The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
(Ml
Wednesday; March11, 2009 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
Most state officials
won't voluntarily
take pay cuts
Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants
lawmakers and other top elected
officials to join her in giving back 10
percent of their pay.
Butit's unlikelymorethan ahand-
ful will oblige.
The Democratic governor has
returned 5 percent or 10 percent of
her $177,000 salary to the state trea-
sury every year since taking office in
2003 as Michigan has struggled with
a weak economy and ongoing budget
deficits.
"This is all about leading by exam-
ple," Granholm spokeswoman Liz
Boyd said yesterday.
On Monday, a state panel recom-
mended that lawmakers, the gover-
nor, lieutenant governor, secretary of
state and attorney general take a 10
percent pay cut starting in 2011. But
that won't affect many of the current
officeholders because term limits
will require them to step down at the
end of 2010.
NEW YORK
Atty. says Madoff
will plead guilty
In a courtroom surprise, it was
revealed yesterday that Bernard
Madoff will plead guilty Thursday
to securities fraud, perjury and other
crimes, knowing that he could face
up to 150 years in prison for one of
the largest frauds in history.
The revelation came as prosecu-
tors unveiled an 11-count charging
document against the 70-year-old
former Nasdaq chairman, and as his
lawyer, Ira Sorkin, told a judge that
Madoff planned to plead guilty this
week without a plea deal.
Madoff has been under house
arrest in his $7 million Manhattan
penthouse since he was arrested in
early December after authorities
said he confessed to his family that
he had carried out a $50 billion
fraud. In court documents filed yes-
terday, prosecutors raised the size of
the fraud to $64.8 billion, an amount
recounted in apparently false state-
ments from November 2008.
WASHINGTON D.C.
Museum uncovers
engraving hidden in
Lincolnwatch
For nearly 150 years, a story has
circulated about a hidden Civil War
message engraved inside Abraham
Lincoln's pocket watch. On Tuesday,
museum curators confirmed it was
true.
A watchmaker used tiny tools to
carefully pry open the antique watch
at the National Museum of Ameri-
can History, and a descendant of the
engraver read aloud the message
from a metal plate underneath the
watch face.
"Jonathan Dillon April 13 - 1861,"
part of the inscription reads, "Fort
Sumpter (sic) was attacked by the
rebels on the above date." Another
part reads, "Thank God we have a
government."
The words were etched in tiny cur-
sive handwriting and filled the the
space between tiny screws and gears
that jutted through the metal plate.
A magnifying glass was required to
read them.
Jonathan Dillon, then a watch-
maker on Pennsylvania Avenue, had
Lincoln's watch in his hands when he
heard the first shots of the Civil War
had been fired in South Carolina. The
Irish immigrant later recalled being
the only Union sympathizer working
at the shop in a divided Washington.
ST. LOUIS
Church shooting
suspect left 'Last
Day Will' card
The manaccusedofgunningdown
an Illinois pastor during his sermon
as horrified churchgoers watched
left an index card marked "Last Day
Will" at his home, according to court
documents filed yesterday.
Other documents detail how the
Rev. Fred Winters tried to run from
accused gunman Terry Sedlacek at
First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill.,
a St.Lous suburb,before the preacher
collapsed and bled to deathSunday.
Authorities say Sedlacek, 27, of
nearby Troy, fired four times from a
.45-caliber Glock pistol, hitting Win-
ters once in the heart.
The court papers indicate inves-
tigators have found an arsenal in
Sedlacek's bedroom, including two
12-gauge shotguns, a rifle and a box
of 550 .22-caliber bullets.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Congress sends $410B spending bill to Obama
Bill approved shortly
after $1.8 trillion
deficit announced
WASHINGTON (AP) - Con-
gress on yesterday sent President
Barack Obama a once-bipartisan
bill to fund the domestic Cabinet
agencies that evolved instead into a
symbol of lawmakers' free-spend-
ing ways and penchant for back-
home pet projects.
The Senate approved the mea-
sure by voice after it cleared a key
procedural hurdle by a 62-35 vote.
Sixty votes were required to shut
down debate.
