I have gone back and forth so many times today that we
are beating paths to our offices. There is no need that we -- I
apologize to the chair and to Senator Byrd. I hope he's not watching. My
Blackberry. It went off a couple times, and I lost my concentration. I
hope this legislation will move forward tomorrow. I know people feel
that this lectern is a chair, but it is not. This is the Senate.

[Reports Al Kamen, "Then he sat down and drove off"]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/
AR2006040900731.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

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RECOVERED HISTORY
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9/11: A BRIGHT DAY IN THE CITY AS A STEWARDESS DESCRIBES THE LAST
MINUTES OF FLIGHT 11

JAMES RIDGEWAY AND ALICE NG have produced a stunning short video
combining shots of a pleasant New York City day with the tape of
stewardess Betty Ong as she described the last moments of American
Airlines Flight 11.

http://www.ridgewayng.com/video/InMemorandum.mov

JAMES RIDGWAY, BUZZ FLASH, NOVEMBER 2005 - At one of its public
hearings, the [9/11] Commission and its audience listened to the
emotional tape-recorded words of Betty Ong, one of two flight attendants
on American Airlines Flight 11 who had calmly provided blow-by-blow
accounts of the first hijacking as it happened. As their phone calls
were relayed to American Airlines headquarters, they were met first with
disbelief, and then with warnings from AA managers to "keep this quiet"
and "keep this among ourselves." American did not immediately alert the
FAA, local flight control centers, the military, the FBI, or even its
own pilots. This was before the other planes were seized, and before one
of them had even left the ground. It was long before workers in the
World Trade Tower Two were told not to evacuate because they were in no
danger from the "accidental" plane crash at the other tower.

How many hundreds or thousands of lives might have been saved if the
airline had quickly passed on the information provided by these
courageous flight attendants? And why, for that matter, had the airlines
not taken action to prevent or respond to such hijackings, even after
receiving countless warnings in the spring and summer of 2001? The 9/11
Commission staff made copious inquiries into what happened at American
Airlines. These inquiries are mentioned in passing in the report's
footnotes. The full contents of these staff inquiries were classified
and will not be made public for years.

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/11/con05439.html

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CIVIL LIBERTIES
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LOCAL HEROES: COUNCILMAN REFUSES OATH OVER IRAQ WAR

KEVIN DEUTSCH, PALM BEACH POST - Basil E. Dalack so strongly believes
the war in Iraq is illegal, he's willing to give up his office over it.
Dalack, an appellate lawyer who recently won a seat on the Tequesta
Village Council, is refusing to take the oath of office because it
requires him to "support, protect and defend" the federal and state
governments. To him, that's the equivalent of "blind support" of the war
and of Bush administration policies. If Dalack took the oath, he says,
he'd have "the blood of all those Iraqi and American kids on my hands."

Dalack, 76, filed a lawsuit in federal court Friday alleging that the
oath violates the Constitution by placing a "prior restraint" on his
right to free speech and denying him, without due process, occupancy of
his elective office.

He is due to be sworn in Thursday at a village council meeting, but he's
told Village Manager Michael Couzzo Jr. that he will not repeat the
current version of the oath. Dalack served on the council from 1999
until his defeat in 2003. . . Until the situation is resolved, the
village council will govern with four members instead of five.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/
2006/04/11/s1b_oath_0411.html


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POST CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA .
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ARCHIVES INVOLVED IN PLOT TO MAKE DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SECRET

CHRISTOPHER LEE, WASHINGTON POST - The National Archives helped keep
secret a multi-year effort by the Air Force, the CIA and other federal
agencies to withdraw thousands of historical documents from public
access on Archives shelves, even though the records had been
declassified . . In February, the Archives acknowledged that about 9,500
records totaling more than 55,000 pages had been withdrawn and
reclassified since 1999. The memo released yesterday says some records
"may have been improperly marked as declassified" and their release
"would harm the national security interests of the United States by
revealing sensitive sources and methods of intelligence collection."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/
AR2006041101475.html?nav=rss_nation


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