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Sign of the times, in which we are living in

Government Land-Grab Moves Forward
The nation took a step closer to the largest federal land grab in the nation’s history last week, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
That’s thanks to passage of the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
In basic terms the CRWA (S. 787) would grant the federal government authority of all water – both navigable, which it now presides over, as well as non-navigable.
Without defining and confining federal authority to navigable waters, an NCBA spokesman said, “…the CWRA would expand federal regulatory control to unprecedented levels – essentially putting stock tanks, drainage ditches, any puddle or water feature found on family farms and ranches – potentially even ground water – under the regulatory strong-arm of the federal government.”
Though the bill was amended last week, NCBA officials explain, “The amendment is a smoke screen that allegedly takes care of agricultural concerns by exempting prior-converted croplands from federal jurisdiction. Cattle are generally not grazed on prior-converted croplands, so this amendment does nothing to mitigate the potential damage to livestock production from this legislation. The amendment is a diversion from the real issue, which is the removal of the word ‘navigable’ from the definition of waters.”
NCBA and Public Lands Council oppose the legislation because it obviously infringes on private property rights, but also because it limits the state partnerships and flexibility that have made the current Clean Water Act successful.
http://beefmagazine.com/beefstockertrends/0623-government-land-grab-moves-forward/

On Nixon Tapes, Ambivalence Over Abortion, Not Watergate
WASHINGTON — On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.
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Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases — like interracial pregnancies, he said.
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”
Nine months later, Nixon forced the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate affair, Archibald Cox, and prompted the resignations of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus. The next day, Ronald Reagan, who was then governor of California and would later be president, told the White House that he approved. Reagan said the action, which would become known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” was “probably the best thing that ever happened — none of them belong where they were,” according to a Nixon aide’s notes of the private conversation.
Those disclosures were among the revelations in more than 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents made public on Tuesday by the Nixon Presidential Library, a part of the National Archives. The audio files were posted online, as were a sampling of the documents.
The tapes were recorded by the secret microphones in the Oval Office from January and February 1973. They shed new light on an intense moment in American history, including Nixon’s second inauguration, the Vietnam War cease-fire, and the trial of seven men over the break-in at the Democrats’ headquarters at the Watergate complex amid mounting revelations about their ties to the White House.
The tapes also capture more mundane details of life in the White House — conversations about what to pack for a trip, when to schedule a trip to the barber, whether the president’s wife would enjoy going to Trader Vic’s for dinner.
Most segments of the tapes relating to the Watergate scandal, which would lead to Nixon’s resignation 20 months later, have already been released. But there are some new materials that were previously held back because the audio quality was so poor that archives officials could not be certain whether they contained discussion of any classified topics. Improvements in audio technology have allowed archives staff to clear additional ones.
They include a Jan. 5, 1973, conversation between Nixon and his aide Charles W. Colson in which they discussed the possibility of granting clemency to E. Howard Hunt Jr., one of the Watergate conspirators, according to a log compiled by archives staff. Scholars say the same topic was addressed in several other tapes that were previously made public.
The documents also include nine pages of handwritten notes by a domestic policy aide about plans for what the White House would say about the dismissal of the Watergate special prosecutor, Mr. Cox.
The tapes also provide new material about the circumstances surrounding the Paris treaty to end the United States’ military involvement in Vietnam.
A call between Nixon and Mr. Colson just after midnight on Jan. 20 showed that Nixon anticipated, when the treaty was announced, that he would be vindicated for continuing to bomb North Vietnam. He especially relished the hit that he believed members of Congress who opposed the war — whose public statements he pronounced “treasonable” — would suffer.
Several conversations center on the pressure Nixon placed on South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen Van Thieu, to accept the cease-fire agreement. Ken Hughes, a Nixon scholar and research fellow at the Presidential Recordings Project at the University of Virginia, said he was struck by listening on one of the new tapes to Nixon’s telling his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, that to get Thieu to sign the treaty, he would “cut off his head if necessary.”
Mr. Hughes said the conversation bolstered his view that Nixon, Thieu and Mr. Kissinger knew at the time that the cease-fire could not endure, and that it was not “peace with honor,” as Nixon described it, so much as a face-saving way for the United States to get out of the war. In 1975, North Vietnam would violate the cease-fire and conquer South Vietnam.
The tapes also include a phone call from February 1973 between Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, during which Mr. Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders were opposing efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade. The two men agreed that the Jewish leaders risked setting off anti-Semitic sentiment.
“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said.
At another point he said: “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”
The documents also include three newly declassified pages from a National Security Council brief discussing secret Israeli efforts to build a nuclear weapon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixon.html?_r=1

Md. officials announce swine flu-related death
June 23, 2009 - 2:30pm
BALTIMORE - Maryland health officials are announcing the state's first confirmed swine-flu related death.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Tuesday that an elderly Baltimore-area resident with a swine flu infection and serious underlying medical conditions has died.
Health officials say that swine flu was a contributing factor in the death, but they will not release personal details about the case, including specific underlying health conditions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 87 people who contracted swine flu have died.
Maryland officials have confirmed 370 swine flu cases, but say it is likely a fraction of the total cases statewide as many people are not tested and recover within a week.
http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1702853

NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.
Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.
The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.
The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the start of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in state of war.
The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect against an outbreak of hostilities.
Tensions have been high since North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April and then conducted its second underground atomic test on May 25.
Reacting to U.N. condemnation of that test, North Korea walked away from nuclear disarmament talks and warned it would fire a long-range missile.
North Korea has banned ships from the waters off its east coast starting Thursday through July 10 for military exercises, Japan's Coast Guard said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday that the North may fire a Scud missile with a range of up to 310 miles (500 kilometers) or a short-range ground-to-ship missile with a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers) during the no-sail period.
A senior South Korean government official said the no-sail ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
U.S. defense and counterproliferation officials in Washington said they also expected the North to launch short- to medium-range missiles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
South Korea will expedite the introduction of high-tech unmanned aerial surveillance systems and "bunker-buster" bombs in response to North Korea's provocations, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing unidentified ruling party members.
Meanwhile, a flurry of diplomatic efforts were under way to try getting North Korea to return to disarmament talks.
Russia's top nuclear envoy, Alexei Borodavkin, said after meeting with his South Korean counterpart that Moscow is open to other formats for discussion since Pyongyang has pulled out of formal six-nation negotiations.
In Beijing, top U.S. and Chinese defense officials also discussed North Korea. U.S. Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy was heading next to Tokyo and Seoul for talks.
South Korea has proposed high-level "consultations" to discuss North Korea with the U.S., Russia, China and Japan.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_91