Civil disobedience at the Land Board

Photo credit: Murphy Woodhouse, Missoula

UPDATE: Land Board votes 3-2 in favor of accepting Arch Coal's bid for Otter Creek. Schweitzer, McCulloch and Lindeen voted "Yes," while Bullock and Juneau voted "No."


UPDATE: All five protesters have been arrested and removed. They are from a Missoula-based group called "Northern Rockies Rising Tide." They are: Shelby Cunliffe, Max Granger, Suzie Rosette, Michail Phelps and Genevieve Schroeder. There were five police cars parked outside the south entrance of the capitol.

The Land Board has resumed the meeting. There appear to be a few more Rising Tide members in the audience.



UPDATE:

Police handcuffed and removed one protester at 11:10. Police appear to be negotiating with the other four members of the Otter Creek Five. At least seven armed officers are in the room trying to remove the protesters who are opposed to the state leasing the Otter Creek Coal tracts.

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OK. So it's been a while since I blogged. More on that later.

But I thought a little live blogging might be in order since five protesters just hi-jacked the state Land Board meeting.

Just as Secretary of State Linda McCulloch motioned that the board accept Arch Coal’s $86 million bid for the state-owned Otter Creek coal tracts, five people who appeared to be in their 20s and early 30s, locked arms and began chanting “Hands off Otter Creek. You’re not listening.”

A visibly annoyed Gov. Brian Schweitzer ordered police to remove the protesters. As I write this at 11:05 a.m., the Land Board has been in recess for about 15 minutes and the police still have yet to remove the protesters. The three women and two men, I’ll call them the Otter Creek 5, appear to be willing to go the distance on this one.

I’ll update you when I know more, but if you can tune into TV-MT, check it out.

Jet connected to CIA torture program has ties to Great Falls

As I reported in the dead tree edition of the Tribune this morning, a private Gulfstream IV jet tied to the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program is owned by a Great Falls company—an apparent shell company for L-3 Communications, the nation’s sixth-largest defense contractor.

I thought I’d expand on the article a bit here with some hyperlinks to some interesting components of the story.

The Great Falls company, called L-3 IS (the IS stands for Integrated Systems), appears to only exist on paper. According to the Secretary of State’s Office, L-3 IS incorporated in May of 2006, but the company doesn’t appear to have a physical address, and it’s only known employee is Great Falls attorney Gary Bjelland. Bjelland, listed as the registered agent for the company, referred all questions about the company to an attorney in Alexandria, Va., who did not respond to calls seeking comment. It appears to exist only to register the Gulfstream IV, tail number N478GS.

I first heard about this jet back in 2006 when I was working at the Missoula Independent. A reader pointed us to a story in the Chicago Tribune that described how the elusive jet crash landed at an airport in Bucharest in 2004 with seven passengers—one carrying a gun—on board, triggering an inquiry by the European Parliament into the aircraft’s possible connection to the CIA’s rendition program.

From the 2006 Chicago Tribune article (the links and emphases are mine):

At the time of the accident, FAA records show, the plane was owned by Braxton Management Services of Great Falls, Mont. Commercial databases give the company’s business address as that of the Great Falls attorney who filed Braxton’s Montana corporate registration–in short, a paper company with no officers or directors.

The lawyer did not respond to repeated inquiries by the Tribune over several months, including why an airplane owned by a Montana management company was based in Fayetteville, N.C., where the airport serves Ft. Bragg,home of the Army’s Special Operations Command.

A secretary at the law firm said Tuesday that the reason for the non-response was that “We don’t know anything about Braxton” and the firm’s only function has been to keep its Montana registration current.

Since the Bucharest accident, Braxton has been replaced as the Gulfstream’s owner by what appears to be another paper company, whose business address is a different law office in Great Falls [L-3?]. The lawyer in that office [Bjelland?] who serves as the successor company’s registered agent referred all inquiries to a lawyer in Alexandria, Va., who did not respond to the Tribune’s calls and e-mails.

The Chicago Tribune piece contains another very interesting piece of this rather large and convoluted puzzle:

According to FAA flight data records, Gulfstream N478GS re-entered service on June 13 of this year (2006) with a flight from Savannah, Ga., to Fayetteville. But what happened to the airplane between the accident and then remains a mystery.

According to the Romanian transport ministry, the damaged plane’s owners arranged to have the Gulfstream loaded aboard a giant Ukrainian-built Antonov cargo aircraft, larger than anything in the U.S. military inventory, and flown out of Romania for repairs at an estimated cost of $250,000.

Only a handful of private companies throughout the world offer Antonov-class aircraft for rent. All the companies told the Tribune they were not involved in removing the Gulfstream from Romania.

