BackStreetPolitics

Hoboken Mayor Arrested

2009-07-23T10:11:00.001-07:00

AP from BBC News
Two mayors, rabbis and politicians are among some 30 people arrested in a major corruption and money-laundering investigation, say US authorities.

Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, and Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt are among those said to have been arrested in New Jersey.

Federal prosecutors said several rabbis were also detained in the states of New York and New Jersey.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker said it had been "an unbelievable morning so far".

Cars were said to be backed up four deep with suspects outside the FBI's office in Newark, New Jersey's largest city.

Jersey City deputy mayor Leona Beldini and former Jersey City council president L Harvey Smith were also reported to be among those arrested.

The nature of the charges they may face is unclear.

A news conference is scheduled for Thursday.

Synagogue raid

The news agency Associated Press spoke to a congregation member of a synagogue in Deal, a seaside borough in New Jersey, which was reportedly raided by agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and local prosecutors' office.

"Everyone was looking at each other, like, 'What's going on here?'" Mike Winnick said.

Mr Winnick said four FBI agents escorted a rabbi from the synagogue into his office and blocked the doorway.

Agents also removed several boxes from the nearby yeshiva, a school that educates the children of Sephardic Jews, AP reported.

Poll: US image abroad surges under Obama (They love us! Well, our fearless leader anyway.)

2009-07-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

AP on YAHOO
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's popularity has boosted America's image abroad even though deep suspicions about the U.S. persist in the Muslim world, according to a poll released Thursday.

The survey of two dozen nations conducted this spring by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that positive public attitudes toward the United States have surged in many parts of the world since Obama's election.

Positive opinions about the United States have returned to higher levels not seen since before President George W. Bush took office in 2001. The Bush presidency marked a steep decline in U.S. popularity overseas, notably after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, because of a perception that the post-9/11 war on terrorism was targeted at Muslims.

"The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama," the center said in its annual Pew Global Attitudes Report.

The only exception was Israel, where attitudes toward the U.S. have dipped since Bush left office.

Beijing Provides 100,000 Condoms For Athletes

2008-08-13T17:41:00.000-07:00

The Sydney Olympics ran out of them, so organisers of the Beijing Games are hoping 100,000 condoms will satisfy the needs of Olympic athletes.

While sex is not an Olympic sport it is expected to be an activity in the Beijing village housing 10,500 athletes, all of whom are in great shape and with plenty of free time on their hands once they're knocked out of the Games.

Athletes have received free condoms at every Olympics since Barcelona in 1992.

"There are many young, strong, single people in the athletes' village and, like everywhere, some will fall in love or other things so we need to make condoms available," said Ole Hansen, spokesman for UNAIDS China.

"A lot of these young people are not married or in relationships so we want to make sure they have the information and tools to protect themselves if they have sexual encounters."

At the Sydney Games in 2000 athletes quickly exhausted a supply of 70,000 and another 20,000 had to be brought in.
The Foundation for AIDS Research, amfAR, said 100,000 were distributed at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002 after a plan to distribute 250,000 condoms met protests by religious groups and was scaled back. At Athens in 2004 about 130,000 condoms were distributed.

Bush still an idiot

2008-08-12T14:20:00.001-07:00

President Bush addresses Americans on the invasion of "Georgia". This is a "C" student at his finest!

Bush still an idiot - Watch more free videos

McCain DHL issue could cut 10,000 jobs in Ohio

2008-08-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama's presidential campaign claimed that the general election had reached a critical turning point this past week after it was revealed that John McCain and his campaign manager had helped facilitate a merger that could result in the loss of thousands of jobs in Ohio.

On a conference call with reporters, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said news of McCain and Rick Davis' involvement in the DHL deal was "the most important development of the entire campaign this week" and would convince voters in the critical swing state that the Arizona Republican was far from his maverick image.

"He was there a month ago in this community and was asked a question about this DHL issue and did not say one word about his role in this or the role of his campaign manager. That is the furthest thing from straight talk that we can imagine," said Plouffe. "John McCain can become an emblem for people about what is wrong with Washington. He released an ad this week about how Washington is broken and how he will strive to fix it. He didn't mention that he has been enmeshed in a broken Washington culture for 26 years or that his campaign is run by the most powerful, now former lobbyist in Washington."

Prior to the press conference the Obama campaign released a harsh new radio ad blasting McCain for his role in helping "foreign-owned DHL buy a U.S. company and gain control over the jobs that are now on the chopping block in Ohio."

On Thursday, the Republican presidential candidate called on the Justice Department to launch an investigation into DHL's plans to puts its packages aboard the planes of a rival, United Parcel Service. If that deal is to go through (with UPS flying its cargo out of Louisville, Kentucky) DHL's shipping hub in Wilmington, Ohio would be effectively closed, eliminating up to 10,000 jobs.

On the conference call, Plouffe was forthcoming about the political advantages that he believed the revelation presented.

"He has spent several days now dogged with questions about this," said the campaign manager. "His appearances in Ohio were completely overshadowed by this. And by November 4 in the Cincinnati and Dayton markets this is something that is going to be known by every voter in this area."

Basic Economics

2008-08-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year. Assuming the next president lives to age 80. Sen McCain would receive ZERO pension as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president. Sen Obama would be retired for 26 years after two terms and would receive $4,973,800 in pension.

Therefore it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November.

How's that for non partisan thinking???

John Edwards admits affair (says he IS NOT the father)

2008-08-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is admitting to an extramarital affair but denies fathering the woman's daughter.

Edwards tells ABC News that he lied repeatedly about the affair with a 42-year-old woman but says that he didn't love her. He says he has not taken a paternity test but knows he isn't the father because of the timing of the affair and the birth.

ABC says a former Edwards campaign staffer claims he is the father, not Edwards.
Edwards was a top contender for the Democratic nomination for president. He placed second in the Iowa caucuses last January but dropped out of the race a few weeks later.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004.

The Tire-Gauge Solution

2008-08-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

By Michael Grunwald

How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

In fact, Obama's actual energy plan is much more than a tire gauge. But that's not what's so pernicious about the tire-gauge attacks. Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears. The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.

The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: we can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle. The energy guru Amory Lovins has shown that investment in "nega-watts" — reduced electricity use through efficiency improvements — is much more cost-effective than investment in new megawatts, and the same is clearly true of nega-barrels. It might not fit the worldviews of right-wingers who deny the existence of global warming and insist that reducing emissions would destroy our economy, or of left-wing Earth-firsters who insist that maintaining our creature comforts would destroy the world, but there's a lot of simple things we can do on the demand side before we start rushing to ratchet up supply.

We can use those twisty carbon fluorescent lightbulbs. We can unplug our televisions, computers and phone chargers when we're not using them. We can seal our windows, install more insulation and adjust our thermostats so that we waste less heat and air-conditioning. We can use more-efficient appliances, build more-efficient homes and drive more-efficient cars, preferably with government assistance. And, yes, we can inflate our tires and tune our engines, as Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida have urged, apparently without consulting the RNC. While we're at it, we can cut down on idling, which can improve fuel economy another 5%, and cut down on speeding and unnecessary acceleration, which can increase mileage as much as 20%.
And that's just the low-hanging fruit. There are other ways to reduce demand for oil — more public transportation, more carpooling, more telecommuting, more recycling, less exurban sprawl, fewer unnecessary car trips, buying less stuff and eating less meat — that would require at least some lifestyle changes. But things like tire gauges can reduce gas bills and carbon emissions now, with little pain and at little cost and without the ecological problems and oil-addiction problems associated with offshore drilling. These are the proverbial win-win-win solutions, reducing the pain of $100 trips to the gas station by reducing trips to the gas station. And Americans are already starting to adopt them, ditching SUVs, buying hybrids, reducing overall gas consumption. It's hard to see why anyone who isn't affiliated with the oil industry would object to them.

Of course, in recent years, the Republican Party has been affiliated with the oil industry. It was the oilman Dick Cheney who dismissed conservation as a mere sign of "personal virtue," not a basis for energy policy. It was the oilman George W. Bush who resisted efforts to regulate carbon emissions. And most congressional Republicans have been even more reliable water carriers for the industry's interests.

John McCain has been a notable exception. He is not an oilman; he has pushed to regulate carbon emissions; and he opposed Bush's pork-stuffed energy bill, which Obama supported. He also opposed efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and until recently opposed new offshore drilling. But now that gas prices have spiked, McCain is running for President on a drill-first platform, and polls suggest that most Americans agree with him. It's sad to see his campaign adopting the politics of the tire gauge, promoting the fallacy that Americans are powerless to address their own energy problems. Because the truth is: Yes, we can. We already are.

Foreign Aid Dollars

2008-07-31T15:48:00.000-07:00

Below are the actual voting records of various Arabic/Islamic States which are recorded in both the US State Department and United Nations records:

Kuwait votes against the United States 67% of the time

Qatar votes against the United States 67% of the time

Morocco votes against the United States 70% of the time

United Arab Emirates votes against th e U. S. 70% of the time.

Jordan votes against the United States 71% of the time.

Tunisia votes against the United State s 71% of the time.

Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 73% of the time.

Yemen votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Algeria votes against the Unit ed States 74% of the time.

Oman votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Sudan votes against the United States 75% of the time.

Pakistan votes against the United States 75% of the time.

Libya votes against the United States 76% of the time.

Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the time.

Lebanon votes against the United States 80% of the time.

India votes against the United States 81% of the time.

Syria votes against the United States 84% of the time.

Mauritania votes against the United States 87% of the time.

US Foreign Aid to those that hate us:

Egypt, for example, after voting 79% of the time against the United States, still receives $2 billion annually in US Foreign Aid.

Jordan votes 71% against the United States

And receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

Pakistan votes 75% against the United States

Receives $6,721,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

India votes 81% against the United States

Receives $143,699,000 annually.

Perhaps it is time to get out of the UN and give the tax savings back to the American workers who are having to skimp and sacrifice to pay the taxes (and gasoline).

Pass this url along to every taxpaying citizen you know...

Disgusting isn't it?

The White House wants a $1.4 billion stimulus/national security package…for Mexico

2008-02-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

A reader asked me to check into information that President Bush was pushing a massive foreign-aid package to Mexico to help them secure their southern border against the flow of illegal aliens from Central America.

“We can’t even get our own border straight, and we are going to provide Mexico with funding so they can solve their problem,” the reader fumed. “I doubt the Central Americans are staying very long in Mexico anyway. We know where they are going!”

Too outrageously outrageous to be true?

Well, I checked it out and it’s even worse than the reader described. Far worse.

The plan is called “The Merida Initiative.” Seems that the White House has had this plan in the works for nearly a year with little congressional input on either side of the border.

We can’t finish our own border fence, properly supply our immigration agents and border patrol with all the equipment and resources they need, or get our house in order. Yet, the Bush administration wants to fork over $1.4 billion to Mexico and Central America–with much of it going into the hands of corrupt law enforcement officials and government bureaucrats who have worked tirelessly to undermine our immigration laws. The funding is tucked into the 2008 supplemental budget.

Naturally, the State Department has taken a lead role. They’ve held meetings in secret and cut out members of Congress from discussion. You’ll love the explanation for the secrecy: Mexico is “sensitive,” you see. Also, according to one expert, “Mexico is very protective of its sovereignty and very worried about any incursion of U.S. security forces or private contractors—like Blackwater—coming in to train Mexicans.” Yeah, they’re worried about incursions and sovereignty.

The State Dept. disclosed the first phase of the Merida Initiative last October, involving some $550 million in aid for inspection scanners, helicopters, surveillance tools, and case management software:

This partnership would support coordinated strategies to:

*Produce a safer and more secure hemisphere where criminal organizations no longer threaten governments and regional security; and*Prevent the entry and spread of illicit drugs and transnational threats throughout the region and to the United States.

To achieve these goals, President Bush has requested $550 million as part of a multi-year program to provide:

*Non-intrusive inspection equipment, ion scanners, canine units for Mexican customs, for the new federal police and for the military to interdict trafficked drugs, arms, cash and persons.

*Technologies to improve and secure communications systems to support collecting information as well as ensuring that vital information is accessible for criminal law enforcement.

*Technical advice and training to strengthen the institutions of justice – vetting for the new police force, case management software to track investigations through the system to trial, new offices of citizen complaints and professional responsibility, and establishing witness protection programs.

*Helicopters and surveillance aircraft to support interdiction activities and rapid operational response of law enforcement agencies in Mexico.

*Initial funding for security cooperation with Central America that responds directly to Central American leaders’ concerns over gangs, drugs, and arms articulated during July SICA meetings and the SICA Security Strategy.

*Includes equipment and assets to support counterpart security agencies inspecting and interdicting drugs, trafficked goods, people and other contraband as well as equipment, training and community action programs in Central American countries to implement anti-gang measures and expand the reach of these measures in the region.

The Brookings Institute issued more details and analysis in November:

For the past six months, without input from respective legislatures, government officials have quietly planned this joint endeavor. The newly elected president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, campaigned on a platform of citizen’s security, committed $3 billion of federal funds to this priority and persuaded the Mexican army and navy to lead the fight against the drug cartels and the criminal networks. The cartels and the networks are distinct, but drug money is the juice that feeds both enterprises: together, they have become an international threat to Mexican national security.

In this campaign, President Calderon found a strong ally in President Bush. In March this year, they met in the colonial town of Merida to strategize on combating transnational crime. In the interim, and out of public scrutiny, government officials drew up the technical elements of a plan, known as the Merida Initiative, to avoid any confusion with Plan Colombia.

Under the terms of this Initiative, the United States will commit 41% of the $500 million grant to military equipment, which will include six brand new Bell 412 helicopters and two Casa 245 twin-engine aircraft. Accompanying both is a two year agreement to provide maintenance and spare parts. This represents a significant improvement over the gift of Hueys in the 1990s under the Excess Defense Articles program. Those helicopters soon became inoperable and were cannibalized for spare parts, leaving a bitter taste by the recipients of “hand me downs.” Now, the grant of new equipment, plus the maintenance and spare parts, assures the Mexican armed forces that we take collaboration seriously. However, the planned use of the Casa aircraft needs to be discussed publicly, given its multiple and potential capabilities from medevac to cargo, to intelligence gathering, even to use as a gunship equipped with light cannons.

There is encouraging news in the Initiative that 59% of the grant will be earmarked for civilian agencies responsible for law enforcement. This is much needed, but the number and complexity of Mexico’s security agencies will need more than cash to reform. Multiple Federal agencies have earned a reputation for ineffectiveness and corruption; among them, the Attorney General’s Federal Investigative Agency, the Ministry of Public Security’s Federal Preventive Police Force, the Ministry of Government’s Center for Investigation and National Security and the Ministry of Finance’s Customs Administration. Furthermore, the 32 states within the Mexican Federation hold responsibility for crime control. State security agencies and the courts have not protected the citizenry effectively. According to surveys carried out by Transparencia Mexicana, the police and justice system are perceived as having worse problems of corruption and inefficiency than other public agencies.

If you subsidize it, you’ll get more of it.

Which is exactly what Bush-Calderon Mexican stimulus package will do. Add this to Dick Lamm’s plan to destroy America.

At a little-noticed hearing (finally) on the plan last week, seems there was some opposition.

Rep. Gabrielle Gifford, D-Ariz., questioned whether it was wise to assist Mexico at a time when the U.S. economy appears to be headed toward a recession.

“Unless we have our house in order, putting millions into Central America and Mexico is not the solution,” she said.

But I haven’t read about any opposition from Republicans. Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?

Meantime, Mexico refuses to extradite criminal suspects who’ve fled from the U.S. down to Mexico unless our prosecutors drop death penalty charges against them.

Oh, and just in time to mobilize pro-illegal immigration activists during this heated campaign season, Calderon landed in the U.S. yesterday for a five-day visit:

Officially, the five-day trip is billed as an “encounter” with Mr. Calderón’s compatriots abroad, according to a statement from the president’s office to the Mexican Congress. But the visit could backfire, experts say, by putting the focus back on the hot-potato issue of Mexican migration….The trip allows him to “reach out to Mexican communities in the United States, which he hasn’t been able to do in his first year in office, and support them, and tell them they’re not alone,” said one official speaking on the condition of anonymity. And it will help him to “strengthen the relationship with the U.S. private sector” as he tries to bring more investment to Mexico, the official added.

Mr. Calderón, other officials say, is also trying to reshape the immigration debate in the United States by showcasing the “hard work” and “economic benefits” that his compatriots represent to the U.S. economy and economic integration of the two countries.

“Timing is everything, and the timing of President Calderón’s trip speaks volumes – following Super Tuesday and on the eve of the remaining primaries,” said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, president of Peschard & Associates, an independent consulting firm. “He clearly will capitalize on the timing, plus some of his politically oriented meetings, to make sure he puts Mexico on the next president’s desk and even try to shape the bilateral agenda.

”

Among the U.S. politicians Calderon will meet with: New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He will also meet with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a prominent Hispanic leader who endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

No word on whether John McCain is on the schedule. Perhaps Juan Hernandez will stand in.

I ask: Whose sovereignty is in jeopardy?

The Only Thing That Sucks More Than Your Face is Your Politics

2008-02-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

Politicians are an extremely ugly group. Perhaps from the years of working long hours, perhaps selling one's soul takes a physical toll. Regardless of the reason, professional politics is a job for ugly people like stereotypical dumb hot blonde Hollywood roles are for dumb hot blondes. But as this year's of crop of failed and current presidential candidates shows, their crappy politics suck even more than their saggy faces. Let's examine some cases.

