Free Republic

Ann Arbor physician Catherine Wilkerson says she's been fired from the Packard Community Clinic for her political activism. Officials with the clinic insist that's not the case and say she was dismissed for refusing to sign an employee contract. Wilkerson said she refused to sign the contract because it included a vague clause that violates her freedom of speech and is unlike anything she's seen in a contract in her 30 years in medicine. "I think the clause was put in as a tool to force me out of the clinic," she said. Jim Frenza, chairman of the clinic's board...

On a brisk November morning, Cathy Wilkerson strides down one of the city’s finest streets, 11th between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, her glance sweeping across the row of handsome town houses, alighting nowhere in particular. “The street I remember,” Ms. Wilkerson says, “was a lot less polished.” If streets had memories, this one would recall a far less polished incarnation of her. On the morning of March 6, 1970, Cathy Wilkerson stumbled onto 11th Street in tatters, bleeding and her clothes all but ripped off her body. Her father’s town house, 18 West 11th Street, which she had borrowed on...

On the conference call, Dara admitted to me that she and Brian had been talking about having children since before they were married. She further admitted that after they were married she voluntarily left a job at a country club that had good health insurance, because the situation was “unmanageable.” From there she took a job at a restaurant with no health insurance, and the couple went on to have a baby anyway, presuming that others would pay for it and certainly long before they knew their daughter would have heart defect that probably cost the gross national product of...

The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the U.S. Army colonel who was Powell’s chief of staff through two administrations, said in little-noted remarks early last month that “neocons” in the top rungs of the administration quietly encouraged Taiwanese politicians to move toward a declaration of independence from mainland China — an act that the communist regime has repeatedly warned...

A US soldier who fled his unit to avoid a second posting to Iraq has pleaded guilty to the charge of desertion. Specialist Mark Wilkerson faces a sentence of not longer than 10 months in a military jail, following a plea bargain, his lawyer said. He spent a year-and-a-half on the run after failing to return from two weeks of approved leave. Specialist Wilkerson, who served a year in Iraq, said he quit after being denied conscientious objector status. "I quit the Army, I quit my unit, and I did not show up when I needed to," he told the...

Draw your own conclusions from the fact that Armitage’s best friend Colin Powell called Dick Cheney’s supporters (including Scooter Libby, Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz) the “Gestapo Office” (quite insulting considering that there is a history of relatives lost in the Holocaust among them). Factor in that Powell called Doug Feith “a card-carrying member of the Likud Party” and referred to the Likudnicks in the White House controlling policy during his “exit interview with Bush” (see Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq) – thereby showing his support for anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

Law student takes aim at Wilkerson... She is the daughter of immigrants. She is black and Hispanic. She is a single mother, and a Muslim. And, to the delight of the state party, Samiyah Diaz is also a Republican. The law student, who is collecting signatures to oppose state Senator Dianne Wilkerson, the Roxbury Democrat, in November, may have little chance of besting the 13-year incumbent. But for longtime Republicans, Diaz's candidacy is as much about shifting the image of the Republican Party as it is about winning. ''For the Republican Party, which needs to find some new energy on...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The former top aide to then-secretary of state Colin Powell has reportedly emerged as an increasingly high-profile and vocal critic of US administration policy at home and abroad. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Powell's chief-of-staff, "says his decision to speak in the open about the policy wars of the first Bush term was slow in coming, but a major factor was the revelations about Abu Ghraib, which he said he realized ... had resulted from decisions on prisoner treatment and intelligence set shortly after September 11, 2001," the New York Times reported. "What I saw was a cabal...

If you come forward to make bizarre charges against the Bush Administration, you are almost guaranteed to get heavy media coverage. Cindy Sheehan, who calls Bush a terrorist, was made into a star. Michael Moore made a fortune spinning his conspiracy theories. And recently, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, made headlines by making the absurd and easily disproved charge that a secret "cabal" runs the U.S. Government. Wilkerson charged that there was a "cabal" involving Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and that they "made decisions that the...

.... GERECHT: We actually know from inspectors that, in fact, there were large quantities of WMD that Saddam Hussein had, in fact, built. Now, what happened was that there appears to have been some change in the tactic and approach by Saddam Hussein during the 1990s. I suggest to you, the only way you really would have been able to detect that would have been multiple sources, multiple volunteers inside of those organizations that could have verified it, and that would have been very, very difficult, and the agency didn't have that type of penetration before. BLITZER: Melissa, you worked...