Obama is expected to sign the
measure Wednesday to avoid a par-
tial shutdown of the government.
But the White House has kept the
bill at arm's length, calling it last
year's business. Obama is also set
to announce steps aimed at curbing
lawmakers' so-called earmarks.
The $410 billion bill is chock-
full of those pet projects and sig-
nificant increases in food aid for
the poor, energy research and
other. programs. It was supposed
to have been completed last fall,
but Democrats opted against elec-
tion-year battles with Republi-
cans and former President George
W. Bush.
The measure was a top prior-
ity for Democratic leaders, who
praised it for numerous increases
denied by Bush. It once enjoyed
support from Republicans such
as Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky.
Butthebill ran into anunexpect-
ed political hailstorm in Congress
after Obama's spending-heavy eco-
nomic stimulus bill and his 2010
budget plan forecasting a $1.8 tril-
lion deficit for the current budget
year. And Republicans seized on
Obama's willingness'to sign a bill
packed with earmarks after he
assailed them as a candidate.
"If it had not been for the stim-
ulus and the budget proposal it
might have been ... noncontrover-
sial," said House GOP leader John
Boehner of Ohio. "The stimulus
bill riled an awful lot of people up.
... And then the budget proposal
comes out."
Within Democratic ranks, there
was relief, not jubilation.
The 1,132-page spending bill
has an extraordinary reach, wrap-
ping together nine spending bills
to fund foreign aid and the annual
operating budgets of every Cabinet
department except for Defense,
Homeland Security and Veterans
Affairs.
It also contains numerous pol-
icy changes, including shutting
down a program allowing Mexi-
can trucking companies to operate
beyond U.S.-Mexico border zones,
easing rules on Cuban-Americans
traveling to the island to visit rela-
tives and allowing quick reversal of
Bush administration rules opposed
by environmentalists.
Described by lawmakers as a
$410 billion measure - but offi-
cially tallied by the Congressio-
nal Budget Office at $408 billion
because of technicalities involv-
ing heating subsidies for the poor
- the bill was written mostly over
the course of last year, with sup-
port from key Republicans such as
McConnell and Lamar Alexander
of Tennessee, the Senate's No. 3
Republican.
They sit on the Senate Appro-
priations Committee. McConnell
is the successful sponsor or co-
sponsor of $76 million worth of
"earmarks" not requested by Bush
when he president, according to
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a
budget watchdog group. Alexander
obtained a more modest 36 ear-
marks totaling $32 million.
Alexander supported the mea-
sure in the end; McConnell did not,
calling it a "missed opportunity" to
display fiscal discipline.
In the end, eight Republicans
voted with all but three Democrats
who were present, to advance the
bill.
At issue is the approximately
one-thirdofthebudgetpassedeach
year by Congress for the operating
budgets of Cabinet departments
and other agencies. The rest of the
budget is comprised of benefits
programs such as Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid - as well
as interest payments on the swell-
ing $11 trillion national debt.
Adding in spending bills passed
last year for defense, homeland
security and the Veterans Admin-
istration - as well as $288.7 billion
in appropriated money in the stim-
ulus bill - total appropriations so
far for 2009 have reached $1.4 tril-
lion. And that's before the Penta-
gon submits another $75 billion or
so request for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Appropriated spending for 2008
was $1.2 trillion; Obama's budget
for next year calls for $1.3 trillion
in appropriations.
To the embarrassment of Obama
- who promised during last year's
campaignto force Congress to curb
its pork-barrel ways - the bill con-
tains 7,991 earmarks totaling $5.5
billion, according to the GOP staff
of the House Appropriations Com-
mittee. Republicans got about 40
percent of the earmarks.
Among the many earmarks are
$485,000 for a boarding school for
at-risk native students. in western
Alaska and $1.2 million for Helen
Keller International so the non-
profit can provide eyeglasses to
students with poor vision. There's
also dozens of projects awarding
state and local governments money
for police equipment and to combat
methamphetamine.
At the same time, the measure
chips away at several leftover
Bush administration policies.
It clears the way for the Obama
administration to reverse a rule
issued late in the Bush adminis-
tration that says greenhouse gases
may not be restricted to protect
polar bears from global warming.