Ron Paul:

On foriegn policy matters, Ron Paul either is monumentally ignorant on history, or he thinks he is campaigning in the 1930s. Isolationism? We tried that before dummy, it didn't work out so well. Trying to pretend that other countries don't exist works as well as closing your eyes and thinking other people can't see you because you can't see them. America will not become invisible by ignoring the rest of the world. The last time we tried this, the rest of the world thanked us with Pearl Harbor. And we will have similar results if we try it again.

Barak Obama:

What are Obama's political views? Who the heck knows? The one thing he does want to make clear to me, you and everyone else is that he is not a Washington insider. What Mr. Outsider consistently fails to mention is that he is an insider in the Illinois political machine which ranks right below Zimbabwe in terms of corruption.

The most corrupt governments in the world:

1. Zimbabwe
2. Illinois state government
3. China
4. Cuba
5. Every shit eating country in the Middle East

Congrats dirt bag, you are even more skilled at participating in corrupt politics than the rest of the Washington crowd. An Illinois insider bragging that they are a Washington outsider is like a PETA member bragging that they don't eat animals but do eat people. Fortunately there is a cure for Illinois politicians. They cower before guys named Fitzgerald like vampires before a cross.

Dennis Kucinich:

A picture is worth a thousand words.

John McCain:

He thinks that teaching Creationism "Science" should be decided by individual school districts. Great idea, why not let every district make up its own mind on the definition of all words? Creationism is not a science. It cannot be observed and tested, which real scientific theories can be. Perhaps he also thinks that schools should teach that Noah's Arc is the reason some animals exist and others are extinct (they drowned). Why not teach the Book of Genesis along side astronomical observations to explain how the universe came to be? A background of microwave radiation that shows traces of the Big Bang? That was on the first day. Try keeping real science in the science classes and stories of faith in theology classes douche bag.

Mike Huckabee:

Not to be outdone by McCain's pandering to Christian conservatives Huckabee takes it a step farther and is one of the people McCain panders to. He spends his free time disbelieving in evolution and spends his work time advocating putting the 10 Commandments up in schools. Seeing as how these guys want to use the class room to promote their politics and religious views, I have a proposal, instead of using numbers to teach math, we can use politics. For example:

Astronomy + dinosaur bones / evolution = Creationists are a bunch of idiots

Mitt Romney:

It isn't actually possible to agree or disagree with Romney on anything because he agrees with every position under the sun. It just depends on who he is trying to please at the moment. He flip flops so much that he is actually more like John Kerry than John Kerry is. Once he was changing positions so rapidly that Teresa Heinz Kerry got confused and tried to make out with him and Kerry's kids have mistakenly given Romney Christmas presents instead of their dad three different years.

Hillary Clinton:

It turns out my original premise, that politician's views are even uglier than their faces is wrong. Despite having never been right about anything in her entire life, Clinton's face is still uglier than her views. She is so ugly that her ugliness f***s up the space-time continuum. Historians have recently discovered that her ugliness inspired the ancient Greek myth of Medusa Gorgon, thousands of years before she was born. Try to tell the difference between these pictures:

That is right, it isn't possible. Not from face shots only anyway. The only known possible difference is that the Greek myth never specifically mentions Medusa having cankles. As is well known, cankles are the ugliest possible trait a woman can have, therefore Clinton beats Medusa for the title of Ugliest Woman Ever.

Huckabee wins W.Va.

2008-02-05T11:45:00.000-08:00

Republican Mike Huckabee scored the first Super Tuesday victory, winning all 18 delegates at stake in West Virginia.

The former Arkansas governor won with the support of 52 percent of the state's GOP convention delegates on the second round of balloting. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came in second with 47 percent of the vote, and Sen. John McCain was backed by 1 percent of the delegates.

Romney was ahead in the first round of voting in Charleston but failed to get the majority needed to win.

With 24 states and American Samoa holding primaries or caucuses, Super Tuesday is virtually a national primary day and a pivotal day in the Democratic and Republican races for the White House.

Some of the biggest prizes of the primary season -- California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Missouri and Georgia -- are up for grabs.

Senator Clinton needs a remedial math refresher

2008-02-05T08:51:00.000-08:00

During the debates a reporter asked Senator Clinton why she thinks that she would be a better president than Senator Obama; he underscored this question by reminding the senator that she had served in public office for only a few years more than her competitor (Senator Clinton has been a senator for approximately 8-years) and yet she constantly refers to her much greater experience both as a necessity and as a kind of sideways dig against Senator Obama. Her answer began "I have 35-years of experience..."

By the way, that would be a lie. That's the word one uses to describe a false statement.

Continuing... She then went on to describe her graduation from law school and her desire to not join a firm; and instead to help impoverished children and people without healthcare. This explanation continued to her time as First Lady, leading to present day.

So apparently, Senator Clinton considers graduating law school as the beginning of a political career and *day dreaming* about helping people as the same thing as *actually* helping people.

This is why I must maintain that "either one" with regard to the leading Democratic party candidates would not be good. There will always be differences of opinion, but this was an easy-to-answer question, clearly stated, and the senator chose to disrespect the journalist by simple denial. Pathetic.

On a side note: There's also the glaring contradiction in Senator Clinton's constant claim that she represents true "change" yet simultaneously she is maintaining that she's been a politician for 35-years. But that's another post.

Illegals Costing US Taxpayers More Than Iraq War

2008-02-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cisorg/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cisorg/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers. http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts..cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report. http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12 The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States". http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

Total cost is a whooping... $338.3 BILLION A YEAR!!!

Snopes is provided for doubters:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/bankofamerica.asp

Rudy Giuliani says he is ending his bid for GOP presidential nomination, endorsing Sen. John McCain.

2008-01-30T15:42:00.000-08:00

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani ended his GOP presidential race and endorsed rival Sen. John McCain of Arizona on Wednesday.

And sources say California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger might endorse McCain on Thursday.

"This is a man who is prepared to be president," Giuliani said of his "old friend."

Giuliani said McCain gives the Republican Party the best chance to hold onto the presidency.

"I am very proud to endorse my friend and fellow Republican -- a hero -- John McCain," Giuliani said at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley California, two hours before the Republican presidential candidates were to face each other in their final debate before the Super Tuesday contests next week.

Meanwhile, two Republican sources told CNN that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in discussions about endorsing McCain.

One of the sources said, "you can safely describe the conversations as progressing and productive." The second source described the endorsement as "more than expected" and said the conversations were aimed at arranging a Thursday announcement.

Giuliani described McCain as "the other best candidate."

"I made it clear before I had to make this decision [to drop out] that had I not run, I'd be supporting John McCain," Giuliani told reporters on a flight to Burbank, California, for the debate.

The debate is being sponsored by CNN, the Los Angeles Times and Politico, and begins at 8 p.m. ET.

I am running for President. This is my platform

2008-01-30T13:12:00.000-08:00

It will be a write in campaign. I hope I can count on your support.

1. Illegal Immigration - Its illegal. You are all criminals. Go home. When elected I will fix the ridiculous length of time it takes to become a part of this nation. Supercomputers, face recognition technology, DNA testing...it can't be that difficult. When you become a citizen...I heartily welcome you back to your new home.

2. Medical Coverage and Nationalized Health Care - Don't get sick. Take care of yourself. Walk your dog, play with your kids, go dancing. Live life until you die. Eat right. Don't smoke. You will lead a productive life. When elected, I will commit to nationalized healthcare. If you get cancer from your job, heredity, bad luck...we are here for you. But if you are stupid, and refuse to take care of yourself, the nation ain't payin'.

3. War - Politicians don't wage war. Politicians wage words. I will talk. The military will fight. We will never fight another wasted battle when I am in office. We will not worry about the rest of the world thinking that we are war mongers. If we need to fight, we will fight. And we will win. Nothing else is acceptable. You will never see "Rules of Engagement" coming from my White House. We fight, we win. Period. Whatever it takes. Not one dead soldier for a war that doesn't mean anything. Is the middle east going to explode? When I take office, I will turn Israel loose with some no joke weaponry. The problem should take care of itself within the week.

4. FEMA - New Orleans was and is a national disaster. The storm, and the way it was handled. When elected, I will hunt down the non-effective people that were leaders of FEMA at that time, and prosecute them for manslaughter. Should make the current leaders of the organization sit up and take notice. Next hurricane, their should be caviar and champagne for everyone.

5. Celebrity Justice - You folks have a higher visibility. You make tons more money. When I am in office, I will lobby for a law to be passed that celebrities who are found guilty of infractions of the law will be adjudged 3 times more severely than regular folks. Politicians will be adjudged 10 times more severely. Lawyers will be shot. For jaywalking.

6. Global Warming - When President, I will get the UN to use their peacekeeping force as environmental regulators. And where ever in the world that an offender is found, they will have 1 month to stop and fix what is polluting. If it can't be done in one month, an extension of six months may be given. After that it will be shutdown or blown up. This includes the area up and down the Houston Ship Channel.

7. Dog Fighting - Mans best friend. If you are caught dog fighting/ abusing animals, you will be Tasered. Every 20 minutes. For the next 30 years.
I ain't having that.

8. Oil Companies - See #3 above. After Israel gets through, we should be back to having $.29 cent gas again. I hope you Oil Company guys bring back those nifty glasses and Big Bonus stamps you used to give away to people when they filled up their tank. Oh...and yeah...go ahead and check the oil, and tire pressure while I sit here and watch.

God Bless the United States Marine Corps. Thank you for your time.

IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT

2008-01-29T14:33:00.000-08:00

Prime Minister John Howard - Australia

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Quote: 'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.'

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom'

'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!'

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.'

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'

'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.'

Maybe if this is circulated, American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths.

I want a president with a backbone like this !!!!!!! Ron Paul? I am voting for whoever gets our immigration problem staightened out, no more anchor babys, no more hand outs of our social security to people that want to destroy our Country.

Wanted: YOUR TOYS

2008-01-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

You: an average American. You are deeply in debt and still continue to borrow every day to feed your habit. You walk into Brugger's and, for a measly $2.99 coffee and breakfast sandwich, you rip out the credit card because you have no cash (that’s me behind you in line). The concept of buying only those things you can actually afford is foreign to you. You feel that a $500k home with a big screen TV and BMW in the driveway are entitlements you deserve … even though you never finished college and earn about $45k/year. Going back to school … improving your skills … these are also distasteful to you. Math was not your favorite subject and, when the mortgage brokers told you that you could borrow your way to riches, you bit hook, line and sinker. Your mortgage rate has reset …you’re on the verge of foreclosure, making minimum payments on your credit cards and the Yellow Pages book on your kitchen table is opened up to “Bankruptcy Attorneys”. Gas prices and utility bills are killing you. Your job is not as secure as you thought. You are panicked. You are desperate. And the liquidation of assets (toys) such as your Beemer, your Big Screen, your fancy electronic toys, your Sea Doo, that nice new diamond ring bought with home equity cash … is going to be necessary to buy food and heat.

Of course, it’s all someone else’s fault. That someone else is …

Me: I sold my home at in late 2005 knowing full well that this massive housing bubble was unsustainable (I was a math major – that geeky guy you hated and despised in high school). And, no, you can’t copy my test answers. I put over half a million in the bank (less than $100k in any one bank to have complete FDIC insurance coverage). I didn’t have a mortgage because I always spent less than I earned and aggressively paid off my mortgage in just 7 years. I also didn’t pay a Realtor commission when I sold – who needed a Realtor to sell ANYTHING in 2005. I could have sold an outhouse for $250k to you dopes back then. I am a renter and I rent a 3-bedroom home cheap ($1600/mo) because the landlord has no pricing power. Rents are going to get even cheaper as more housing supply comes on the market and desperate flippers will rent at almost any price to soften the negative cash flow a bit. While you were buying your McMansion, I paid cash for everything, have no debt whatsoever and SAVE almost $30k/year. I don’t own a big screen TV or a boat. I have never bought a new car and I never will (not an investment – a depreciating asset). I am clearly *NOT* doing my part to support the US economy and you can blame me all you want for not pulling my weight. I am going to be a homeowner again but not for a few years. Housing is going to take a 50%+ haircut no matter what “stimulus” Bush provides in the form of rebates and regardless of whether Bernanke cuts interest rates to ZERO. The bond market will negate any interest rate reduction in hours or minutes. That ¾ point cut last week was swallowed up by the bond market in just 3 hours. It won’t matter a whit as there is too much debt and leverage in play for this not to unwind very painfully. I am not in the stock market either as that haircut will be equally painful. In the meantime, I want to enjoy life so I’m in the market for a few toys; specifically *your* toys (I don’t pay retail for anything). At the right price, my son would love to watch sports on a nice big screen. I’m thinking of riding your jet skis this summer (cheap, of course). I met a wonderful woman this past autumn and we are hitting it off amazingly. She and I are like-minded with regard to the above. So, she would not mind at all wearing that nice diamond ring even if it’s second hand (she’d probably come in her panties if she knew I got it for pennies on the dollar). My Jetta still runs nice but your BMW would be a great addition to my driveway. I don’t care what you owe on it – I’m not paying that much. But I am paying CASH. What have you got?

Should single moms be forced to work in prostitution camps for the state?

2008-01-18T15:59:00.000-08:00

Every day, my taxes are wasted propping up the low of our society. Layabouts, thieves, drug addicts, alcoholics, politicians and worst of all single moms. Why are they the worst? Because they ended up having sex with someone from the other catergories on my list, without the scarcest regard for what would happen in 9 months time.

Then, they stick their hand out saying feed me and clothe my child. Why in gods name would I want to help them out? If they are old enough to spread their legs and open their snatch, then they better be old enough to deal with the consequences.

What is it with women always wanting something for nothing? Single moms take it to the next level and I think that as a society we say enough is enough. You want some money for ciggies and a new bib for your delinquent baby, then you should earn that money. That is how our great society has evolved, trading goods and services for money.

In my country, we now make the unemployed work for the dole payment and I think a similar idea could be used for single moms, I call it hook for the dole. It makes sense, single moms like nothing better than sex, so I'm sure they won't have too much of a problem with this.

There are plenty of single guys that want sex, who can't get it at the moment, who wouldn't mind paying say 20 to 30 bucks to bang some slack, fatarsed single mom in a government sponsered brothel. It would stop the sexual assaults that happen in society, if the deviants could get a budget blowjob or discount doggie style. You could also have a creche in the brothel so the mums could breastfeed their child in between clients, maybe for a tip they could breastfeed their child whilst servicing a client, what would a single mom care, she has no dignity, she lost that the night she gangbanged a bar full of scumbags.

If the government started working these single moms, the average tax bill for taxpayers could be halved, it's a win/win, taxpayers paying less tax and single moms getting all the sex their hearts desire.

I think it would be a great idea, get single moms to finally put something back into society after taking so much for nothing. It seems like the only fair and reasonable thing to do.

Tax Payer

So you anti-science / Flat Earth types - what do you make of this?

2008-01-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

First 'proven' human cloned embryo

Friday, 18 January 2008
ABC/Reuters

No patient-specific stem cells yet: but the first documented and proven cloned human embryo, researchers say.
US scientists involved with a small company set up by an unnamed investor report they are the first to clone human embryos and prove it.

But some researchers are asking how much of a scientific development this really is.

Dr Andrew French of Stemagen Corporation of La Jolla in California and colleagues have published their findings online ahead of print publication in the journal Stem Cells.

The researchers used somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to clone five early-stage embryos, called blastocysts, from donated human eggs and skin cells from two men.

"This study demonstrates, for the first time, that SCNT can produce human blastocyst stage embryos using nuclei from a differentiated adult somatic cell," the researchers say.

They says the used eggs were "excess" and donated, free of charge by three young women involved in a fertility program.

The researchers' long term aim is to use SCNT to produce patient-specific stem cells for possible treatments, but this time around they did not actually produce stem cells from the cloned embryos.

Instead, they destroyed the embryos in the process of checking their DNA in order to prove they were clones.

French, who previously created animal clones while at Monash University in Australia, says the research team wants to make embryonic stem cells from donated embryos to perfect the technique before trying to use cloning methods again to make tailored cells.

"This field has faced a lot of controversy so we wanted to be clean," says French.

Excess eggs

Stemagen Corporation's founder Dr Samuel Wood says his success at a large fertility clinic encouraged him to pursue cloning and stem cell research.

"We had this great excess of embryos in the tank that eventually were donated to research or to other couples. But what I also noticed was that we had a great excess of eggs," says Wood.

Human eggs are needed to use cloning techniques to make embryos, and that got Wood thinking. His mother had type-2 diabetes and died after a bad fall. He knew of an investor whose mother had died from a degenerative disease.

Wood says he made his pitch in 2005 to the investor, who wants to remain anonymous, "over a martini in a local restaurant." He then recruited French from Australia.

Wood says the cloning technique is only efficient if the egg is used within two hours of being taken from the woman.

A limited advance

While some cloning experts support the new company's work, others are sceptical, including Dr Douglas Melton, who helped found Harvard University's stem cell research centre.

"The value, if any, will come from using the cells to discover drugs, i.e. using the cells as research tools," Melton says.

Others are also working on producing human embryos using SNCT but what many researchers really want to see are stem cells.

"This is the most successful description so far of the use of the cloning techniques with purely human material," says UK stem cell expert Professor Robin Lovell-Badge of the MRC National Institute for Medical Research.

"However, it is still a long way from achieving the goal of obtaining ES cells.

Lovell-Badge says in recent Rhesus monkey experiments only two embryonic stem cell lines were obtained from about 300 starting eggs.

