Bush Loses in Secrecy Scorecard

In its latest secrecy scorecard of the Bush Administration, the coalition Openthegovernment.org issues damning statistics, including: The government made 143,074 National Security Letter requests in the period 2003-2005. The number for 2006 remains classified; only one-third of military contract dollars were subject to full and open competition in 2006.

Read the report here

Is the Ground Shifting in the GOP's Religious Base?

From Time magazine to the Toronto Star, commentators are wondering whether more evangelicals are turning away from the Christian Right, and whether the Christian Right base within the Republican Party, disgruntled that its goals haven't been met, won't turn out as strongly in the future.

The Charleston Gazette reports

Panther Denied New Trial Despite Police Perjury

Douglas County District Judge Russell Bowie denied Black Panther leader Ed Poindexter a new trial for the 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha police officer. This despite evidence of false testimony by police.

Opednews.com reports

Pro-Choice Campus Group Wins Suit

Rhode Island College and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island have settled a lawsuit brought by a women’s group over the college's censorship of signs supporting abortion rights, the ACLU announced Tuesday. The campus Women's Studies Organization, a student group, sued the college after a December 2005 incident in which its president ordered campus police officers to take down signs that the group had posted near the college's entrance that said "Our bodies, our choice" and "Keep your rosaries off our ovaries."

Insidehighered.com reports

Conservative Philanthropy Woos Catholics

While conservative money nurtures the voices of conservative Catholics, the shift toward Republicans seen in the 2004 elections was reversed in 2006. Will money talk again in 2008?

Mediatransparency.org reports

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Katrina Recovery

$8.75 billion worth of contracts for rebuilding New Orleans were rife with "fraud, abuse, and mismanagement," according to the Congressional Budget Office, but that is only a drop in the bucket in a mismanaged Katrina recovery, according to a new study by the Institute for Southern Studies. While New York after 9/11 and Florida after Hurricane Andrew did not have to provide matching funds with federal recovery money, the Bush Administration has demanded it for Katrina. The study, Blueprint for Gulf Renewal, prints the voices of advocates but is a little short on solutions.

Read here.

Displaced Residents Occupy New Orleans Housing Office

Public housing residents staged a three hour sit-in at the New Orleans public housing office in hopes of meeting with the regional HUD director. Residents displaced from their homes for two years by the Katrina/FEMA disaster are still blocked from returning home, with four housing projects fenced off. Local authorities responded to the sit-in as if it were a terrorist attack, evacuating the building and militarizing the surrounding two block area with a combined force of local police, SWAT, and National Guard troops. The residents left peacefully after three hours but vowed to continue their struggle.

Indymedia reports

International Katrina Tribunal Finds "Crimes Against Humanity"

After nearly 30 hours of testimony by hurricane survivors and experts, a tribunal of 16 jurists from nine countries issued its preliminary findings. Said Jill Soffiyah Elijah, Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and Coordinating Justice for the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, "It is our view that the US Government has committed crimes against humanity." The jurists cited the President Bush, Governor Blanco, and Mayor Nagin for human rights violations in the aftermath of these storms, and for "reckless disregard" and "negligence" in the failure to maintain the New Orleans levees. Their final verdict is due December 8, 2007.

Read the press release here

Democrats Woo Religious Voters, Strangely

The Democratic Party has undertaken a vigorous outreach campaign with religious voters, creating a Faith Advisory Council and cultivating clergy around the country. These efforts might be more credible if Democrats were not simultaneously trying to incite conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Louisiana, and managing to offend both groups in the process.

Conservative columnist Michael Gerson opines for the Washington Post

Liberals Overlooking Jim Wallis' Abortion Record

As Senators (and presidential candidates) Rick Santorum, Hillary Clinton, Sam Brownback, and Barack Obama prepared to attend the Rev. Jim Wallis' Pentecost 2006, some progressives expressed skepticism about the Sojourners editor's agenda. Before his elevation as an "evangelical progressive" celebrity, Wallis - together with a Who's Who of the Religious Right - signed a lengthy document culminating in a call for a constitutional amendment to criminalize abortion. He has yet to repudiate a word of it.

Talk To Action reports