In coming weeks, Democratic elected officials will question the President’s intentions on the pending war with Iraq. Writers and broadcasters friendly to the Democratic cause have already been provided talking points suggesting the war is about oil, not terrorism. “The talking points were developed before the end of last year and sent out to operatives and friendly media,” one Democratic consultant confided. “No Democratic member of Congress will question the President’s patriotism openly but we will use the media and other surrogates to raise doubts.” Capitol Hill Blue obtained a copy of the talking points when the Democratic National Committee...

LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from 2002 to 2005. IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New American Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief...

Cheney 'cabal' hijacked US foreign policy Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday. In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: �gWhat I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld,...

>By Edward Alden in Washington >Published: October 20 2005 00:00 | Last updated: October 20 2005 00:19 >> Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday. In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of...

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday. In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions...

Alleged Violations Include More Than $26,000 In Unreported Contributions And More Than $18,000 In Unexplained Personal ReimbursementsSeptember 28, 2005 CONTACT: COREY WELFORD (617) 727-2543 BOSTON - State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (D-Boston) has been sued for numerous campaign finance violations, including more than $26,000 in unreported contributions and more than $18,000 in unexplained personal reimbursements, according to a lawsuit filed today by Attorney General Tom Reilly and Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) Director Michael J. Sullivan.The complaint, filed today in Suffolk Superior Court, alleges that Wilkerson, her political committee, and her former campaign treasurer Ajibola Osinubi, violated campaign...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- John R. Bolton, nominated to be U.N. ambassador, vastly overrated the military might of Syria and Cuba and had to be talked into toning down his assessments, a former senior intelligence official told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff Friday. Robert L. Hutchings, who was responsible for coordinating American intelligence assessments in 2003, told the committee staff he felt Bolton was intent on drawing conclusions in public speeches that were "politicized" and exceeded U.S. intelligence on both countries, said a committee source, speaking on condition of anonymity. In another interview, former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief...

...[T]he case against Mr. Bolton keeps morphing to suit the convenience of the accusers. Early on, the charge was that he holds unacceptable views about the U.N. "It's hard for me to know why you'd want to work at an institution that you said didn't even exist," Senator Barbara Boxer told the nominee. Yet her Democratic colleague Chris Dodd insists he does not oppose Mr. Bolton based on his "substantive views," and that "in fact, I agree with some of Mr. Bolton's conclusions about the United Nations." Next we heard the nominee's problem was his temper. "You have a habit...

...snip.... Nuclear forecast Amid the Bush administration's tough talk toward North Korea, a new fear is emerging: Could Pyongyang test a nuclear weapon this year? Some insiders think so. "Knowing Kim Jong Il 's track record for brinksmanship, I'd bet on it," says Larry Wilkerson , who worked the North Korea issue as former Secretary of State Colin Powell 's chief of staff. "If we don't resume negotiations, I'd give it a 70-30 chance." The CIA is not predicting anything imminent. But then again, it missed India's nuke test in 1998. "The only thing that would preclude this," says Wilkerson,...

Powell aides go public on rift with Bush Chief of staff says secretary of state is fed up with apologising for the administration and is disdainful of 'ideological' hawks Gary Younge in New York Thursday May 6, 2004 The Guardian Colin Powell's key aide has described US sanctions policy against countries such as Pakistan and Cuba as "the dumbest policy on the face of the Earth". In an article in GQ magazine Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff of the United States secretary of state, bemoans Mr Powell's firefighting role in President George Bush's cabinet. "He has spent as much time...

A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers' allegation was that Wilson had benefited from nepotism because the Niger mission had been his wife's idea. The official would not name the leakers for the record and would not name the journalists. The official said he had no indication that Bush knew about the calls. Columnist Robert Novak published the agent's name in a July column about Wilson's mission. It is rare for one Bush administration...

Damn, I hate it when I've been had and I've been had big time. In 1982, while I was working for Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, a man came up to a me during a gathering in Albuquerque and introduced himself as Terrance J. Wilkinson. He said he was a security consultant and gave me a business card with his name and just a Los Angeles phone number. A few weeks later, he called my Washington office and asked to meet for lunch. He seemed to know a lot about the nuclear labs in New Mexico and said he...