"So it is likely that many more attempts will be necessary before anyone can calculate rates and claim real success in humans," he says.

"It still makes sense to explore the use of non-primate eggs first, until the methods can be improved, rather than using valuable human eggs."

Slippery slope?

Opponents of cloning technology say it is a slippery slope to using cloning to make live babies.

Wood is mindful his work at a fertility clinic could raise suspicions. But he notes that cloned animals are often abnormal.

"To put any human through that just strikes me as inherently unethical," he says.

But federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research in the US is limited and the work is restricted to a few academic labs that can juggle the complex requirements of the federal limits, and private companies.

Other companies researching stem cells include Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology, California-based International Stem Cell Corporation and Geron Corporation.

CNN doing their best to Misinform

2007-10-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, I just can't help but get this feeling there's something missing from the article below. Hmmm.... what could it be...what could it be?

Oh yeah, I know, how about some statistics that actually show how the economy is doing. Which is well, extremely well and nowhere near a recession in fact quite the opposite.

So why does nearly half the country think we are in recession when we are in an economic boom? Could it be shitty biased journalism from the likes of CNN? Uh yeah. I do believe so.

October 18, 2007
Poll: Nearly half think U.S. in recession

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Nearly half of Americans feel the U.S. economy is in a recession, marked by a significant decline in economic activity, according to a survey released Thursday.

The poll by the CNN-Opinion Research Corporation found that while 46 percent of Americans hold that belief, 51 percent don't.

Black citizens were more pessimistic than whites, findings show.

Sixty-nine percent of black Americans feel the United States is in a recession, while only 42 percent of white Americans feel the same way.

The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP (Gross Domestic Product), real income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales."

The GDP measures the economy's output. It represents the total market value of all goods and services produced in the United States during a specified period.

According to the bureau, "a recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity, and ends as the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the economy is in an expansion. Expansion is the normal state of the economy; most recessions are brief and they have been rare in recent decades."

The recession findings may be having an impact on President Bush's approval rating.

The CNN-ORC poll finds Mr. Bush's approval rating remains steady at 36 percent, but his approval rating among black Americans is just 15 percent.

CNN Polling Director Keating Holland says "a majority of whites also disapprove of Bush, although four in 10 have a favorable view of his administration. The president's approval rating has been stuck at 36 percent since late summer."

The sampling error for the survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points for all but the black vs. white breakdowns, which have a sampling error of 5.5 percentage points.

– CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser

Two of 'Jena Six' defendants present BET award

2007-10-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

Two of the teens enmeshed in the nationally known "Jena Six" case helped present the most anticipated award during Black Entertainment Television's Hip Hop Awards show broadcast Thursday night.

Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis were introduced by Katt Williams, a comedian and the awards show's host, as two of the students involved in a case of "systematic racism."

"By no means are we condoning a six-on-one beat-down," Williams said during his introduction of the teens, one of whom is still facing attempted murder charges in connection with the attack on white student Justin Barker. "... But the injustice perpetrated on these young men is straight criminal."

As Jones and Purvis walked onto the stage at the Atlanta Civic Center, where the awards show was filmed on Saturday, they were greeted by a standing ovation.
"They don't look so tough, do they?" Williams joked as the teens stepped up to the podium.

Both Jones and Purvis thanked a number of people, including family, friends, the "Hip-Hop Nation" and the thousands who came to their small hometown to rally behind their case.

Purvis said the Sept. 20 rally proved "our generation can unite and rally around a cause."

The teens assisted Williams in presenting the Video of the Year honor to Kanye West for "Stronger." Purvis handed the award to West, who in turn shook hands with both teens.

'Should be humbled'

Some have been critical of the appearance, saying the teens -- accused of knocking Barker unconscious and then stomping and kicking on him until another student intervened -- shouldn't be made out to be celebrities. Barker was treated at a local emergency room for close to three hours and then released.
"If anything, they should be humbled and go home and not be trying to get celebrity status off a tragedy," one person wrote on a BET blog post.

Another wrote on the blog, titled "What's wrong with this picture?" featuring a picture of Jones and Purvis on the red carpet, "... this is what I was protesting for! So that later you could show up at the BET awards and style and profile?"

But Tina Jones, Purvis' mom, said BET contacted the Jena Six families to come to the awards show "to get away for a relaxing weekend."

Also attending the show was Mychal Bell's father, Marcus Jones; Carwin Jones' parents, John Jenkins and Dwanda Jones; and Theo McCoy, the father of Theo Shaw, another defendant.

"You can't get caught up in what people say," Tina Jones said. "They are going to say something no matter what you do."

She said her son was most excited about meeting rappers Birdman and Lil Wayne.

Court allowed the trip

Some have questioned if Carwin Jones and Purvis were allowed to leave the state legally, but Bill Furlow, a spokesman for LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, said the boys sought and received the court's permission before going.
Jenkins said the past few months have been stressful for everyone involved and that it was "good to see the kids go out and have fun and laugh."

"I'm just praying that everything turns out OK for everybody," he said.

But the criticism has been extensive, including comments from those who said they made the trek to Jena for the rally.

"They can find somebody else to march for them (be)cause I will not be there the next time, and whoever invited them to this should be slapped," one person wrote on the BET blog. "(You're) not setting a good example for the justice that everyone is fighting for. You look like the thugs they said the Jena 6 are. Thanks for making us look stupid!"

A poster who said he was from near Jena said it is "sad making the Jena 6 out as heros."

But Tina Jones emphasized that the appearance was only an opportunity to get away from the stress of the case and Jena -- not about raising awareness or gaining celebrity status.

Purvis' attorney, Darrell Hickman, declined to comment about his client's appearance and said he doesn't know of any others scheduled in the future.

Messages left Thursday for Carwin Jones' attorney, Mike Nunnery, went unreturned.

Calls placed Thursday to the Barker family for comment went unanswered.

Carwin Jones and Purvis were charged initially with second-degree murder, along with Bell, Shaw, Robert Bailey and Jesse Ray Beard, in connection with the Dec. 4 beating of Barker at Jena High School.

Bell, who was 16 at the time of the attack, is the first of the six defendants to have been tried and was convicted in June of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime. Both of those felony convictions later were vacated and sent back to juvenile court.

Bell is currently at the Renaissance Home for Youth in Alexandria , said the Rev. B.L. Moran of Jena, who has actively advocated for the teens, including testifying at a congressional hearing earlier this week.

Bell had spent almost 10 months incarcerated in a LaSalle Parish adult facility before being released on bail in September. He was free for two weeks before being taken back into custody and sentenced to 18 months in connection with two previous juvenile adjudications, the Rev. Al Sharpton said.

Charges against Bailey, Carwin Jones and Shaw have been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime, which they will face in adult court. Current information about Bell's and Beard's cases are unknown as they are being handled in juvenile court and aren't open to the public.

Purvis is scheduled for arraignment on Nov. 7.

Media myths about the Jena 6

2007-10-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

A local journalist tells the story you haven't heard.
By Craig Franklin

Jena, La. - By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they've all heard the story of the "Jena 6." White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There's just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning.

The reason the Jena cases have been propelled into the world spotlight is two-fold: First, because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side's statements – the Jena 6. Second, the media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they'd read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue.

The real story of Jena and the Jena 6 is quite different from what the national media presented. It's time to set the record straight.

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a "whites-only" tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of "Lonesome Dove.") The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals. The students who hung the nooses have not publicly come forward to give their version of events.

Myth 3: Nooses Were a Hate Crime. Although many believe the three white students should have been prosecuted for a hate crime for hanging the nooses, the incident did not meet the legal criteria for a federal hate crime. It also did not meet the standard for Louisiana's hate-crime statute, and though widely condemned by all officials, there was no crime to charge the youths with.

Myth 4: DA's Threat to Black Students. When District Attorney Reed Walters spoke to Jena High students at an assembly in September, he did not tell black students that he could make their life miserable with "the stroke of a pen." Instead, according to Walters, "two or three girls, white girls, were chit-chatting on their cellphones or playing with their cellphones right in the middle of my dissertation. I got a little irritated at them and said, 'Pay attention to me. I am right now having to deal with an aggravated rape case where I've got to decide whether the death penalty applies or not.' I said, 'Look, I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make your life miserable so I want you to call me before you do something stupid.'"

Mr. Walters had been called to the assembly by police, who had been at the school earlier that day dealing with some students who were causing disturbances. Teachers and students have confirmed Walters's version of events.

Myth 5: The Fair Barn Party Incident. On Dec. 1, 2006, a private party – not an all-white party as reported – was held at the local community center called the Fair Barn. Robert Bailey Jr., soon to be one of the Jena 6, came to the party with others seeking admittance.

When they were denied entrance by the renter of the facility, a white male named Justin Sloan (not a Jena High student) at the party attacked Bailey and hit him in the face with his fist. This is reported in witness statements to police, including the victim, Robert Bailey, Jr.

Months later, Bailey contended he was hit in the head with a beer bottle and required stitches. No medical records show this ever occurred. Mr. Sloan was prosecuted for simple battery, which according to Louisiana law, is the proper charge for hitting someone with a fist.

Myth 6: The "Gotta-Go" Grocery Incident. On Dec. 2, 2006, Bailey and two other black Jena High students were involved in an altercation at this local convenience store, stemming from the incident that occurred the night before. The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him. The two parties gave conflicting statements to police. However, two unrelated eye witnesses of the event gave statements that corresponded with that of the white male.

Myth 7: The Schoolyard Fight. The event on Dec. 4, 2006 was consistently labeled a "schoolyard fight." But witnesses described something much more horrific. Several black students, including those now known as the Jena 6, barricaded an exit to the school's gym as they lay in wait for Justin Barker to exit. (It remains unclear why Mr. Barker was specifically targeted.)

When Barker tried to leave through another exit, court testimony indicates, he was hit from behind by Mychal Bell. Multiple witnesses confirmed that Barker was immediately knocked unconscious and lay on the floor defenseless as several other black students joined together to kick and stomp him, with most of the blows striking his head. Police speculate that the motivation for the attack was related to the racially charged fights that had occurred during the previous weekend.

Myth 8: The Attack Is Linked to the Nooses. Nowhere in any of the evidence, including statements by witnesses and defendants, is there any reference to the noose incident that occurred three months prior. This was confirmed by the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, Donald Washington, on numerous occasions.

Myth 9: Mychal Bell's All-White Jury. While it is true that Mychal Bell was convicted as an adult by an all-white jury in June (a conviction that was later overturned with his case sent to juvenile court), the jury selection process was completely legal and withstood an investigation by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Court officials insist that several black residents were summoned for jury duty, but did not appear.

Myth 10: Jena 6 as Model Youth. While some members were simply caught up in the moment, others had criminal records. Bell had at least four prior violent-crime arrests before the December attack, and was on probation during most of this year.

Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America. Actually, Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks. The media's distortion and outright lies concerning the case have given this rural Louisiana town a label it doesn't deserve.

Myth 12: Two Levels of Justice. Outside protesters were convinced that the prosecution of the Jena 6 was proof of a racially biased system of justice. But the US Justice Department's investigation found no evidence to support such a claim. In fact, the percentage of blacks and whites prosecuted matches the parish's population statistics.

These are just 12 of many myths that are portrayed as fact in the media concerning the Jena cases. (A more thorough review of all events can be found at www.thejenatimes.net – click on Chronological Order of Events.)

As with the Duke Lacrosse case, the truth about Jena will eventually be known. But the town of Jena isn't expecting any apologies from the media. They will probably never admit their error and have already moved on to the next "big" story. Meanwhile in Jena, residents are getting back to their regular routines, where friends are friends regardless of race. Just as it has been all along.

• Craig Franklin is assistant editor of The Jena Times.

Brownback to drop '08 bid

2007-10-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON - Republican Sam Brownback will drop out of the 2008 presidential campaign on Friday, people close to the Kansas senator told NBC News Thursday.

Trouble raising money was a main reason for his decision, said one person close to Brownback, who requested anonymity because the candidate had not yet announced his plans.

Brownback, a lesser-known conservative contender, is expected announce his withdrawal in Topeka, Kan.

The senator is widely expected to seek the Kansas governor’s office in 2010, when his term—his second—expires. He had promised in his first Senate campaign to serve no more than two terms.

Brownback had raised a little more than $800,000 from July through September and around $4 million overall. He is eligible for $2 million in federal matching funds.

Besides money, Brownback’s support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants hurt him in Iowa, an early-voting state that has struggled to provide education, medical care and other services as the number of immigrants has more than doubled since 1990.

Brownback spent a good chunk of his money on the Iowa straw poll, an early test of strength whose significance diminished after Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani decided not to compete. He finished third behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

People close to Brownback said it was unlikely he would endorse another candidate on Friday.

It’s uncertain how much weight a Brownback endorsement would carry. While he is a favorite of religious conservatives, he failed to become their consensus candidate and ranks low in national polls and state surveys.

Still, a nod from Brownback could bolster the conservative credentials of a candidate such as McCain or Huckabee.

Those two rivals appear most likely to receive Brownback’s support. Brownback and McCain are close Senate comrades and have refrained from criticizing one another, instead assailing Romney.

While McCain has a voting record similar to Brownback’s on cultural issues, McCain prompts skepticism on the right flank of the party because he isn’t a high-profile crusader against abortion rights and gay marriage. Brownback’s backing could signal to Christian conservatives that they can trust McCain.

Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, is another favorite of religious conservatives. But like Brownback, he has struggled to get that voting bloc to rally around him with political support. He, too, could benefit from Brownback’s backing.

It’s harder to imagine any other Republican in the field getting a Brownback nod, although former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is a possibility. The Kansas senator has bitterly criticized Romney, and Giuliani is detested by the religious right for his abortion rights and gay rights positions.

Sarkozy and wife announce divorce

2007-10-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

PARIS, France (CNN) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Cecilia, have divorced by mutual consent, the couple's attorney told a French radio network.

"A judge heard it, and the judge pronounced the divorce," Michele Cahen told Europe 1 radio. Europe 1 reported the divorce was finalized Monday.

Cahen said all matters dealing with finances and custody of the couple's five children -- four from previous marriages -- have been resolved.

"There is no problem. It went very well, there was not the least bit of trouble," Cahen said.

Elysee Palace announced Thursday the Sarkozys were separating, but offered no further details. The announcement followed weeks of speculation and rumors that the couple's marriage of 11 years was in trouble. The office said the couple would be making no further statements.

Cecilia Sarkozy has been increasingly absent from her husband's side since he came to power in May.

Rumors about the marriage intensified this week after a presidential spokesman said Cecilia Sarkozy would skip a state visit to Morocco next week. The spokesman played it down as a simple scheduling announcement.

Cecilia Sarkozy was a smiling figure at her husband's inauguration in May as she stood with the children. But she has since said the role of a first lady was not something she was comfortable with, and recently, she said she didn't see herself as having any role at all.

Nicolas Sarkozy said at the start of his term that he had no worries as president, except for his wife.

The divorce comes as Sarkozy, in Portugal for a European Union summit, faces crippling public sector strikes at home. The walkout has shut down France's transit system and poses the first big challenge for Sarkozy's government.

For the French public, news of the divorce is unlikely to come as a shock. French presidents and their spouses have a long tradition of leading separate lives, even while carrying on the functions of state.

Former President Francois Mitterrand not only lived apart from his wife, Danielle, but he maintained a secret second family that turned up in public only at his funeral.

Jacques Chirac, who stepped down when Sarkozy was elected this year, hinted at a number of affairs. He and his wife lived largely separate lives, appearing together only at presidential functions.

The Sarkozys themselves have had a tumultuous marriage, staying together despite public affairs and rumors of infidelity.

Bush veto of child health bill sustained

2007-10-18T11:51:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON - House Democrats were unable Thursday to override President Bush's veto of their pre-election year effort to expand a popular government health insurance program to cover 10 million children.

The bill had bipartisan support but the 273-156 roll call was 13 votes short of the two-thirds that majority supporters needed to enact the bill into law over Bush's objections. The bill had passed the Senate with a veto-proof margin.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program now subsidizes health care insurance coverage for about 6 million children at a cost of about $5 billion a year. The vetoed bill would have added 4 million more children, most of them from low-income families, to the program at an added cost of $7 billion annually.

To pay for the increase, the bill would have raised the federal tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1.00 a pack.

"This is not about an issue. It's about a value," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said just before the vote. "For the cost of less than 40 days in Iraq, we can provide SCHIP coverage for 10 million children for one year."

Forty-four Republicans voted to override Bush's veto — one fewer than GOP members who voted Sept. 25 to pass the bill. Only two Democrats voted to sustain Bush's veto compared with six who had voted against the bill. The two were Reps. Jim Marshall of Georgia and Gene Taylor of Mississippi.

"We won this round on SCHIP," White House press secretary Dana Perino said after the vote. She said a million-dollar lobbying campaign by several labor unions and advocacy groups to turn enough Republican votes for a successful override "didn't work."

Bush, anticipating that his veto would stand, has assigned three top advisers to try to negotiate a new deal with Congress. One of them, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said: "It's now time for us to get to the hard work of finding a solution and get SCHIP reauthorized. We also have a larger task, to provide every American with the means of having an insurance policy."

Republican opponents said the bill would encourage too many middle-income families to substitute government-subsidized insurance for their private insurance. The bill gives states financial incentives to cover families with incomes up to three times the federal poverty level — $61,950 for a family of four.

"That's not low-income. That's a majority of households in America," said Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif.