An industry source who asked not to be identified said that the only other Antonovs of sufficient size to carry a Gulfstream were operated by the air forces of Russia, Libya and Abu Dhabi. After checking with others in the industry, the source concluded that those three countries had not been involved either.

The most significant aspect of this story, in my mind, is that the owner of this plane—whoever that may be—doesn’t want people to know what it is used for. They have gone to great lengths to conceal it’s ownership and it’s flight logs. L-3 IS’s only known employee refuses to explain what the company is, or does, in Great Falls, or why their jet keeps showing up in the international press connected to the CIA’s program of kidnapping suspected terrorists and flying them by private jet to prisons in countries that turn a blind eye toward torture.

For those of you who are interested in reading more, here are some interesting links related to L-3 IS’s mysterious Gulfstream IV.

• Here’s a link to a story from the Fayetteville Observer about the CIA’s use of private charter jets for extraordinary rendition missions. It mentions N478GS.
• Shannonwatch is an Irish human rights group that tracks flights in and out of Shannon Airport, which is believed to be a refueling spot for CIA rendition flights. They have lots of information on the CIA’s use of Shannon airport, including logs documents N478GS stopvers.
• This 2005 New York Times article does a great job of explaining how the CIA uses private charter flights to hide their rendition activities.
• Here’s a lengthy Q&A on rendition from Amnesty International.
• Here’s a .pdf link to the European Parliament’s working document investigating the CIA’s use of European airports and airspace for rendition missions.

If any readers out there have any more information on this jet, or L-3 IS of Great Falls, I’d love to hear about it. Send info to jadams (at) greatfallstribune.com

Waiting on a DREAM

Reaction to my Sunday feature on Carlos Rivera’s complicated dilemma has been interesting to say the least.

For those who missed it, I wrote a story about how Rivera, a 27-year-old international business student at the University of Montana, is facing deportation. Rivera’s mother brought him to the U.S. in1988 when he was just 6 years old. He’s been in the country ever since. By all accounts Rivera is an upstanding young man who has forged a successful career in business and is on his way to completing his college degree.

But last year he came to the attention of immigration officials and now he’s facing the prospect of returning to a country he hardly even remembers. His immigration hearing is in January.

Rivera’s hopes of staying in the country and finishing his degree could rest on the passage DREAM Act, a bill before Congress that would create a path toward citizenship for people in Rivera’s position.

The idea behind the act is simple: immigrant students who arrive in the country as children, graduate from a United States high school, stay out of trouble with the law and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment, can have the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency.

The Senate debated a version of the bill in 2007, but it fell eight votes short of the number needed to overcome a filibuster by senators opposed to the measure.

The act has been introduced again, but it's unclear if or when Congress will resume debate on the measure. Supporters of the bill estimate that they still are eight votes shy in the Senate.

Critics of the DREAM Act say is an attempt to create broad amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Roy Beck is executive director and founder of Washington, D.C.-based NumbersUSA, an organization that lobbied against the 2007 version of the DREAM Act and opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Beck said he's sympathetic to Rivera's situation, but added that the DREAM Act is not an appropriate path to citizenship for immigrant children who were brought to this country by undocumented parents.

"You can take a lot of these individuals and you can make a compelling case for their story," Beck said. "If it was just this guy, I've got no problem with this guy being given amnesty. But there are apparently about 500,000 of these people in this country."

Beck said the DREAM Act, as written, contains loopholes that would allow people who receive amnesty under the law to apply to have their family members put on a path toward citizenship.

He said that would lead to massive fraud and open the door to thousands of new immigrants who could pour into the country in order to take advantage of the amnesty provisions in the law.

"When you allow people to break the law, and then allow them to harvest what they broke the law to get, you encourage more illegal activity," Beck said.

There are legitimate arguments to be made on all sides of the immigration debate. However, one of the criticisms that pops up over and over in the comments section on Sunday's story has to do with illegal immigrants not paying taxes while benefiting from those who do.

According to this USA Today article, not only do many illegal immigrants pay taxes, but they may be paying more taxes than they owe, and they don’t collect the benefits:

The tax system collects its due, even from a class of workers with little likelihood of claiming a refund and no hope of drawing a Social Security check.

Illegal immigrants are paying taxes to Uncle Sam, experts agree. Just how much they pay is hard to determine because the federal government doesn't fully tally it. But the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year. One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year.

Paycheck withholding collects much of the federal tax from illegal workers, just as it does for legal workers.

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't track a worker's immigration status, yet many illegal immigrants fearful of deportation won't risk the government attention that will come from filing a return even if they might qualify for a refund. Economist William Ford of Middle Tennessee State University says there are no firm figures on how many such taxpayers there are.

…

"It's a mistake to think that no illegal immigrants pay taxes. They definitely do," said Martha Pantoja, who has been helping Hispanic immigrants this tax season as an IRS-certified volunteer tax preparer for the non-profit Nashville Wealth Building Coalition.