Another Bush administration rule
that reduced the input of federal
scientists in endangered species
decisions can also be quickly over-
turned without a lengthy rulemak-
ing process.
The big increases - among them
a 14 percentboost for a popular pro-
gram that feeds infants and poor
women and a 10 percent increase
for housing vouchers for the poor
- represent a clear win for Demo-
crats who spent most of the past
decade battling with Bush over
money for domestic programs.
Generous above-inflation
increases are spread through-
out, including a $2.4' billion, 13
percent increase for the Agricul-
ture Department and a 10 percent
increase for the money-losing
Amtrak passenger rail system.
Congress also awarded itself a
10 percent increase in its own bud-
get, bringing it to $4.4 billion. But
the measure contains a provision
denying lawmakers the automatic
cost-of-living pay increase they are
due next Jan. 1.
9 11 suspects
on trial defend
terror attacks
Men cite violent
interpretation of
Islam as justification
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)
- The self-professed mastermind
and four other men charged in the
Sept. 11 attacks declared they are
"terrorists to the bone" in a state-
ment that mocked the U.S. failure
to prevent the killings and pre-
dicted America will fall like "the
towers on the blessed 9/11 day."
In a rambling response to the
government's case, the men also
sought to justify the attacks, cit-
ing a violent interpretation of
Islam and a series of grievances
against the U.S., including sup-
port for Israel, the Iraq war and
abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and
in Guantanamo.
"To us, they are not accusations.
To us they are badges of honor,
which we carry with pride," the
men wrote in the six-page docu-
ment, which was released yesterday
by a military judge over the objec-
tions of the Pentagon-appointed
lawyers for two of the men.
"So, you are the first class war
criminals," they added, "and the
whole world witnesses this."
The five, who are among 245
prisoners held at the U.S. military
lockup in Cuba, include Khalid
Sheik Mohammed, the professed
architectofthe Sept.11 attacks, and
Ramzi Binalshibh, allegedly one of
his key lieutenants in al-Qaida.
Both men previously said
they were proud of their role in
the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon - and
all five had said they wanted to
plead guilty. But this is their most
detailed statement to date.
The men do not go into details
of their roles in the plot, but
they call the charge of conspir-
acy "laughable" and mock U.S.
authorities for being unable to
prevent the attacks. "Blame
yourselves and your failed
intelligence apparatus."
They also predict defeat for
the U.S. in Iraq and Afghani-
stan and the overall collapse
of America. "Your end is very
near and your fall will be just
as the fall of the towers on the
blessed 9/11 day."
The five, who could face the
death penalty if convicted on
charges that include murder
and terrorism, were at a pre-
trial hearing in Guantanamo
when President Barack Obama
abruptly suspended all war-
crimes proceedings pending a
review of the much-criticized
system for prosecuting terror-
ists created by Congress and
the Bush administration.
They will still be tried, but
under what type of system has
not yet been determined. The
proceedings, however, will
probably not be at Guantana-
mo since Obama has ordered
the detention center closed
within a year.
Three of the defendants have
been acting as their own lawyers
but two of the men, Binalshibh
and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, still
have Pentagon-appointed military
attorneys pending a court ruling on
whether they are mentally compe-
tent to represent themselves.
Their lawyers, Army Maj. Jon
Jackson and Navy Cmdr. Suzanne
Lachelier, said they had not met
with their clients to discuss the
document and cannot say what
may have motivated the men
to sign it - or even vouch for its
authenticity. They said the judge
should not have released it.
Pentagon spokesman Navy
Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon called the
filing "merely another attempt
by these detainees to garner
publicity."
Otherssaidthe statementprovide
some insight into the defendants.
"We must never be complacent
about this hateful, hateful group
of individuals who are out to harm
us," said Maureen Santora, whose
New York City firefighter son was
killed at the World Trade Center.
"They are unrelenting in their
mission to destroy America"
Brian Jenkins, a senior adviser
on terrorism at the RAND Corp.,
said the statement appears to be
aimed at attracting support and
recruits abroad by portraying the
men as Muslim warriors defend-
ing a religion under siege.