The bill specifically states that illegal immigrants would remain ineligible for the children's program, but Republicans seized on a section that would allow families to provide a Social Security number to indicate citizenship. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said it's too easy to get a false number, which would give an opening for thousands of illegal immigrants to enroll.

But Democrats said the bill's original focus remained intact. States would be given bonuses for signing up low-income children already eligible for the program but not enrolled.

"Under current law, these boys and girls are entitled to their benefits," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. "Continuing to not provide them with coverage is a travesty."

The president said his veto gives him a chance to weigh in on the future of the program.

"Sometimes the legislative branch wants to go on without the president, pass pieces of legislation and the president can then use the veto to make sure he's a part of the process," Bush said Wednesday.

Leading the discussions for his administration are Mike Leavitt, the health and human services secretary; Al Hubbard, director of the National Economic Council; and Jim Nussle, the White House budget chief.

Supporters of the bill said they already had compromised in winning passage of the bill last month in both houses. The House originally had proposed a $50 billion increase over five years.

The bill is bipartisan, and the Senate has shown it could override a veto. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has replied with an emphatic "no" when asked if he would seek a compromise with the administration.

Both the House and Senate have to override a veto for a bill to become law over a president's objection.

Through the program, the government and the states subsidize the cost of health coverage for families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.

Bush has recommended a $1 billion annual increase in the program, bringing total spending over five years to $30 billion — half the level called for in the bill that he vetoed.

Proponents emphasized that the program still would focus on low-income families. Dingell said more than 90 percent of families covered have incomes that are below $41,300 for a family of four. That is the range that the program was originally designed to help.

"There will be no wealthy people covered," Dingell said.

Some public opinion polls indicate support for expanding the program. Sixty-one percent said Congress should override Bush's veto of a bill expanding the program, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released Wednesday. Blacks were more likely than whites to favor overriding Bush's veto.

Feminists Have More Fun

2007-10-18T11:47:00.001-07:00

Feminism boosts sexual satisfaction for both men and women, a new study suggests.

Busting stereotypes that peg feminists as ugly lesbians, a new study shows that having a feminist partner is linked with healthier, more romantic heterosexual relationships.

The study, published online this week in the journal Sex Roles, relied on surveys of both college students and older adults, finding that women with egalitarian attitudes do find mates and men do find them attractive. In fact, results reveal they are having a good time, maybe a better time than the non-feminists.

Both men and women are prone to holding negative views of feminists, the authors say. Along with the sexually unattractive stereotype, some women also view feminism as a movement for victims, or for women who aren't competent enough to achieve success on their own merit, according to the Rutgers University researchers.

Psychologists Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan carried out a laboratory survey of 242 Rutgers undergraduates and conducted an online survey of 289 older adults who had an average age of 26 and typically had been in their current relationship about four years.

Older adults have more life experience "and thus may be more likely to show an incompatibility between feminism and romantic relationships," Rudman and Phelan write. While younger females likely grew up with the attitude that "women can have it all," the researchers note older women may have come of age in the era following U.S. women's suffrage (1919) or during the women's movement that emerged in the 1960s.

The researchers looked at people's perception of their own feminism, their partner's feminism and whether they had positive views of feminists and career women. Other survey measures included overall relationship quality, agreement about gender equality, relationship stability and sexual satisfaction.

For example, relationship quality was measured with questions such as: How often do you and your partner laugh together? And how often do you and your partner quarrel? For stability measures, participants answered how often they considered terminating the relationship, as well as how often they thought their romantic relationship had a good future.

Among the findings:

College-age women who reported having feminist male partners also reported higher quality relationships that were more stable than couples involving non-feminist male partners.
College guys who were themselves feminists and had feminist partners reported more equality in their relationships.
Older women who perceived their male partners as feminists reported greater relationship health and sexual satisfaction.
Older men with feminist partners said they had more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction.

Overall, feminism and romance do go hand in hand, the scientists say.

While they aren't sure how feminism works to enhance relationship health, the researchers have some ideas. Feminist men might be more supportive of their female partner's ambitions than are traditionalists. Men with feminist partners may enjoy the extra breadwinner to share the economic burden of maintaining a household.

Dennis Kucinich, the Unknown Front Runner

2007-10-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

Never even heard of him? Well, he's probably your first choice for President.

There is a nice little one-page website available, that lets you vote on the issues that matter to you, and then tells you which Presidential candidates out there come closest to your views. It's a great tool because it gives you a quick, accurate list of the candidates that should be your favorites, according to the issues they support and oppose, without all that ... you know ... research.

But here's the interesting point. This website also gives some statistical history of how people have voted. As of this writing, 153,350 people have completed the quiz. Of those people, more than half (57% in fact) have discovered that Dennis Kucinich is the candidate they should be supporting.

Now, that's not 57% for Kucinich and 43% for some other candidate. The site considers the platforms of 18 established Presidential contenders. Dennis Kucinich comes up as Americans' number one choice more than every other candidate combined. To clarify, this is not 57% of Democrats, or 57% of closet Neocons, or 57% of disillusioned former Ron Paul supporters (like me). Of everyone who has taken this quiz, over half want the same things for America as Dennis Kucinich.

So, if the issues actually mattered, and if Americans looked at the whole field--instead of just the 3 or 4 candidates the mainstream media tells them to, and if Americans voted their conscience, instead of selecting the lesser of the two most popular evils ... Dennis Kucinich would be the runaway favorite. The actual election would just be a formality. Yeah, I know, that's an awful lot of 'ifs'. However, every one of those 'ifs' should be true ... if this is still the Democracy we like to think it is. So why is Kucinich still languishing in 73rd place?

The fact is, when I took this quiz, I was a die-hard Ron Paul supporter. Of the candidates I was familiar with, Ron Paul was head-and-shoulders above the pack. But then, I had never heard of this Kucinich fellow. So I did some research and found that, in fact, Dennis Kucinich actually does stand for the things I believe in, almost completely ... and quite a lot better than Ron Paul, in fact. So, after a bit of waffling, I switched horses (and political parties) midstream. It's ok; you can do that. I checked.

So here's the site.

Pick Your Candidate.

Check it out, it's worth five minutes to find out if you're actually backing the best man (or woman) for the job. And if it turns out that Kucinich is your pick, too (and odds are, he will be), then don't be afraid to support him. He's only an underdog as long as we keep thinking he is.

A couple quick notes about the 'Pick Your Candidate' website. It was put together by a regular guy, 'spare time' sort of thing. The actual computer programming code that runs the site and calculates the results is completely open-source and transparent, meaning that anyone who knows a bit about programming (such as myself) can look at how the quiz works and clearly see that there are no hidden tricks to skew the results. The candidates' stances on the issues are determined by their actual statements of position, as recorded by www.2decide.com, an excellent, non-partisan service that tracks these things.

We're Doomed

2007-10-18T10:13:00.001-07:00

Click the comic to view bigger image.

A Times Square Pedestrian Is Giving No Ground

2007-10-18T10:03:00.001-07:00

ALBANY, Oct. 17 — Millions of people have paused to stand amid the hustle, bustle and neon of Times Square.

And sure, those who pause — to gawk, talk or eat a gyro — can slow the progress of pedestrians around them.

But when Matthew Jones of Brooklyn lingered on the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue in the early morning of June 12, 2004, gabbing with friends as other pedestrians tried to get by, something unusual happened: He was arrested for it.

A police officer said Mr. Jones was impeding other pedestrians and charged him with disorderly conduct.

Mr. Jones is not taking the charges lying down (so to speak). After trying twice to get the charges dismissed, he has taken his case to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, which heard arguments here on Wednesday.

In the prosecution’s view, it appears, the innocent do not dawdle. According to the original complaint against Mr. Jones, the officer “observed defendant along with a number of other individuals standing around” on a public sidewalk in June 2004. Mr. Jones was “not moving, and that as a result of defendants’ behavior, numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around defendants.”

Mr. Jones refused to move when asked, said the officer, Momen Attia, and then tried to run away. When Officer Attia tried to handcuff him, he “flailed his arms,” earning a second charge for resisting arrest.

After spending the night in jail, Mr. Jones contested the main charge and asked that it be dismissed. When the judge demurred, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation the next day and received no further sentence. But he soon filed an appeal, arguing that there had been no basis for the arrest in the first place.

Nancy E. Little, Mr. Jones’s lawyer, said that neither the police nor the prosecutors claimed that he was doing anything other than standing on the sidewalk with friends — an activity, she said, that is not entirely without precedent in Manhattan.

“You need something more,” she said, citing past Court of Appeals decisions. “You need to be being verbally abusive, or really blocking lots of people, or lying down on the sidewalk.”

The complaint, she added, did not allege that any other pedestrians had been seriously inconvenienced or that Mr. Jones had shouted at or shoved anyone or even that the alleged obstruction was more than temporary. Prosecutors did not say how big Mr. Jones’s group of friends was, or how many people were forced to walk around them.

“Let’s face it — no allegations were presented that anything was about to happen,” said Ms. Little. (Mr. Jones himself could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.)

Paula-Rose Stark, a Manhattan assistant district attorney, argued that the facts in the complaint were sufficient for the charge of disorderly conduct. Mr. Jones’s reckless intent, Ms. Stark said, was evident from the fact that his behavior was noticeable in the first place “amid the inevitable hustle and bustle of Times Square, the construction, the vehicular traffic.”

As for other details, she said — well, perhaps Mr. Jones should not have pleaded guilty, depriving himself of a jury trial.

“Those are all matters left to be pursued at trial,” Ms. Stark said.

A lower court came to a similar conclusion last year, and by a vote of 2 to 1 upheld the arrest. But, in a glimmer of hope for Mr. Jones, the dissenting judge wrote that standing and talking with friends on the sidewalk, “even if it requires other pedestrians to walk around him, is commonplace in New York and not disorderly conduct.”

And on Wednesday, Mr. Jones’s circumstances appeared to reach a friendly audience before the Court of Appeals.

“Isn’t that lawful conduct?” wondered Judge Robert S. Smith. Later he added, “Your conduct can’t be illegal just because an officer noticed it.”

His colleague Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. questioned what other violations might attract law enforcement attention.

“All I could think of was a bunch of lawyers from the New York City Bar Association standing around trying to figure out where to have lunch,” Judge Pigott said. (The association has offices a block and a half from Times Square.)

Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye seemed likewise nonplused. “This is at 2 a.m.?” she asked, wondering how many pedestrians it would have been possible to inconvenience at that hour. “I guess I’m not in Times Square at 2 a.m. very often.”

The court is likely to rule on the case next month. Should it rule against Mr. Jones, the available evidence on the scene on Wednesday suggested that the police would soon have their hands full.

Just before 5 p.m., near the corner where Mr. Jones was arrested, stood the following assemblage: a man eating clams out of a Styrofoam container; two men smoking cigarettes together; a man waiting for a woman to finish a phone call; a guy looking at a map; a young woman sending a text message; two men handing out tour brochures; and a family of five, including an infant in a stroller, who stopped to look at the brochures.

Across the street stood Chaya Coppersmith, 18. “That’s just completely ridiculous,” Ms. Coppersmith said when told of Mr. Jones’s case. “Nobody can walk in Times Square. Everyone’s standing around in Times Square. That’s what it’s for.”

Crack Users Do More Time Than People Convicted of Manslaughter

2007-10-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

When crack cocaine possession means 24 years in prison and manslaughter means only 3, you know something is seriously wrong with the U.S. criminal justice system.

The death of Alva Mae Groves on Aug. 9 of this year went largely unnoticed outside of her family and fellow inmates at the Tallahassee Federal Corrections Institution, where she lived out the last 13 years of her life. She never went to high school, lived her entire life dirt-poor and raised her nine children for the most part without the help of her abusive husband.

In 1994 Alva Mae "Granny" Groves was locked up for conspiring to trade crack cocaine for food stamps. It was largely her son, whose trailer home she lived in, who ran an operation that her family and neighbors contested, but some customers testified that Alva Mae would sell them small bags when he wasn't around.

"The only money I received came from SSI (Supplementary Security Income) and what money I could earn selling eggs from my laying hens (I had about 100 chickens)," Alva Mae wrote shortly before her death in a letter asking for a pardon so that she could die near her family. "I also cleaned houses when I was able, and sold candy bars and soft drinks to the kids coming from school in the afternoons."

Because she refused to testify against her son, and because of the money she had saved in the bank, which was weighed against her for its value in crack, and most of all because of the current sentencing system for crack cocaine offenders, Groves was condemned to 24 years in jail at the age of 72.

In 1986, Congress passed a law that established an unprecedented five-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone found in possession of two sugar packets worth of crack, regardless of whether or not that person had a criminal record. Beyond the minimum, additional "sentencing guidelines" tack on extra months or even years for obstruction of justice (which, in some cases, means refusing to admit guilt), whether or not there was a weapon on the premises and prior convictions.

Crack cocaine is treated more harshly than any other drug on the streets right now, mostly because of the "tough on crime" response that was en vogue at the time of its introduction. Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a D.C.-based advocacy group that works for fairness in sentencing, explained that Congress attributed the sentencing tiers at the time to a desire to "protect the black community."

Ron Hampton, a retired D.C. police officer and executive director of the National Black Police Association, takes issue with that rationale. "It's hard for me to believe that you are going to have legislation that severely cripples and victimizes members of our community in order to do something good for us," he said.

Nonetheless, 20 years later, the sentencing structure still stands, and it is precisely the black community that is suffering the most.

According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), a division of the judicial branch that monitors and advises Congress on sentencing policy, in 2006, more than four-fifths of crack cocaine offenders in federal courts were black.

The 1986 drug laws have had a devastating effect on the U.S. criminal justice system. Drug offenders in prisons and jails have increased 1100 percent since 1980, from 41,000 people to nearly 500,000.

Nearly 6 out of 10 people in state prison for a drug offense have no history of violence or high-level drug-selling activity but are often receiving harsher sentences than people who do. People caught with the drug in 2004, the last year for which data is available, served an average of ten years in federal penitentiaries, while the average convict served 2.9 years for manslaughter, 3.1 years for assault and 5.4 years for sexual abuse.

Many legislators, police officers and even federal judges have been vocal critics of the sentences being handed to crack cocaine offenders.

In 2002, Roger Williams University Law Professor David Zlotnick conducted a series of interviews with Republican-appointed federal judges to survey their views of various sentencing tiers. He found the majority of them saw crack cocaine sentencing as "completely unacceptable," "a grave injustice" and a "discrepancy that has no basis in fact."

However, says Monica Pratt, spokesperson for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, "Because crack cocaine mandatory minimums have applied mostly to people of color and poor people, there has been a lack of political will to do something about it."

Until now. The massive mobilizations in Jena, La., last month shined a much-needed spotlight on continuing disparity in the U.S. justice system. With a Supreme Court case addressing the issue starting on Oct. 2, a promising reform bill currently in the Senate and proposed USSC amendments just weeks away from taking effect (pending congressional opposition), a confluence of forces just might create the perfect storm that advocates for sentencing reform have been hoping for.

Said Mauer, "We have more momentum now than we have seen at any time since the laws were passed in 1986."

The main rallying point for many critics is the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, two drugs that are pharmacologically identical. The main difference, they contend, is who does them and in what neighborhoods.

A drug abuser whose drug of choice is powder cocaine would have to be found with more than two cups of it (500 grams) before receiving the same sentence as a person caught with two sugar packets worth (5 grams) of crack. All along the sentencing tier, 100 times more powder cocaine is required to trigger the same mandatory minimum penalty as crack. It is a system referred to as the "100-to-1" drug quantity ratio.

Since crack is made by cooking powder cocaine with baking soda or another base when it reaches the street retail level, the 100-to-1 ratio has served to exact harsher punishments on low-level dealers than the kingpins supplying the raw material. According to USSC data, low-level crack sellers are punished 300 times more severely than high-level, international cocaine traffickers on an imprisonment-per-gram basis.

There are two different types of sentences given to drug offenders: the mandatory minimums established by Congress and the sentencing guidelines tacked onto those minimums by federal prosecutors and accepted or denied by federal judges.

"The congressional wheel in many ways is the most important right now, because without congressional action, the mandatory sentences are still going to stand, whether the USSC changes the guidelines or the Supreme Court changes the way the judges administer them," says Pratt.

There are three bills currently introduced in Congress that attempt to address the 100:1 disparity, but only one that would eliminate it. The Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007 ( S.1711), introduced by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., would bring the penalties for possessing crack cocaine in line with those for cocaine in its powder form. It offers, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, a "long-awaited fix to discriminatory federal drug sentencing" that will take place only with increased pressure.

The sentencing guidelines are also slated to change, unless Congress moves to block them. The USSC sets the guidelines, barring congressional objections, and has proposed amendments to crack penalties in the past, which have been shot down. They forged ahead this year, however, bringing crack cocaine guidelines in line with powder guidelines in a list of amendments introduced last spring. They will go into effect on Nov. 1 unless somebody notices and tries to stop them. If implemented, the commission predicts the change would shorten 69.7 percent of incoming crack cocaine sentences, resulting in an average reduction of nearly 13 months.

In a highly unusual move, the USSC is also considering making the amendments retroactive and are seeking public comment on the issue. FAMM has been mobilizing its base, consisting predominantly of people incarcerated on drug charges and their families, to get involved in the political process and voice their opinions. "The public information officer for the USSC told our president, Mary Price, that they have received 10,000 letters on this issue already," Pratt said. The USSC predicts that retroactivity would reduce the sentences of approximately 19,500 current inmates.