I can say from interviewing Rivera that he’s not looking for a free ride. He wants to earn his degree and become a productive member of society just like every one of his American classmates. He grew up in the United States from the age of six and has thought of himself as a U.S. citizen his entire life. Was he naïve about the consequences of living in the U.S. as an undocumented alien once he learned of his status? Sure. I think he’d admit that. Does that make him a bad person worthy of the kinds of attacks I’ve read in the comments to the story? Certainly not.

Still blogging, just busy

Just a note to let faithful Lowdown readers know that I haven't given up the blog, I've just had a lot going on lately and haven't had time to focus on additional writing. I plan to refocus on a blog a bit more next week, so sit tight and thanks for you patience. Keep checking back. Also, if you don't already follow The Lowdown on Twitter, please do. That's probably the best way to find out when I've posted new material.

You can follow The Lowdown on Twitter here.

Rehberg to MT press: "I saw no signs of impairment" of boat driver who crashed on Flathead Lake, injuring five

Congressman Denny Rehberg spoke to members of the Montana press this morning for the first time since the boat crash two weeks ago that left him and four others seriously injured.
Rehberg talked for almost an hour about the events surrounding the crash.
You can download a Windows Media audio file of the complete conference call here.
Rehberg told reporters that he didn't have any reason to believe that Kalispell Sen. Greg Barkus, the driver of the boat, was impaired when he got behind the wheel and attempted to drive Rehberg and his two staffers back to their hotel on the other side of the lake.

“It would be like me talking to you right now,” Rehberg said. “I have no idea what anybody else felt. We can go through and second guess ourselves forever on this thing, but as far as I could tell I saw no signs of impairment at all. None.”

Rehberg said he had one glass of Kettlehouse Cold Smoke Scotch Ale and part of another while meeting with dinner guests at an evening get-together in Lakeside, but he said he did not observe Barkus drinking alcohol at any point that evening.

“I could not honestly tell you whether he had a drink or not.”

He said Barkus’ wife, Kathy, had small cooler on the boat that contained 12 ounces or less of margarita.

“When we first got in the boat, Kathy had a little cooler of about, oh it looked like 12 oz. or less of margarita. That was the extent of what I know was on the boat. I’m not aware of anything else.”

Rehberg said Barkus was using a GPS device to navigate across the lake to the Marina Cay Resort on Bigfork Bay. Rehberg said he recalls Barkus indicating that something “doesn’t seem right,” shortly before boat struck the rocks.
Rehberg said he didn’t think that Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan’s assertion that the boat was traveling at a speed of about 40 mph when it crashed on the rocks was correct.

“I’m no judge, because I was not paying attention and there’s nothing really to gauge it by, but to me, I’ve water skied, and I’ve water skied at 30-40 miles mph, and I wouldn’t suggest this was water skiing speed,” Rehberg said. “It’d have been a lot colder, your hair would have been flipping around a lot more.”

I’ll have more on Rehberg’s press conference in tomorrow’s Great Falls Tribune.

Details of Baucus health care plan coming to light

ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl has seen a draft of Baucus' proposed health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus was reportedly going to meet with the so-called "Gang of Six" this afternoon and give them a take-it-or-leave it proposition for the bill, according to George Stephanopoulos.

According to Karl, here are some of the key points in the bill:

- By 2013, Americans would be required to have health insurance or pay a fine. Depending on income level, the fines could be as high as $3800 per family.

- Native Americans, the very poor and those with religious objections are exempt from this new mandate.

- There’s no mandate on companies to provide insurance to their employees.

- Health insurance companies bear a big share of the costs with two new taxes:

• A $6 billion annual tax that will be divided among companies based on market share
• A tax on so-called Cadillac plans; insurance plans valued at more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for a family of four.

- Expansion of Medicaid to those up to 133 percent of the poverty level.

- Federal subsidies to help those up to 300 percent of the poverty level buy insurance

- No new government-run insurance program, aka “public option”

- As an alternative to the public option, the bill creates and funds non-profit “cooperatives” that will provide insurance coverage

- New regulations on insurance companies: e.g. Bans denial of coverage or higher rates b/c of pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies would still be allowed, however, to charge higher rates for smokers.

Baucus' plan is already taking a heat from the left.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, President Obama was meeting with Democratic leaders on the eve of his major health care speech tomorrow to plot a strategy for pushing health care reform forward. The White House wouldn't comment on how Baucus' plan fits into the mix.

Administration officials have declined to discuss in depth either Mr. Baucus’s plan or the president’s speech, which Mr. Obama will deliver Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress. But the officials welcomed Mr. Baucus’s draft as important progress just as lawmakers are returning this week from their summer recess.

Stay tuned.