"You have to continue to cam-
paign even while you are in cap-
tivity, and the way to do that is to
broadcast your beliefs so you will
inspire others," Jenkins said.
Flagg Miller, a professor of reli-
gious studies at the University
of California, Davis, said he was
struck by the language of the Sept.
11 defendants, who write more
harshly than the top al-Qaida
leaders seeking to portray them-
selves in a more diplomatic light
as defenders of world justice.
ALTAF QAune;
Exiled Tibetan monks march to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese raei that
sent their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, into exile, in Dharmsala, India, Tuesday March 10, 2009
Dlai Lama says Tibetans are
0 4''sufferingf under Chinese rul
Spiritual leader
attacks Beijing for
50 years of suffering
and violence
DHARMSALA, India (AP) -
Life for Tibetans under Chinese
rule has been "hell on earth," the
* Dalai Lama said yesterday, attack-
ing Beijing in a speech to mark 50
years since the failed uprising that
forced him into exile.
The unusually harsh rhetoric
from the Nobel Peace laureate, who
accused the Chinese government of
treating his people "like criminals
deserving to be putto death," high-
lighted the widening gulf between
the two sides since last year when
violence engulfed the region and
talks broke down.
"These 50 years have brought
untold suffering to the land and
people of Tibet," the 73-year-old
Buddhist spiritual leader told some
2,000 Tibetan exiles gathered to
commemorate the 1959 rebellion.
Beijing, which accuses the Dalai
Lama of trying to split Tibet from
China and fomenting the recent
violence, denounced his speech as
"lies" and underlined the devel-
opment it had brought to the vast
Himalayan plateau.
The Dalai Lama's 30-minute
speech in Dharmsala, the two-
street town perched in the foothills
of the Indian Himalayas where he
set up his headquarters in exile,
was a systematic indictment of
Chinese rule in Tibet.
Decadesof China's communist
experiments, particularly the vio-
lent xenophobic Cultural Revolu-
tion, "thrust Tibetans into such
depths of suffering and hardship
that they literally experienced
hell on earth," he said, adding
that these campaigns led to the
deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Tibetans.
Tibet's unique religion, culture
and language are "nearing extinc-
tion," he said.
It was only the exile of 100,000
Tibetans to India that had allowed
them to preserve some remnants of
their heritage, he later told report-
ers.
"Now 50 years past, at least in
this planet there is one place where
Tibetan Buddhist studies and
Tibetan Buddhist culture contin-
ues with full freedom," he said.
Yesterday's ceremony was a
mix of somber prayers and hymns
mourning those who died, and the
pomp of Tibetan tradition.
Monks in ornate yellow head-
dress blew giant conches and long
brass trumpets to herald the arriv-
al of the Dalai Lama, while a band
played drums, cymbals and bag-
pipes as he made his way from his
residence to the main temple.
The Dalai Lama also charged
Beijing with overseeing a "brutal
crackdown" in Tibet since protests
shook the Himalayan region.
Last year, a peaceful com-
memoration of the 1959 uprising
by monks in the Tibetan capital of
Lhasa erupted into anti-Chinese
rioting four days later and spread
to surrounding provinces - the
most sustained and violent demon-
strations by Tibetans in decades.
Second Annual
Gramlich SHOWCASE
of Student Work
THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2009
4:00 - 6:00 PM
Joan andl Sanford Weill Hall, it and 2nd floors, 735 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
Poster Session. Free and open to the public. Refreshments served.
join us as we highlight and celebrate the intellectual achievements of graduate and undergraduate students
at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
Ford School faculty have nominated students for inclusion from among the best work produced at the
school this year. The posters on display will represent a wide range of student work: from local issues to-a
foreign policy, from social welfare policy to health care reform, from undergraduate work to dissertation
research. Students will beon hand to describe their projects and answer questions.
This annual event is named for long-time U-M faculty member and former Federal Reserve Board Governor
Ned Gramlich, as a tribute to his belief in'and commitment to the value of a public policy education.
Details: www.fordschool.umich.edu or 734-615-3893.
Gerald R. Ford
School of Public Policy
UNIVERSITY OF, ICHIGAN1