Then there is Kimbrough v. United States, a crack-related case that just got under way in the Supreme Court. The case challenges a judge's discretion in sentencing a crack cocaine convict below federal sentencing guidelines and centers around the sentencing hearing for Derrick Kimbrough, a Desert Storm veteran in Norfolk, Va., who pled guilty in 2005 to possession with intent to distribute 56 grams of crack. Although he had no previous felony convictions, his mandatory minimum and federal sentencing formula recommended he be sentenced to 19 to 22 years. However, Federal District Judge Raymond A. Jackson called the guideline "ridiculous" and instead handed Kimbrough a 15-year sentence, a move that an appeals court later challenged his authority to make.

However, according to retired D.C. Officer Hampton, the crack problem that plagues many low-income communities across America won't go anywhere without a more "holistic" approach that considers responses that are more than punitive. "If they wanted to help, one of the best things they could do is treat people who use crack cocaine much like they do for powder cocaine," Hampton suggested. "They need to look it as a disease. That's another problem embedded in the disparity, not just the sentences, but the amount of treatment that is available to them."

Indeed, a "significant number" of dealers are also addicts, who might not find themselves in the courthouse without their addictions, according to Zlotnick's research.

"But more than that," says Howard, "we need to develop some strategy that focuses on the systemic issues that cause people to look for it in the first place. I think a lot of the problem is the despair in our community, because of lack of housing, lack of jobs, a poor educational system -- they all have a lot to do with why people do it. If we were to address those problems in our society, we'd probably see a lot less people doing crack."

But, for the meantime, he says, the laws are as good a place as any to start.

John Edwards' Secret Affair with MSM

2007-10-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

What if the National Enquirer threw a campaign sex scandal and no one came?

Usually, the mainstream press is happy to let tabloids do the dirty work so it can swoop in and fill in the blanks with on-the-record non-denial denials and explanations with just enough wiggle room for back-peddling down the road. That appeared to be how it would go down when the National Enquirer claimed John Edwards had an affair with campaign worker (and former Jay McInerney squeeze) Rielle Hunter. The notion of the candidate with the cancer-stricken wife getting his $400 haircuts mussed up by a woman who describes herself as "addicted to higher consciousness" has the makings of a dynamic and devastating primary season scandal.

What's more, the Enquirer says it has enough evidence to sink the campaign. Sources close to AMI tell Radar the tab is in possession of e-mails and phone records from Hunter to various acquaintances in which she details the affair and says she and John are in love with one another.

There's just one problem: nobody wants to believe the story. Call it a swift boat backlash.

The mainstream media hasn't seen fit to dignify the item with much coverage (Ann Coulter doesn't count). When writer Sam Stein dared deface liberal oasis Huffington Post last week with questions about payments from the Edwards camp to Hunter's video production company, the rest of the prog-bloggers piled on him.

Edwards himself calls the story "just false" and Hunter says, "When working for the Edwards camp, my conduct as well as the conduct of my entire team was completely professional" (Mickey Kaus notes that the odd preface leaves flexibility for both parties regarding their conduct before and after she was on staff). Privately, however, at least one former Edwards staffer labels Hunter a "crazy lady," and admits being unsure what her role was with the campaign.

The refusal to push the affair story is the latest example of what one rival strategist dubbed "the Teflon campaign" of the former North Carolina senator. Remember last fall when an intern called a North Carolina Wal-Mart and asked a clerk to set aside a Playstation 3 for Edwards, even though Edwards is critical of the company's labor practices? Remember the revelation that two Edwards campaign bloggers authored anti-Catholic posts on their personal blogs? No, right? How about when Rolling Stone opened a profile on Edwards last August with: "If he weren't so rich, handsome, and well married, you might feel a little sorry for John Edwards."

Homeland Security-- In Defense of the Indefensible

2007-10-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

by Russ Wellen

If you go through life without making any enemies you're doing something wrong. If you go through life making a lot of enemies you're doing something worse.

For a long time, the US contented itself with one enemy, the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the CIA conducted covert operations such as rigging elections for dictators and assassinating their opponents. But those thus tyrannized had neither the inclination nor the resources to retaliate against the US.

Then, operating under the illusion that the mujahideen in Afghanistan were "freedom fighters," as Ronald Reagan called them, we armed and supported them to the tune of billions of dollars. After driving the Soviets out, though, they were feeling their oats and looked around for a new target.

Watching us stand by as Israel poured salt in the wounds of Palestine and as, during the Gulf War, we stationed our troops in their holy land, Saudi Arabia, they found one what. Armed with our shoulder-mounted Stinger, among other weapons, the mujahideen turned around and bit the hand that fed them.

In other words, both by arming them and alienating them, we constructed enemies out of whole cloth. Who says the US doesn't make anything anymore?

Then we retaliated for 9/11 against a sitting (Saddam Hussein) instead of a moving target (bin Laden). Our lack of discrimination sent the message that all of the Middle East was fair game. Voila –- instant enemies: all you can fight.

To the right, making enemies is a problem only if you're a wimpy liberal. To most Americans, it just comes with the territory when you're in the right. To our corporate-friendly administration, it justifies billions for defense.

In fact, our overwrought foreign policy almost seems like a make-work scheme for defense industries. If indeed it is a New Deal for defense, then the Department of Homeland Security is the largest WPA project ever.

Presumably, the term "homeland" was chosen to make us feel safe. But to those with even a glancing knowledge of the past, it's a sick joke. Its uses the terminology of our two most formidable foes from last century: the Nazis, who called Germany the fatherland, and Russia -- the motherland.

Besides, a homeland is a region from whose loins sprung the ethnic group inhabiting it. The US, a melting pot, is the exact opposite. "Is that guy an Arab?" we wonder as we pass someone on the street. "Or a Hispanic?"

Even sicker is how little bang for the buck we're getting from the Department of Homeland Security for $30 billion this year. In his recent Mother Jones series on the DHS, veteran journalist James Ridgeway writes that "safeguards against domestic terrorist attacks. . . despite a few marginal improvements, remain terrifyingly lax."

Even the Government Accountability Office recently criticized it for failing to improve its ability to respond to emergencies. To add insult to injury, each year it routinely flunks its audits. But that's probably of no concern to the administation, which was never on board with the creation of the DHS and, most likely, would be just as happy to see it implode.

Meanwhile, Ridgeway explains, for those Congess members, whether Democratic or Republican, who are inclined to lend the DHS a helping hand, "expanding federal regulation, increasing federal spending, hiring unionized federal workers, and facing down industries with powerful lobbies" is "politically risky" in today's climate.

Besides its aversion to federal agencies (except the Defense Department), neither is the administration's heart in defending our soil. It, of course, subscribes to the get-'em-over-thar theory (if it's geopolitically convenient, that is -- vide bin Laden).

A Defense Department program that embodies Bush & Co.'s policy of thwarting threats before they reach the US was already entrenched before they were elected: It's called the national missile defense system (it doesn't deserve initial caps). But as the administration does with bin Laden, the program ducks the obvious threats.

As a recent Rolling Stone article explained: "Even the Missile Defense Agency concedes that the [missile defense shield] -- originally envisioned as a defense against a rival superpower -- is no longer of any use against China or Russia."

Let's see if we've got this right. Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons would overpower the shield. Meanwhile, Iran is years away from developing nukes and North Korea negotiates them away. Against whose nukes then are we spending billions to defend ourselves?

"Would you believe," as America's most beloved intelligence agent, Maxwell Smart, used to say, "Venezuela?"

Meanwhile, the more prosaic threats remain legion. They include the obvious: flying planes into buildings (9/11) and blowing up trains (Madrid) and buses (as in London). Equally vulnerable are ports, especially, as Ridgeway details, liquified natural gas tankers.

These come under the heading of what John Robb of Global Guerillas fame calls "systems disruption." Also included are attacks on bridges, tunnels, water supplies, pipelines and refineries. Equally as devastating is a cyber attack on an electrical grid.

Meanwhile, the hard right stokes fear of terrorists storming across the borders as an excuse to bash immigrants. But that doesn't mean the danger doesn't exist. If only a thousandth of each year's three-quarter million illegal immigrants were Islamic terrorists, that still adds up to a battalion of 750. Many believe that sleeper agents, along with nuclear materials such as suitcase bombs, have already infiltrated the US.

The FBI and, especially, local police forces deserve some credit for the six-year sabbatical terrorists have taken from attacking us on our soil. More likely though, thanks to al-Qaeda's reputation for making a virtue of patience, we're in the eye of the storm.

An example of how it may be toying with us was described by Ron Suskind in his book "The One Percent Doctrine." In 2003, plans to release hydrogen cyanide gas (a staple of Nazi gas chambers) in New York City's subways was called off by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Apparently the prospect of a body count that might not exceed 9/11's failed to light his fire.

In other words, the A-man and the Big O dream of a terror extravaganza like a multi-city nuclear attack. Acquiring nuclear know-how and materials requires serious money, though, to which al-Qaeda central may no longer have access.

Bin Laden, for instance, squandered much of his fortune on building projects in Sudan. (Once the heat came down from the US, though, it was: Thanks for the modernization program, Sheikh. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.)

Author Paul Williams ("Osama's Revenge," "The Al Qaeda Connection") maintains al-Qaeda has generated significant cash through drug and blood diamond transactions. However, in 2005, Zawahiri wrote a famous letter to Abu Musab Zarqawi urging him to cool it with the beheadings (bad P.R., you know).

Also, claiming they were short on funds, he hit him up for a donation to the home office. Then, last month, President Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, called bin Laden "virtually impotent." (One can't help wonder how she knows.)

Whatever al-Qaeda central's financial standing, there's actually no need to raise a king's ransom to spend on nuclear weapons. After all, attacking the infrastructure is as cheap as it is cost-effective.

In his recent book, "Brave New War," Robb wrote that 9/11 was a "$250,000 attack. . . converted into an event that cost the United States over $80 billion." One of bin Laden's goals, he reminds us, remains "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."

To expedite that, al-Qaeda has gone viral. As has been well-documented, it grants copyright-free use of its brand to knock-off terrorists like the late Zarqawi.

Along with groups advancing other causes, an "almost endless supply of attackers," writes Robb, "could generate hundreds of millions, potentially billions, in damage." In tacit agreement with bin Laden, he maintains that the "cumulative effect of these attacks could grind down even the strongest nation-state."

The administration looks at threats through a telescope, thus magnifying al-Qaeda to the status of a state. Actual nations like Iraq and Iran, meanwhile, are inflated into near superpowers. But al-Qaeda is just a glorified crime syndicate.

Like all such organizations, as countless security experts have testified, it's more susceptible to good old-fashioned crime busting than the heavy hand of the military. Ideally, local police forces, in collaboration with federal and international crime and intelligence agencies, should lead the way.

Along with urging the FBI to bring local officials into the loop, think-tanker Daniel Byman, writing on Slate, offers other suggestions for shoring up security stateside. Among them, the federal government needs to work harder to win the unequivocal support of American Muslims. (How that can be accomplished while the US continues to foment disruption in many of their homelands he doesn't say.)

Byman also urges us to improve "perception management." For example, in order to minimize societal impact, Israel cleans up immediately after a terrorist attack. Yet, from the executive branch to the DHS, the American government elevated our one substantial attack (9/11) to near-Holocaust status.

Robb too would like to see us adopt a "philosophy of resilience" to help us survive terrorist attacks. Because "strikes of the future will be strategic, pinpointing the systems we rely on," he continues, "they will leave entire sections of the country without energy and communications for protracted periods."

In other words, when it comes to security, not to mention other services, communities will be left to their own devices. Suburbs will become armed and patrolled by civilian police auxiliaries; the rich by the likes of Blackwater.

Still, he maintains, we don't need an "activist foreign policy that seeks to rework the world in our image, police state measures to ensure state security, or spending all of our resources on protecting everything." (Bear in mind that he's no liberal.)

Rejecting an "activist foreign policy" obviously implies embracing diplomacy. But success isn't guaranteed the next administration just because it's more committed than Bush's to relying on its statesmen (notice how that word has all but vanished from common usage). Is there any way to ensure a cure for the impotence of soft power without turning it hard?

By way of a preface, read what Arthur Silber, one of the Web's top bloggers, has to say about Congressional Democrats (edited for conciseness). They "fail to mount serious opposition to our inevitable course toward widening war and an attack on Iran, not because they are afraid of being portrayed as 'weak' in the fight against terrorism. They don't object because -- they don't object.

"That is: they agree that we have the 'right' to pursue a policy of aggressive interventionism supported by an empire of military bases."

In other words, for all of Bush & Co.'s rapaciousness, not just congressional Democrats but, deep-down, most of us concur that, if we're running out of oil, it's our right, simply by dint of our might, to take what we need.

If it weren't for all those pesky jihadis, mujahideen, global guerillas, terrorists -- call them what you will -- conspiring to topple us with everything from the slings of systems disruption to the arrows of nuclear missiles.

Attempting to secure our shores from them is like trying to defend the indefensible -- literally. And metaphorically, as well, when we cling to the myth that we're manifestly destined to determine the fates of other nations. Our military might, 700 bases around the world and nuclear capability have outlived whatever their usefulness they had.

The US has become like Russia -- our once-and- (the way things are going) future enemy. We're a lumbering mastodon, which the cave people of the world lure into traps, like Iraq, where we thrash around and lash out blindly. It could all have turned out differently if we hadn't been stomping around their territory ravishing their resources.

In short, the US needs to take the "super" out of "superpower." We might be surprised to find that a country could get used to life without the pressure of being number one.

_______
Russ Wellen is an editor at Freezerbox and OpEdNews. He guest-blogs at AlterNet and is a staff blogger at Scholars & Rogues. He frequently writes about national security, nuclear deproliferation and the enduring enigma that is the American mind.

Sen. Craig to File Appeal on Monday

2007-10-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

BOISE, Idaho - Sen. Larry Craig says he will file an appeal Monday over a judge's refusal to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting.

In an interview Sunday with KTVB-TV, Craig repeated he will not resign his post in the Senate and said he will continue to work his legal options.

"It is my right to do what I'm doing," said Craig, an Idaho Republican. "I've already provided for Idaho certainty that Idaho needed _ I'm not running for re-election. I'm no longer in the way. I am pursuing my constitutional rights."

In another interview, Craig's wife, Suzanne, said the senator didn't tell her about the arrest until the story was about to break in the media. "I felt like the floor was falling out from under me. ... And I felt like almost like I was going down a drain for a few moments," she told NBC's Matt Lauer.

Sen. Craig told Lauer it was a "tough call" not to tell anyone about the incident. "I didn't want to embarrass my wife, my kids, Idaho and my friends," Craig said. "And I wrestled with it a long while. ... I should have told my wife. I should have told my kids. And most importantly, I should have told counsel."

The senator also discussed his relationship with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Craig was Senate liaison for Romney's campaign, a post he abandoned when the scandal came to light.

"I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney," Craig told Lauer. "... And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again."

Lauer's interview with the Craigs will be broadcast Tuesday night on "Matt Lauer Reports" and Wednesday morning on "Today."

Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of soliciting sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in June.

After the matter became public, Craig tried to withdraw his plea. But a judge in Minnesota refused, saying Craig's plea "was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and ... supported by the evidence."

The Lie About Obama Still Lives

2007-10-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

If you've visited the comment section of any well-traveled political Web site, you're sure to have seen a comment like the one left at Political Machine by a user named Brad,

"Obama is a Muslim in hiding as is his minister. The guy is a sleeper from Allah. Just wait until an ongoing investigation comes out."

Talk radio personalities Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh, too, see to it at every opportunity to remind you that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. The implication? He's one of them. The bad guys. The Muslims.

Yes, months after the chain reaction of slander journalism was started by Detroit columnist Debbie Sclussel, and culminated with Fox News raising the false alarm that Obama had been educated in a madrassa (and therefore must have terrorist sympathies), the rumors still persist. As the Politico reports, 7% of those surveyed continue to think that Obama is a Muslim. That's a percentage point higher than those who correctly identified him as a Protestant, his actual denomination. Such is the power of propaganda. It's hard to get a cat back into a bag, especially an imaginary one.

Of course, it's no mystery what makes this little rumor so potent. Saddam Hussein was a Muslim, he was pretty evil. Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. Therefore he must be pretty evil, too. The suggestibility of American public should come as no surprise, really. An estimated 20% of our citizenry, after all, thinks that the sun revolves around the earth. Certain talk show hosts can't tell you whether or not the world is flat. According to polls, a full 30% of Americans still think that the U.S. doesn't torture prisoners. Hell, 36% believe that the U.S. government had a hand in the attacks on 9/11.

Still, such irrationality leaves Obama in the unenviable position of having to defend himself. Yet how do you go about that when the misconception is propagated by anonymous commentary spread by the likes of Brad? Perhaps, as the Politico suggests, it is no coincidence that the Illinois senator has frequented the pulpit of America's churches in recent weeks, especially in Southern states like South Carolina. Barring direct comment from Obama's campaign, however, the assertion that appearing in church is somehow a political calculation is itself suspect given that the man is no stranger to a house of worship in his everyday life.

21 days left to file for NH as of today

2007-10-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

10/7/2007
New-Hampshire
Hillary Clinton 43%
Barack Obama 21%
John Edwards 12%
Bill Richardson 8%
Joe Biden 3%
Dennis Kucinich 3%
Chris Dodd 2%
Unsure 8%

Mitt Romney 27%
Rudy Giuliani 21%
John McCain 17%
Fred Thompson 10%
Mike Huckabee 8%
Duncan Hunter 2%
Ron Paul 2%
Tom Tancredo 1%
Unsure 12%

Wow... 12% uncertain republicans. No worries Fox and Rush will tell you how to vote shortly.

