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Federal Prosecutors Decide Not to Indict Karl Rove in CIA
Leak Case
Gaza Physician, British Journalist Refute Reported Israeli
Military Investigation that Clears IDF, Blames Hamas for Deadly
Beach Attack
"Confronting Confinement”: Bi-Partisan Commission
Criticizes Size, Conditions and Racial Make-Up of U.S. Prison
System
Federal Prosecutors Decide Not to Indict Karl Rove
in CIA Leak Case
Federal prosecutors have decided not to charge President
Bush’s top advisor Karl Rove with any crimes in the
outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. The prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald has made no official statement but Rove’s
attorney said early this morning that Fitzgerald announced
the decision in a letter to him on Monday. [includes rush
transcript]
Rove had been at the center of the investigation for over
two years and had been forced to testify on five occasions
to a federal grand jury on his role in the outing of Plame,
who was the wife of Iraq war critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
To date only one person in the Bush administration has been
indicted in the leak case – Lewis Scooter Libby, Vice
President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.
- David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation magazine.
He runs a blog at DavidCorn.com.
He is writing a book about the selling of the Iraq war and
the CIA leak case.
Gaza Physician, British Journalist Refute Reported
Israeli Military Investigation that Clears IDF, Blames Hamas
for Deadly Beach Attack
Nine Palestinians, including two children, have been killed
in an Israeli air strike in Gaza Tuesday. We go to Gaza to
speak with a reporter for the London Independent as well as
a Palestinian physician who was at the hospital that received
many of the victims of Friday's deadly explosion on a beach
in Northern Gaza that left eight Palestinians dead. The two
contradict the reported findings of an Israel Defense Forces
panel that concludes the IDF was not responsible for Friday's
bombing.
Nine Palestinians, including two children, have been killed
in an Israeli air strike in Gaza today. The Israeli army confirmed
the attack, saying it had targeted a van carrying Palestinian
militants just north of Gaza City. The group Islamic Jihad
confirmed two of its members were killed in the attack which
injured 20 others. Reports said the first strike was followed
soon afterwards by another missile, which hit civilians who
had gone to the scene of the first blast.
The deadly air strike came just four days after eight Palestinian
civilians - including three children - died in an explosion
Friday on a day of Israeli artillery shelling.
They had been picnicking on a beach in northern Gaza. One
seven-year-old Palestinian girl lost her father, step-mother
and five siblings. In images broadcast around the world, the
child, Huda Ghalia, is seen moments after the bombing struck.
She runs to the site of the attack where she comes across
the body of her deceased father. She collapses to the ground
next to him, repeatedly crying for her father. At least 40
people were also injured in Friday's bombing. Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning
to mark what he called a "bloody massacre."
Israel initially acknowledged it was firing shells in the
area to stop Palestinians from staging rocket attacks and
said it regretted the civilian deaths. In just the past two
months, Israel has fired over 6,000 shells into the Gaza Strip.
But the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is now reporting an Israel
Defense Forces panel is close to concluding that the IDF was
not responsible. The panel is set to announce it believes
the bombing was caused by a bomb planted by Hamas on the beach
to stop Israeli naval commandos in Northern Gaza.
Following Friday's killings, Hamas announced an end to its
16-month truce and said Israel had committed a war crime.
Over the weekend Hamas fired at least 17 missiles targeting
southern Israel.
For more on the latest we go to Gaza to speak with two guests:
- Chris McGreal, reporter for the London Guardian.
He joins us on the line from Gaza.
- Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician and community activist
in northern Gaza. She was at the hospital that received
many of the victims of Friday's bombing. She runs a blog
titled "From
Gaza, With Love"
"Confronting Confinement”: Bi-Partisan
Commission Criticizes Size, Conditions and Racial Make-Up
of U.S. Prison System
The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons
argues the country’s prison system has fallen victim
to overcrowding; overzealous incarceration; abuse; unaccountability
and inadequate health care. Among its recommendations are
to dramatically reduce the use of physical force and prisoner
segregation. It also calls on expanding prisoner access to
Medicare and Medicaid.
A bi-partisan commission is drawing praise from across a
wide political spectrum for a new report on prison reform.
The report is called "Confronting Confinement" by
the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons.
The 20-member commission includes prison administrators, prisoner-rights
advocates, religious representatives and members of both main
political parties. The report follows a year-long inquiry
that included public hearings in four major cities.
The report argues the country’s prison system has fallen
victim to overcrowding; overzealous incarceration; abuse;
unaccountability and inadequate health care. Among its recommendations
are to dramatically reduce the use of physical force and prisoner
segregation. It also calls on expanding prisoner access to
Medicare and Medicaid. The report singles out treatment for
the 400,000 prisoners suffering from mental-illness, calling
jails "the new asylums."
The report also concludes: "we should be astonished
by the size of the prisoner population, troubled by the disproportionate
incarceration of African Americans and Latinos, and saddened
by the waste of human potential."
At 2.2 million, the US has the highest prison population
in the world -- and it’s only growing. According to
the Justice Department, the prison population added 56,000
new prisoners last year – an average of 1,000 per week
– for an increase of three percent.
- Michael Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice,
which put together the Prison Commission. From 1995 to 1998,
he served as the New York City Correction Commissioner.
Before that he served as New York City’s Probation
Commissioner. He is a former professor at the City University
of New York Graduate Center and the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice. He is the author of “Downsizing
Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration.”
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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