This might sound odd but The MOST Electable Republican is...

2007-10-15T14:55:00.000-07:00

John McCain

Think about it, He has a good record in the Senate, is liked by Independents and does not alienate the Republican Party as much as Giuliani or Romney. He can win swing states such as Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Oregon. The problem for McCain when it comes to the general election is the Iraq war.

polls have recently shown an improvement for John McCain.

Hillary Clinton: 44%
John McCain: 43%

Hillary Clinton: 47%
Mitt Romney: 41%

Democratic Ideology

Jon Stewart Isn't Funny Any More

2007-10-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

Back in 2002 Jon Stewart was pretty darn funny. Heck, if it was a choice between laughing or crying -- I'd rather laugh. And Stewart was mad as hell -- and willing to poke his finger in the eye of the administration. Slowly, I found that he was the only voice I could manage to include in my daily news diet.

I'm beginning to wonder if this Is this really a Democracy any longer?

I've taken to listening to people on the Subway. Around me, as I ride to work, people talk about their children, about their jobs, about their love lives. The chit-chat about the day and the weather and life... mostly mundane things that make up daily life.

No one talks about the war. There's no talk about the economy, or the national debt, or the environment, or the number of soldiers who are dying around the world.

If a tree falls in the forest...

Now Jon Stewart seems exhausted. It's like he knows its no longer a laughing matter. Heck, for all his hard work to lampoon, expose, and humiliate the Bush Administration, it seems to make them stronger. The bigger the lie, the harder it is to truly believe its a lie. Bush wouldn't actually be trying to bankrupt the country... could he? Bush isn't actually trying to make the war so big, so inevitable that the Democrats won't have a way to wind it down. Could he really be that fatalistic in his vision of the future. Clearly, its not funny.

We're not talking about what's happening.

Today Frank Rich reminded me of what has been eating at me most. That in some way I've given up. I've stopped going to protest marches (do they have those any more?). I've stopped calling my congressman. I've stopped thinking that supporting a political candidate can make real change. I've resigned myself to the fact that I don't have the ability to make a difference, or change political tides, or have my voice heard.

I wasn't always this way.

At first, I thought that the Bush administration was engaging in a political coup. That the neo-con's would be seen for what they are, that the war profiteers and oil barons would be arrested, jailed, convicted. Stopped. But then 2004 happened. The passion, drive, anger and hope that fueled the election resulted in a strange ratification of the Bush Administration. You can accept any theory you want, that Kerry was a bad candidate, that there was voter fraud, that the media didn't do it's job as a watchdog, but -- as Jim Loftus, Kerry's Head Press wrangler, said in the gloom of the post election fallout -- "The Universe Hardly Cares."

Ugh. Right he was.

Now, 2006 arrives to set things right. And with great joy and feeling of accomplishment the Democrats win back both the House and the Senate. With great anticipation, i look forward to the righting of our democracy. The prosecution of those who knowingly lied to congress, who mis-led the UN, who pocketed billions of dollars in war proceeds as young men and woman died.

And so Frank Rich.

Wow. He called me a Nazi. Or a Nazi sympathizer. Or at least a Good German who shrugs his shoulders as if to say: "heck, i didn't vote for the guy."

I'm stung by the accusation. As a Jewish American the charge is deeply painful. Does that make Jon Stewart the court Jester? And what about the democrats?

With an election on the horizon (ok, its more than a year away -- but in my current political state of mind, I'm willing to believe that's right around the corner).

My deep sense of foreboding about the health of our Democracy reached a new low two weeks ago as I watched the Democratic Debate at Dartmouth from a hotel room in San Diego. One by one the Democrats acknowledged that the war had no end, that even in the abstract they couldn't imagine a timeline to end our misadventures in Iraq. Sure, not every Democrat said that. But the leaders of the pack, Edwards, Obama, and Clinton all did. We're staying. That's for sure.

So -- on November 5th, when I've gone to the polls and voted for Hillary (probably) and she announces a blue ribbon panel to begin to consider how we can begin to draw down troops over the next 6 years... and at the same time continue to pay blood money to mercenaries (oh, sorry -- 'contractors') who have some strange 077 license to kill... how will I look myself in the mirror.

My party will have the House, the Senate, and the White House. We'll have the political trifecta. And we won't be getting any further out of Iraq than we are now.

What will I say to Frank then?

And -- perhaps worst of all -- what will Jon Stewart have to laugh about?

Should Bush Go to Jail for Flag Desecration?

2007-10-13T21:41:00.000-07:00

This one is just too good to pass up. I've long hated this whole notion of laws banning the desecration of the flag, especially passing a constitutional amendment to protect the flag. In general, if the flag needs to be protected by curbing free speech, then that is desecrating the symbol more than any burning of an individual flag can do. Furthermore, what ever happened to private property? Aren't people allowed to do whatever they want with their private property (as long as it doesn't directly harm others)? But, lastly and most importantly, a law banning the desecration of the flag is thought crime, the most insidious type of law possible.

Hear me out. If I have a flag that is old and frayed, and I want to get rid of it, the preferred method (according to whatever US code they have on this subject) is to burn the flag in a proper ceremony (but to burn it nonetheless). So, if I burn a flag and say "I love this flag and all it symbolizes and the government in power right now," then I'm an exalted citizen of this country (a true American in the words of Sean Hannity). If I burn the flag and say "I hate Bush, I think this country is on the wrong track and is becoming a dictatorship," then I have committed a crime (probably so, according to Hannity). See the problem? The determination of whether you have committed a crime is not your actions, but your POLITICAL view while you do it (to be contrasted with typical mental state requirements that may gauge whether you are trying to harm someone - say the difference between a car accident and intentionally running someone down with your car). So, to stick with my parenthetical hypo, a law that says running someone down in your car because they are a Democrat is allowed, while running someone down in your car if they are a Republican is not allowed, would be a thought crime. That is a morally wrong law.

The US Code for the District of Columbia actually prescribes the manner in which you may treat a flag, saying that writing on it is a misdemeanor. So, how many Republicans think that President Bush should go to jail for this?Of course, very few will say that he should, they will point out that the statute is only designed to prevent actual desecration, meaning the intentions of the perpetrator are key. But, what if this was John Kerry doing this? Wouldn't they scream and howl? Couldn't some right wing prosecutor fashion an argument that John Kerry should go to jail for this? Wouldn't a right wing jury be chomping at the bit to put him away for this? What if they charged and tried John Kerry for this in the most conservative southern state, in it's most conservative county, with a right wing jury, in front of a right wing judge? He'd be in jail now.

On the flip side, what if they tried George Bush for this in Berkeley, in front of a left wing judge with all left wing activists as jurors? Or, should he be impeached? This could be considered (under the very liberal standards set by the Congress in 1998) a high crime OR misdemeanor (is desecrating the flag worse than perjury?).

So you see, here in color, the idiocy of these laws. Maybe this will put paid to that stupid notion of passing a constitutional amendment that would restrict the 1st Amendment and carve out an area where you go to jail for having the "wrong" political beliefs.

WAR IN IRAQ - 4yrs/6mo/26days

2007-10-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

WAR IN IRAQ - 4yrs/6mo/26days

October 13, 2007

according to a CNN count:

There have been 4,122 coalition deaths -- 3,822 Americans, 28,171 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.

388 DAYS

United States presidential election

2008 Presidential electoral votes by state

The United States presidential election of 2008, scheduled to be held on November 4, 2008, will be the 55th consecutive quadrennial election for president and vice president of the United States. There also will be elections for all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and elections for 34 members of the United States Senate. As laid out by the United States Constitution, the individual who receives a majority of votes for president in the Electoral College — 270 votes are needed for a majority — will be the 44th president of the United States, and the individual who receives a majority of electoral votes for vice president will be the 47th vice president of the United States. If no one person receives a majority in the Electoral College at that time, then the president-elect will be selected by a vote of the House of Representatives, with each state receiving a single vote. If no vice presidential candidate receives a majority, then the vice president-elect will be selected by a vote of the Senate. These situations, however, have not occurred since 1825 and 1837, respectively. As in the 2004 presidential election, the allocation of electoral votes to each state will be partially based on the 2000 Census. The president-elect and vice president-elect are scheduled to be inaugurated on Tuesday, January 20, 2009

ohmygod ohmygod.. they really have WMDs, For sure!

2007-10-13T20:22:00.001-07:00

Click picture to enlarge.

Hillary ClinTax = Economy in Toilet

2007-10-13T20:07:00.001-07:00

Hillary Clinton would raise taxes if she is elected president. Sharply...She says that she will “…let President Bush's tax cuts for top earners expire." ...this means that she will raise the top bracket (for those earning more than $200,000 a year) on income taxes from the 35 percent to which Bush cut it, to the 39.6 percent to which her husband raised it in 1993...

It also likely means increasing the tax on capital gains from the current 15 percent to at least 20 percent and probably to the 30 percent level backed by most liberals. Some even believe she may eliminate capital gains taxation entirely...

She certainly would repeal Bush's tax cut halving the tax rate on dividends and would raise it from its current 15 percent to 30 percent. She would also most likely end the planned elimination of the estate tax and probably reduce the size of estates subject to the tax....

She has specifically refused to rule out a big increase in Social Security (FICA) taxes...Hillary would...either raise the limit — at least doubling it — or eliminating it altogether. A self-employed American making $250,000 a year currently pays $12,125 in FICA taxes (12.5 percent x $97,000). If the threshold were eliminated, his FICA tax would jump to $31,250!

Congressman Charlie Rangel and Senator Chuck Schumer, both close Hillary allies...are paving the way by their proposed tax increases. The Schumer-Rangel bill was first, superficially, an attempt to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT.)..Rangel's staff is "hard at work on an audacious plan that over the next decade would redistribute up to a trillion dollars in American income through the tax system."...she told a San Francisco audience in 2004: “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

Rush Announces eBay Charity Auction of Harry Reid's Letter

2007-10-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh auctions off Harry Reid's letter to Clear Channel on eBay, proceeds go to Marine-Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.

Hey Kettle, I'm Pot, you're black!

2007-10-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has amassed so much central authority that the power-grab may undermine Moscow's commitment to democracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday.

"In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development," Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.

"I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.

Telephone messages left with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov were not immediately returned Saturday evening.

The top American diplomat encouraged the activists to build institutions of democracy. These would help combat arbitrary state power amid increasing pressure from the Kremlin, she said.

The U.S. is concerned about the centralization of power and democratic backsliding ahead of Russia's legislative and presidential elections in December and March. Putin will step down next year as president. He has said he would lead the ticket of the main pro-Kremlin party in the parliamentary elections and could take the prime minister's job later.

Rice sought opinions and assessments of the situation from eight prominent rights leaders.

"I talked to people about the coming months and how they see the coming months. How these two elections are carried out will have an effect on whether Russia is making the next step on toward democracy," Rice said after the private sessions at Spaso House, the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Moscow.

Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday received a chilly reception from Putin and senior Russian officials on U.S. proposals for cooperating on a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that Russia vehemently opposes.

But as she has in the past, Rice declined comment on Putin's possible political future and said she did not raise the matter in her official discussions.

Although she would not speculate about Putin's ambitions, Rice said there were signs that whatever transition occurs could be smooth.

"To the degree that anyone can predict, it looks like it will be fairly stable," she said. "But, I would just caution that change is change."

Earlier, Rice said she hoped the efforts of rights activists would promote universal values of "the rights of individuals to liberty and freedom, the right to worship as you please, and the right to assembly, the right to not have to deal with the arbitrary power of the state."

In the meeting with business, media and civil society leaders, Rice said she was "especially interested in talking about how you view (the) political evolution of Russia, the economic evolution of Russia."

"Russia is a country that's in transition and that transition is not easy and there are a lot of complications and a lot of challenges," Rice said. "If Russia is to emerge as a democratic country that can fully protect the rights of its people, it is going to emerge over years and you have to be a part of helping the emergence of that Russia."

Participants in the meetings said they outlined their concerns but that she did not offer any judgments about the state of human rights and democracy under Putin.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group told the Interfax news agency her organization sees "the purposeful construction of an authoritarian society and an onslaught on the people's rights, elections are being turned into farce, and human rights and opposition organizations are experiencing pressure."

Alexander Brod, head of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, said the discussions touched on "authoritarianism and the crisis of human rights." He said he disagreed with "the opinion that we had a flourishing democracy in the 1990s and that we have a setback now."

"Not all is ideal in America, either. We see protests against the war in Iraq and violations of human rights on the part of security services and violations of human rights in countering terrorism," Brod said.

Vladimir Lukin, the government-appointed human rights ombudsman, was quoted by Interfax as saying he told Rice that human rights should be discussed in a dialogue rather lecturing in a "doomsday" style.

The State Department frequently has criticized what Washington regards as creeping authoritarianism among Putin and other top Russian leaders.

Its most recent human-rights report on Russia notes continuing centralization of power in the Kremlin, a compliant legislature, political pressure on the judiciary, intolerance of ethnic minorities, corruption and selectivity in enforcement of the law, and media restrictions and self-censorship.

Rice and Gates later met with Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov for talks on trade and economic relations, including negotiations for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization.

Moscow and Washington signed a trade agreement last November that removed the last major obstacle in Moscow's 13-year journey to join the 149-member group. Moscow must still conclude other outstanding bilateral deals and assuage the European Union's concerns about energy supplies.

The Russian government press service said Zubkov also pressed the Americans to work to abolish the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The 1974 measure ties Russia's trade status to whether it freely allows Jewish emigration.

The great liberal welfare state to our north

2007-10-12T14:20:00.001-07:00

The great liberal welfare state to our north that is essentially defined by "We are not USA" and we have universal health care will soon have a health tax. The confiscatory tax rates already in place were not enough and the Liberals which won resoundingly in Ontario ran on a platform of introducing a health tax on top of the already high taxes which pay for their universal health care. This "health tax" will kick in at incomes of $25,000 / yr and higher and could be upto $4,000 / yr. So they are essentially throwing more money into a very inefficient socialist program thinking that will fix it ! They have essentially started a brand new tax and once you start it you can always increase it.

Hillary is taking notice and if you want to see our future ask anyone in Canada that has had to use their health care system for a serious issue. The sheeple in Canada have been so conditioned that there was hardly a protest for this new tax. And then they say that health care is free in Canada !!!

Al Gore gets the Noble Peace Prize -- huh?

2007-10-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

Let's see, Yasser Arafat, an admitted terrorist got one. Jimmy Carter at least got one for hammering some nails. Now Al Gore. Alfred Noble must be spinning in his grave. The elitists are now rewarding the elitists with no care as to what old Alfred's will stated.

"those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

Excuse me, but what benefit did Al confer on mankind? If it were up to him, we'd reduce the number of people on this planet by half. Here's what he says in the intro to his amazingly scientifically inaccurate book, Earth In The Balance.

"In one sense, civilization itself has been on a journey from its foundations in the world of nature to an ever more contrived, controlled and manufactured world of our own imitative and sometimes arrogant design. And in my view, the price has been high."

So perhaps we shouldn't have contrived, controlled, and manufactured things like antibiotics or cancer medicines. Medicines that saved his wife's life.

This guy has none of the qualities that should be rewarded with a Nobel Prize. Thank goodness that the science prizes can't be jiggered like the Peace Prize has.

Gore's Noble Challenge

2007-10-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

By Patrick J. Michaels
Published 10/12/2007 12:08:03 AM

Al Gore has finally won his Nobel Prize, reminiscent of the proverbial little nut that stood his ground, evolving into a giant Oak. Now we can only hope that he runs for President, an office that, given recent history, surely deserves him.

Where else -- except perhaps via the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which Gore negotiated -- can someone accomplish so little while spending so much? But, to get there, or at least to the Demo nomination, Gore's going to have to do something he has assiduously avoided: debate

Gore's standard rule on live TV has been there will be no live challenge. The last time he ran for President (2000), he succeeded de facto, with George "Carbon Bonoixde" Bush as the token global warming flyweight. This time, debates happen.

That's because Gore represents a party gone global warming ga-ga, with some of the world's goofiest environmental legislation in history awaiting a Bush veto and a Gore signature.

Consider what Bernie Sanders ("I"-VT) has in the docket: A legislative magic wand that will require us to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide by 90% in a mere 42 years. Since 1990, we're up a little under 20%. Sanders' legislation takes us back to the 1930s, a technological stone age. True, there's other, more "moderate" legislation. John Kerry's (D-MA) proposal would cut it back 80%. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is at 50%.

Each and every one has a good chance of Senate passage, and an even better chance of a veto. So, now that you have your Nobel, Come out and fight like a man, Al, and don't even worry about picking on someone your own size.

The fact is that Al has ducked, feinted, dived away from, or fluffed each and every opportunity for a reasoned debate with any global warming scientist not of his choice, a choice he no longer enjoys. Heartland Institute, a Chicago think tank, spent over a million dollars filing ads in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and their ilk, begging Al to debate. No dice. In a less public venue, my own Cato Institute sent kind and courteous letters asking him to share our pretty auditorium on Washington's Massachusetts Avenue, for a civil discussion with our scholars. Again, no dice.

Here's the rub: if any opposition were so easy to vanquish, Gore would relish the opportunity. Obviously there's a substantive and cogent argument he can't kill.

In essence, it is that Gore has massively departed from the scientific mainstream on global warming, even as that community may be itself biased by the funding afforded by emphasizing the negative.

For example, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (of which I am a member, while Gore is not) predicts a mean sea-level rise of about 13 inches by 2100. Gore's book and movie contain an undated montage showing Florida sliding beneath the waves, something that could only happen with 13 feet or more.

How on earth does one accomplish such a disconnect from scientific reality?

Gore only has one scientist, James Hansen of NASA, whispering the sweet nothings into his ear that sea-level could rise this much or more in the next 92 years, as Greenland's ice sheets are destabilized by climate change.

No other scientist is willing to climb out on this limb, because it is simply not supported by the observed climatic history of Greenland since the end of the last ice age. For much of six millennia, ending 3,000 years ago, it had to be warmer, and yet the ice stuck like glue. Hansen's amazing response, which you can read on his blog, documented at www.realclimate.org (not exactly a peer-reviewed scientific journal!) is that other scientists don't agree with him because they suffer from what he calls "scientific reticence." In other words, all his colleagues are chicken-bleeps because they don't agree with him.

How about the other pole? Every computer model mentioned by the United Nations shows Antarctica gaining ice this century because a slight warming will result in more precipitation which must fall as snow. Would Gore like that out in public? Or how about the fact that Antarctica just set its record maximum for sea-ice extent, as measured by satellite.

The world can only hope that Gore's Nobel propels him into another run for the Presidency. He received it for his climate lunacy. Now he can defend it and the Nobel Prize by merely debating those who must be so easy to defeat.

42 Million Abortions: Dems have party

2007-10-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

One in five pregnancies ends in abortion: study

One in five pregnancies worldwide ends in an abortion, amounting to a significant fall compared with the mid-nineties, but nearly half these terminations still take place in unsafe conditions, a study says.
In 2003, the latest year for which full figures are available, 42 million abortions were carried out around the world, compared with 46 million in 1995, according to the paper published by The Lancet next Saturday.

For every 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44 in 2003, 29 had an abortion, down from 35 in 1997, it said.

"Overall abortion rates are similar in the developing and developed world, but unsafe abortion is concentrated in developing countries," it notes.

"Ensuring the need for contraception is met and that all abortions are safe will reduce maternal mortality substantially and protect maternal health."

Abortion rates were lowest in Western Europe (12 pregnancy terminations per 1,000 women) but highest in Eastern Europe, where the rate was 44 abortions per 1,000 women. In the United States and Europe, it was 21 per 1,000, while in Asia and Africa, the rate was 29 per 1,000.

Forty-eight percent of all abortions worldwide were unsafe, and more than 97 percent of unsafe abortions took place in developing countries.

On the basis of the 2003 data, on average 90 percent of women worldwide will have had an abortion before the age of 45, the study calculates.

This varies, though, between many women who will have had multiple terminations and many who will have had none at all, note the authors, led by Gilda Sedgh of the Guttmacher Institute in New York and Iqbal Shah of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Al Gore - Never said the word "invented"

2007-10-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

Internet of Lies
Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet.

Status: False.

Origins: Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Clearly, although Gore's phrasing was clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the technology that we now know as the Internet. To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the "invention" of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign. Gore never used the word "invent," and the words "create" and "invent" have distinctly different meanings — the former is used in the sense of "to bring about" or "to bring into existence" while the latter is generally used to signify the first instance of someone's thinking up or implementing an idea.

(To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean exactly the same thing, we have to ask why, then, the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet, even though he never used that word, and transcripts of what he actually said were readily available.)

If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while President, "created" the Interstate Highway System, we would not have seen dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with his Internet statement.

Whether Gore's statement that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" is justified is a subject of debate. Any statement about the "creation" or "beginning" of the Internet is difficult to evaluate, because the Internet is not a homogenous entity (it's a collection of computers, networks, protocols, standards, and application programs), nor did it all spring into being at once (the components that comprise the Internet were developed in various places at different times and are continuously being modified, improved, and expanded). Despite a spirited defense of Gore's claim by Vint Cerf (often referred to as the "father of the Internet") in which he stated "that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it," many of the components of today's Internet came into being well before Gore's first term in Congress began in 1977.

It is true, though, that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (although he did not, as is often claimed by others, coin the phrase himself) when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet, and he sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic).

In May 2005, the organizers of the Webby Awards for online achievements honored Al Gore with a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet. He is indeed due some thanks and consideration for his early contributions.

George W. Bush was photographed wearing a ribbon he did not earn

2007-10-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

We can clearly see that in this picture, George W. Bush is wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award and a Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, however, on line 24 of his ARG22 National Guard discharge form, George W. Bush has NO awards listed:
Now, here in another picture where his father is pinning lieutenant bars on his shoulder, George W. Bush is again wearing the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon: So, in fairness we must give George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt here. Let's dig further and look at other records released by the Bush campaign team. Our next stop is a a Form AF11 dated May 16, 1971. You will note on this document Bush has already been promoted to First Lieutenant: All that is listed in this document is the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon. The Air Force Outstanding Unit Award is not listed.

Our next stop is the "military biography" released by the Bush Campaign: In this document, the claim is made that Bush was awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, BUT NO MENTION OF THE AIR FORCE OUTSTANDING UNIT AWARD!!! This document was clearly prepared after Bush's service ended.

Exhaustive searches for any indication that any unit Bush served with was awarded the AFOUA have, to date, yielded nothing. The ONLY documents released by the Bush administration related to his service that make mention of any awards whatsoever have been included in this report.

The only conclusion that can be made is George W. Bush wore a ribbon he did not earn in the above photograph.

IRS says rich getting richer

2007-10-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

Fri Oct 12, 2:48 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The richest one percent of Americans earned a postwar record of 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent a year earlier, reflecting a widening income disparity among different classes in the nation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing new Internal Revenue Service data.
ADVERTISEMENT

The data showed that the fortunes of the bottom 50 percent of Americans are worsening, with that group earning 12.8 percent of all income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent the year before, the paper said.

It said that while the IRS data goes back only to 1986, academic research suggests that the last time wealthy Americans had such a high percentage of the national income pie was in the 1920s.

The article cited an interview with President Bush, who attributed income inequality to "skills gaps" among various classes. It said the IRS didn't identify the source of rising income for the affluent, but said a boom on Wall Street has likely played a part.

Yo - democrats - what do you think...

2007-10-12T11:55:00.001-07:00

Okay, so this post isn't for you screaming righties with nothing to say - so don't bother.

The various candidates are starting to come out with their "Ideas" for what they'd do - Most notably, Hillary has presented her big health care thing.

I don't know about you, but I'm disappointed. Sure, it's bold & all, but it's one more big-spending item and until we get the budget under control, I don't think putting forward a big-bux initiative is smart at all - and I think most voters know it. Is there a need for reform in healthcare? Yes. Is her solution the right one? I don't know... but I do think that proposing that we spend a bunch of money we don't have (or will have to raise taxes to get) is NOT a good idea right now.

Of course, no one else is even suggesting much of anything except that we get out of Iraq (which is fine by me) so Hill gets points for being politically brave... but I don't know if she's being smart here.

Thoughts?

Oh, and I'm still a registered libertarian, but since I will be voting democratic in 08, no matter WHO runs, I'll be re-registering soon.

Crime against white Americans is acceptable to non whites.

2007-10-12T10:33:00.001-07:00

By Kirby William

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC told WND it now is tracking 12 gang rapes by illegal aliens within America's borders since Oct. 2004.

ALIPAC's president, William Gheen, said, "These are just the ones we know of. The real number is much higher."

Gheen told WND he believes the number of gang rapes is increasing as the population of illegal aliens in the U.S. increases.

"Many illegal aliens have a rape and pillage mentality toward America," he said. "The government has shown them they can break our laws on many levels without much fear of enforcement. Why should they think of rape or gang rape any differently?"

Gheen said, "Illegal aliens are more likely to engage in these crimes because rapes and gang rapes are much more common in the gang-rule Third World areas they come from."

MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, a highly organized and well-funded Central American gang, is infiltrating at least 33 states across the U.S., according to law-enforcement authorities. The gang is well-known in Los Angeles, Houston, New York and Washington, D.C., for excessive brutality. Any person suspected of cooperating with authorities is hunted down, tortured and killed. Initiation rites include kickings, beatings and gang rapes.

Illegals Are Taking Over

2007-10-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

By Sandra Woodward
Published: October 13, 2007

For all of you that think you know jack about illegal immigration, take a step back. Sure there are a bunch of them that want to make a better life for themselves, but a huge part of the illegal clan are listening to idiot groups like La Raza. If you don't know who they are, they are basically the Mexican kkk.

We are the most hated Country in the world because everyone is jealous of our way of life and the 3rd world Mexicans coming here intend to take it over. Once these illegal aliens' anchor babies are old enough to vote and get into politics this country is over! It's not to far in the future is it?

You can stomp your feet and talk about how messed up it is that our government doesn't do anything about it...but who is? YOU? I see the minute men doing something....a bunch of old folks and women. Where the heck are the young men?
How about the young white men? Bitching about it doesn't do jack! Voting isn't even an option!

So what now American? What do you do now? I hope you have a bunch of guns because with all of this crap happening it seems that fighting in the streets will become inevitable. And I know that's why you Americans are scared to go out and protest these racists; because the governments little drones otherwise known as police have made you feel helpless and if you even try to do something free your butt will be thrown in jail. The intimidation has you by the balls! Have fun sitting around feeling helpless while the illegals take it all.

Think it's all a joke? Take a look at L.A. and the racist corrupt mayor Villaraigosa.....how is it that he's in power or hasn't been assasinated yet?

House Democrats defy Bush, approve spy bill

2007-10-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defying President George W. Bush, Democrats voted on Wednesday to bolster civil liberties safeguards in his anti-terrorism spying program and refused to shield phone companies from pending lawsuits.

Just hours after Bush warned Democrats they would be rolling back efforts to protect the United States, the House of Representatives Judiciary and Intelligence committees approved legislation to ensure congressional and court oversight of the surveillance of suspected enemy targets.

The party-line votes by the two panels were 20-14 and 12-7, respectively.

The full House is to consider the bill next week. The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to begin work on its version next Thursday.

House Democrats rejected a bid by Bush's fellow Republicans to provide retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated in the president's warrantless spying program secretly begun shortly after the September 11 attacks.

Bush insisted the new bill "must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multibillion dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation."

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan replied: "The president's remarks today raise further questions about how the administration might have pressured or induced telecommunications companies to participate."

House Democrats say they will not consider retroactive immunity unless the White House hands over records of detailing what the companies did. The House bill would protect the firms from future lawsuits, but not from pending ones.

It also would revise and replace a temporary surveillance measure, the Protect America Act, that Bush pushed through the Democrat-led Congress in August amid warnings that the United States faced new threats.

That earlier measure expanded the federal warrantless surveillance authority and closed what the administration said was a dangerous legal gap.

The new House bill would require the administration to obtain one-year "blanket warrants" from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor telephone calls or e-mails of suspected terrorists when they involve an American citizen.

It would not require individual warrants to listen in on Americans communicating with suspected terrorists, unless the U.S. citizen is also a specific target of the surveillance. No warrant would be needed to monitor foreign suspects speaking to each other overseas.

"The legislation before us today seeks to once again strike the appropriate balance between needed government authority and our precious rights and liberties," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat.

Bush warned the new measure "would take us backward."

"The Protect America Act is a vital tool in stopping the terrorists, and it would be a grave mistake for Congress to weaken this tool," he said.

Critics say the warrantless surveillance program begun after the September 11 attacks was unlawful. The White House maintains Bush acted within his authority.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group, sued telephone giant AT&T Inc last year and accused it of illegally allowing the government to monitor phone calls and e-mails.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Ken Wainstein said the administration is also concerned about restrictions the bill would impose on the type of intelligence that could be collected, and a provision that would have the surveillance authority expire in 2009, the year Bush leaves office.

Bush wants the Protect America Act, set to expire in February, made permanent.

Giuliani: Worse Than Bush

2007-10-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

Early Wednesday, May 16th, Charleston, South Carolina. The scene is a town-hall meeting staged by GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, only a day after he wowed a patriotic Republican crowd at a nationally televised debate with a righteous ass-kicking of the party's latest Hanoi Jane, terrorist sympathizer Ron Paul. A bump in the polls later, "America's Mayor" is back on the campaign trail -- in a room packed with standard-issue Adorable Schoolchildren, in this case beatific black kids in elementary school uniforms with wide eyes and big RUDY stickers pinned to their oblivious breasts.

Giuliani has good stage presence, but his physical appearance is problematic -- virtually neckless, all shoulders and forehead and overbite, with a hunched-over, Draculoid posture that recalls, oddly enough, George W. Bush, the vestigial stoop of a once-chubby kid who grew up hiding tittie pictures from nuns. Not handsome, not cuddly, if he wins this thing it's going to be by projecting toughness and man-aura. But all presidential candidates have to play the baby-kissing game, and here is an early chance for Rudy to show his softer side.

"So," he whispers to the kids. "What do you all want to be when you grow up? Do any of you know?"

A bucktoothed boy raises his hand.

"I wanna be a doctor," he says, "and a lawyer."

The crowd laughs, then looks at Rudy expectantly. The obvious line is "A doctor and a lawyer? Whaddya want to do, sue yourself?" and you can see Rudy physically straining for the joke. But this candidate's funny bone is a microscopic thing, like one of those anvil-shaped deals in the ear, and the line eludes him.

"A doctor and a lawyer, huh?" he says, grinning nervously. "Uh . . . whaddya want to do, sue the doctor?"

My notes from that moment read: Chirping crickets.

Rudy moves on. "How about you?" he says to the next boy.

"I want to be a policeman!" the kid says.

Rudy smiles. Then the next boy says he wants to be a fireman, and the crowd twitters: Wow, a fireman and a policeman, in the same room! Rudy is beaming now, almost certainly aware that every grown-up present is suddenly thinking about 9/11. His day. As he leans over, the room is filled with popping flashbulbs. Then, instead of capitalizing on the sense of pride and shared purpose everyone is feeling, Giuliani utters something truly strange and twisted.

"A fireman and a policeman, huh?" he says. "Well, the first thing that I want to do is make sure that you two get along."

Huh? Amid confused applause, Rudy flashes a queer smile, then moves on to the heart of his presentation, a neat little speech about how the election of a Democratic president will result in certain nuclear attack and the end of the free market as we know it. I'm barely listening, however, still thinking about the "make sure you get along" line.

Although few people outside of New York know it yet, there is an emerging controversy over Giuliani's heroic 9/11 legacy. Critics charge that Rudy's failure to resolve the feuding between the city's police and firefighters prior to the attack led to untold numbers of deaths, the most tragic example being the inability of firemen to hear warnings from police helicopters about the impending collapse of the South Tower. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the two departments had been "designed to work independently, not together," and that greater coordination would have spared many lives.

Given all that, why did Rudy offer this weirdly unsolicited reference to the controversy now? Was he joking? And if so, what the fuck? It was a strange and bitter comment to make, especially right on the heels of his grand-slam performance in the previous night's debate. If this is a guy who chews over a perceived slight in the middle of a victory lap, what's he going to be like with his finger on the button? Even Richard Nixon wasn't wound that tight.

--

Rudy giuliani is a true American hero, and we know this because he does all the things we expect of heroes these days -- like make $16 million a year, and lobby for Hugo Chávez and Rupert Murdoch, and promote wars without ever having served in the military, and hire a lawyer to call his second wife a "stuck pig," and organize absurd, grandstanding pogroms against minor foreign artists, and generally drift through life being a shameless opportunist with an outsize ego who doesn't even bother to conceal the fact that he's had a hard-on for the presidency since he was in diapers. In the media age, we can't have a hero humble enough to actually be one; what is needed is a tireless scoundrel, a cad willing to pose all day long for photos, who'll accept $100,000 to talk about heroism for an hour, who has the balls to take a $2.7 million advance to write a book about himself called Leadership. That's Rudy Giuliani. Our hero. And a perfect choice to uphold the legacy of George W. Bush.

Yes, Rudy is smarter than Bush. But his political strength -- and he knows it -- comes from America's unrelenting passion for never bothering to take that extra step to figure shit out. If you think you know it all already, Rudy agrees with you. And if anyone tries to tell you differently, they're probably traitors, and Rudy, well, he'll keep an eye on 'em for you. Just like Bush, Rudy appeals to the couch-bound bully in all of us, and part of the allure of his campaign is the promise to put the Pentagon and the power of the White House at that bully's disposal.

Rudy's attack against Ron Paul in the debate was a classic example of that kind of politics, a Rovian masterstroke. The wizened Paul, a grandfather seventeen times over who is running for the Republican nomination at least 100 years too late, was making a simple isolationist argument, suggesting that our lengthy involvement in Middle Eastern affairs -- in particular our bombing of Iraq in the 1990s -- was part of the terrorists' rationale in attacking us.

Though a controversial statement for a Republican politician to make, it was hardly refutable from a factual standpoint -- after all, Osama bin Laden himself cited America's treatment of Iraq in his 1996 declaration of war. Giuliani surely knew this, but he jumped all over Paul anyway, demanding that Paul take his comment back. "I don't think I've ever heard that before," he hissed, "and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th."

It was like the new convict who comes into prison the first day and punches the weakest guy in the cafeteria in the teeth, and the Southern crowd exploded in raucous applause. Coupled with yet another implosion by aneurysm-in-waiting John McCain a few days later ("Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room!" McCain screamed at a fellow senator during a meeting about immigration), the Ron Paul ass-whipping revived Giuliani's standing among conservatives who lately had begun to abandon him over his pro-choice status.

The Paul incident went to the very heart of who Giuliani is as a politician. To the extent that conservatism in the Bush years has morphed into a celebration of mindless patriotism and the paranoid witch-hunting of liberals and other dissenters, Rudy seems the most anxious of any Republican candidate to take up that mantle. Like Bush, Rudy has repeatedly shown that he has no problem lumping his enemies in with "the terrorists" if that's what it takes to get over. When the 9/11 Commission raised criticisms of his fire department, for instance, Giuliani put the bipartisan panel in its place for daring to question his leadership. "Our anger," he declared, "should clearly be directed at one source and one source alone -- the terrorists who killed our loved ones."

Whether Rudy believes in this kind of politics reflexively, as the psychologically crippled Bush does, or as a means to an end, as Karl Rove does, isn't clear. But there's no question that Giuliani has made the continuation of Swift-Boating politics a linchpin of his candidacy. His political hires speak deeply to that tendency. Chris Henick, formerly Karl Rove's most trusted deputy, is now a key aide at Giuliani Partners, the security firm set up by the mayor to cash in on his 9/11 image. One of his top donors, Richard Collins, is a longtime Bush supporter who was instrumental in setting up "Stop Her Now," a 527 group modeled on Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that will be used to attack Hillary Clinton. And the money for the smear campaign comes from the same Texas sources behind the Swift Boaters, including oilman T. Boone Pickens and Houston home builder Bob Perry.

To further emulate the Bush-Rove model, Giuliani has recruited some thirty Bush "Pioneers," the key fund-raisers who served as the president's $100,000 bagmen. In addition, he hired the woman who spearheaded the Pioneer program to be his chief fund-raiser. "Rudy definitely got some of Bush's heavier hitters, including all the Swift Boater types," says Alex Cohen, a senior researcher at Public Citizen, who tracks the president's top donors.

--

Rudy's stump speech on the trail these days is short and sweet. He talks about two things -- national security and free-market capitalism -- and his catchphrase for both is "going on offense." When he talks about "economic offense," Giuliani is ostensibly communicating the usual conservative contempt for taxes and big government. But he means more than that. Like the Bush-Cheney crew, Rudy believes everything should be for sale, even public policy -- particularly when he's in a position to do the selling.

In his years as mayor -- and his subsequent career as a lobbyist -- Rudy jumped into bed with anyone who could afford a rubber. Saudi Arabia, Rupert Murdoch, tobacco interests, pharmaceutical companies, private prisons, Bechtel, ChevronTexaco -- Giuliani took money from them all. You could change Rudy's mind literally in the time it took to write a check. A former prosecutor, Giuliani used to call drug dealers "murderers." But as a lobbyist he agreed to represent Seisint, a security firm run by former cocaine smuggler Hank Asher. "I have a great admiration for what he's doing," Rudy gushed after taking $2 million of Asher's money.

As mayor, Rudy had a history of asking financially interested parties to help shape important government policies. At one point, he allowed a deputy mayor who was on the payroll of Major League Baseball to work on deals for the Yankees and Mets; at another point he commissioned a $600,000 report on privatizing JFK and LaGuardia from a consultant with ties to the British Airport Authority, Rudy's handpicked choice to manage the airports.

And let's not forget Bernie Kerik, Rudy's very own hairy-assed Sancho Panza, who was nixed as director of Homeland Security after investigators uncovered a gift he received from a construction firm with alleged mob ties that wanted to do business with Giuliani's administration. It is a testament to the monstrous breadth of Rudy's chutzpah that he used his post-9/11 celebrity to push his personal bagman for a post that milks the world's hugest security-contracts tit -- at the very moment when he himself was creating a security-services company.

Then there's 9/11. Like Bush's, Rudy's career before the bombing was in the toilet; New Yorkers had come to think of him as an ambition-sick meanie whose personal scandals were truly wearying to think about. But on the day of the attack, it must be admitted, Rudy hit the perfect note; he displayed all the strength and reassuring calm that Bush did not, and for one day at least, he was everything you'd want in a leader. Then he woke up the next day and the opportunist in him saw that there was money to be made in an America high on fear.

For starters, Rudy tried to use the tragedy to shred election rules, pushing to postpone the inauguration of his successor so he could hog the limelight for a few more months. Then, with the dust from the World Trade Center barely settled, he went on the road as the Man With the Bullhorn, pocketing as much as $200,000 for a single speaking engagement. In 2002 he reported $8 million in speaking income; this past year it was more than $11 million. He's traveled in style, at one stop last year requesting a $47,000 flight on a private jet, five hotel rooms and a private suite with a balcony view and a king-size bed.

While the mayor himself flew out of New York on a magic carpet, thousands of cash-strapped cops, firemen and city workers involved with the cleanup at the World Trade Center were developing cancers and infections and mysterious respiratory ailments like the "WTC cough." This is the dirty little secret lurking underneath Rudy's 9/11 hero image -- the most egregious example of his willingness to shape public policy to suit his donors. While the cleanup effort at the Pentagon was turned over to federal agencies like OSHA, which quickly sealed off the site and required relief workers to wear hazmat suits, the World Trade Center cleanup was handed over to Giuliani. The city's Department of Design and Construction (DDC) promptly farmed out the waste-clearing effort to a smattering of politically connected companies, including Bechtel, Bovis and AMEC construction.

The mayor pledged to reopen downtown in no time, and internal DDC memos indicate that the cleanup was directed at a breakneck pace. One memo to DDC chief Michael Burton warned, "Project management appears to only address safety issues when convenient for the schedule of the project." Burton, however, had his own priorities: He threatened to fire contractors if "the highest level of efficiency is not maintained."

Although respiratory-mask use was mandatory, the city allowed a macho culture to develop on the site: Even the mayor himself showed up without a mask. By October, it was estimated, masks were being worn on site as little as twenty-nine percent of the time. Rudy proclaimed that there were "no significant problems" with the air at the World Trade Center. But there was something wrong with the air: It was one of the most dangerous toxic-waste sites in human history, full of everything from benzene to asbestos and PCBs to dioxin (the active ingredient in Agent Orange). Since the cleanup ended, police and firefighters have reported a host of serious illnesses -- respiratory ailments like sarcoidosis; leukemia and lymphoma and other cancers; and immune-system problems.

"The likelihood is that more people will eventually die from the cleanup than from the original accident," says David Worby, an attorney representing thousands of cleanup workers in a class-action lawsuit against the city. "Giuliani wears 9/11 like a badge of honor, but he screwed up so badly."

When I first spoke to Worby, he was on his way home from the funeral of a cop. "One thing about Giuliani," he told me. "He's never been to a funeral of a cleanup worker."

Indeed, Rudy has had little at all to say about the issue. About the only move he's made to address the problem was to write a letter urging Congress to pass a law capping the city's liability at $350 million.

Did Giuliani know the air at the World Trade Center was poison? Who knows -- but we do know he took over the cleanup, refusing to let more experienced federal agencies run the show. He stood on a few brick piles on the day of the bombing, then spent the next ten months making damn sure everyone worked the night shift on-site while he bonked his mistress and negotiated his gazillion-dollar move to the private sector. Meanwhile, the people who actually cleaned up the rubble got used to checking their stool for blood every morning.

Now Giuliani is running for president -- as the hero of 9/11. George Bush has balls, too, but even he has to bow to this motherfucker.

The War on Pot: America's $42 Billion Annual Boondoggle

2007-10-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

What else could we spend $42 billion each year on? Health insurance for kids? Better paid teachers? It's our choice.

What would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?

For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children's Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost -- and there'd still be $35 billion left over.

Or perhaps you'd hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.

Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what's left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.

Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country -- $560 for a family of four.

The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.

Why $42 billion? Because that's what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. -- $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.

That's like arresting every man, woman and child in the state of North Dakota plus every man, woman, and child in Des Moines, Iowa on marijuana charges ... every year. Arrests for marijuana possession -- not sales or trafficking, just possession -- totaled 738,916. By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined.

Basing his calculations mainly on U.S. government statistics, Gettman concludes that marijuana in the U.S. is a $113 billion dollar business. That's a huge chunk of economic activity that is unregulated and untaxed because it's almost entirely off the books.

Of course, the cost of our marijuana laws goes far beyond lost tax revenues and money spent on law enforcement. By consigning a very popular product -- one that's been used by about 100 million Americans, according to government surveys -- to the criminal underground, we've effectively cut legitimate businesspeople out of the market and handed a monopoly to criminals and gangs.

Strangely, government officials love to warn us that some unsavory characters profit off of marijuana sales, while ignoring the obvious: Our prohibitionist laws handed them the marijuana business in the first place, effectively giving marijuana dealers a $113 billion free ride.

All this might make some sense if marijuana were so terribly dangerous that it needed to be banned at all costs, but science long ago came to precisely the opposite conclusion. Compared to alcohol, for example, marijuana is astonishingly safe. For one thing, marijuana is much less addictive than alcohol, with just nine percent of users becoming dependent, as opposed to 15 percent for booze. And marijuana is much less toxic. Heavy drinking is well-documented to damage the brain and liver, and to increase the risk of many types of cancer. Marijuana, on the other hand, has never caused a medically documented overdose death, and scientists are still debating whether even heavy marijuana use causes any permanent harm at all. And then there's violence. Again, the scientific findings are overwhelming: Booze incites violence and aggression; marijuana doesn't.

Despite all that, we now arrest one American every 38 seconds on marijuana charges. And we do so at a staggering cost in law enforcement expenses, lost tax revenues, and staggering profits for criminal gangs.

The alternative is clear: Regulate marijuana just as we do beer, wine, and liquor. The only thing lacking is the political will.

Another Republican caught toe-tappin in a public toilet

2007-10-09T14:47:00.001-07:00

Another elected official was caught toe-tapping in the boys room. The Times-Picayune reports yet another Republican was caught soliciting in a public restroom.

Joey DiFatta is the chairman of St. Bernard Parish Council and a prominent Republican leader (until 2004 on the GOP state party Executive Committee).

He just withdrew from his state senate race, after his arrests for lewd behavior in a public restroom were made public.

From the Times-Picayune article:

"The report said DiFatta slid his foot into the deputy’s stall and tapped the deputy’s foot. In the report, Conley noted that such activity is common among men to indicate a willingness to participate in sex.

The deputy inside the stall, Detective Wayne Couvillion, responded by tapping his foot, and DiFatta reached under the partition and began to rub the deputy’s leg, the report states.

The detective asked DiFatta, 'What do you want?' according to the report, and he replied, 'I want to play with you.' "

Gore Pushed to Run If He Wins Nobel

2007-10-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

Newsweek reports this week that Democratic activists across the country are pressing Al Gore to enter the presidential race — and believe that if Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize this month — it may just trigger his entry.

NewsMax’s e-letter “Insider Report” first disclosed back on June 10 that the former vice president was considering entering the race if he won the Nobel prize. Winners are announced this October 12 in Oslo, Norway.

NewsMax reported, “Party insiders believe that a Gore campaign launched as late as October will still have enough time to raise money and challenge front-runners Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards.”

Gore has been nominated for the prize for his efforts to draw attention to the dangers of global warming. Speculation about a Gore run has been increasing as the date draws near.

Gore supporters believe a Nobel win “would burnish his reputation and remind Democrats that he’s been a leader fighting what voters consider the world’s premier environmental battle,” Newsweek reports. “Some Gore backers think he’s already decided to run, but speculate that he doesn’t want politics to interfere with his Nobel chances.”

The national DraftGore.com organization has gathered around 127,000 signatures to put Gore on primary ballots, and is planning to run an ad in The New York Times urging him to run.

The California 4 Gore group has volunteers circulating petitions in all 53 congressional districts. And a poll in Michigan by Detroit News/WXYZ-TV had Gore winning 36 percent of the vote, beating out Clinton with 32 percent.

So far Gore has given no clear indication that he’s leaning toward a run, although he has not ruled that out when given the opportunity.

But Roy Gayhart, an organizer of the California group, told Newsweek, “We feel that if [Gore] wins the Nobel Prize . . . then he can’t not run for president.”

Immigration By The Numbers

2007-10-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

Roy Beck's celebrated demonstration of the population consequences of current U.S. immigration policies has entertained and shocked ... all » audiences across the country. This video is packed with the facts and analysis that make moral and practical sense of a complex and highly contentious issue.

Cocaine galore! Villagers live it up on profits from 'white lobster'

2007-10-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

Washed-up bales of drugs bring millions of dollars to poor fishing communities.

Centuries of troubles have bobbed on the waves off the Mosquito Coast: Christopher Columbus, the Spanish conquest, pirates, slave ships. For the fishing villages scattered across these remote central American shores there was seldom reason to welcome visits from the outside world.
But that was before the "white lobster", and before everything changed. Now the villagers rise at first light to scan the horizon in hope of seeing a very different type of intruder.

What they are looking for, and what they have coyly euphemised, are big, bulging bags of Colombian cocaine. A combination of law enforcement, geography and ocean currents has washed tonnes of the drug, and millions of dollars, into what was one of the Caribbean's most desolate and isolated regions. Villages that once eked an existence on shrimp and red-tinged lobster have been transformed. In place of thatched wooden huts there are brick houses, mansions and satellite dishes.
"They consider it a blessing from God. You see people all day just walking up and down the beaches keeping a lookout to sea," said Louis Perez, the police chief in Bluefields, the main port on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast.

Colombian speedboats hug the coastline so closely that this narco-route to the US is known as the "country road". With 800-horsepower outboard motors, the so-called "go fasts" can usually outrun US and Nicaraguan patrols. But on occasion they are intercepted, not least when US snipers hit their engines. "Then they throw the coke overboard to get rid of the evidence," said a European drug enforcement official based in the region. "Other times it's because they run out of fuel or have an accident."

Currents carry the bales towards the shore. A decade ago many of the indigenous Miskito people had not even heard of cocaine. Some 15 people in the village of Karpwala are said to have died after mistaking the contents of a bale for baking powder.

That innocence is long gone. Colombian traffickers and Nicaraguan middlemen trawl villages offering finders $4,000 (£1,960) a kilo, said Major Perez - seven times less than the US street value but a fortune to a fisherman.

Tasbapauni, a sleepy hamlet a three-hour motorboat ride from Bluefields, is a cocaine version of Whisky Galore!, the 1940s tale of a Hebridean island which salvages a shipwrecked cargo of booze and plays cat-and-mouse with the authorities to keep it.

Posh hotels

Some locals who used to be in rags live it up at posh hotels in Bluefields and Managua, others stock up on wide-screen TVs and expensive beer. With its creole English and African slave descendants, the community feels more Jamaican than Nicaraguan. Its high-rolling reputation has earned Tasbapauni the nickname Little Miami. That's an exaggeration. There is still plenty of poverty and barefoot children and there are no roads or vehicles and little to break the silence except lapping surf, clucking chickens and the occasional thud of a falling coconut. But things are different. "Today the toiling is easier. Life is plenty better than before," said Percival Hebbert, 84, a Moravian Church pastor and village leader. "The community is like this: you find drugs, this one find drugs, the next one find drugs - that money is stirring right here in the community, going round and round."

The white lobster was a blessing, he said, as long as the bonanza was spent wisely. "Almost all you see with a good home, a good cement home, those are the ones who find them things."

The church had just installed a shiny white floor thanks to a donation from a fisherman, Ted Hayman, who reputedly hauled in 220kg (485lb). Mr Hayman chose the colours and tiles himself. "He's a kind man," said Mr Hebbert.

He was grateful but lamented the church's cut was not greater. "God says that 10% of whatever you earn is his. But no one do that here." Villages further north oblige finders to give a tenth of the proceeds to the church and at least another tenth to neighbours.

Mr Hayman, 37, Tasbapauni's most "blessed" fisherman, has converted his shack into a three-storey mansion with iron gates, a satellite dish and architecture best described as narc-deco. A sign identifies the residence as Hayman Hi.

Garrison

Mr Hayman's sister, Maria, 40, said cocaine was the source of the wealth - and philanthropy. "Him always try to help the people. Him help the sick, the widows, the church, anybody."

A short stroll from Hayman Hi is a 30-strong army garrison tasked with combating drug trafficking. It is as laid back as the rest of Tasbapauni. You could not prosecute someone for becoming rich, said the commander, Edwin Salmeron. "If we don't capture them with the drugs there's nothing we can do."

Given the poverty and decades of government neglect it was "understandable but not justified" that the cocaine was sold on, said Moises Arana, a former Bluefields mayor. "There is no shame. It's almost an innocence - they don't understand the consequences."

Increasingly, however, a dark side is emerging. Not all the cocaine is shipped north. Some is turned into crack and sold locally, producing the skinny, ragged youths who haunt Bluefields' slums. The town jail is crammed with alleged addicts and pushers awaiting trial.

"With crack you lose your pride, you lose your money, everything," said Randolph Carter, 50, a former addict. In 2004 traffickers shot off his arm while looking for another addict who had reneged on a promise to fuel their boat. "Cocaine is not a blessing. It can destroy you," said Mr Carter.

Corruption allows traffickers to buy their way out of trouble. In 2004 a gang took over Bluefields' police station and cut the throats of four officers. No one has been charged for what is assumed to be a drug-related atrocity.

To many, however, cocaine promises deliverance from poverty. Marvin Hoxton, 37, a lobster diver, once discovered a 72kg bale. Thieves forced him to hand over 70kg at gunpoint but he sold the remainder for $5,000. It lasted two months. "Drinking, dancing, women, the dollars fly," he rued.

Now broke and back living with his mother, Mr Hoxton had a plan: to fill his wooden skiff with supplies and camp out on a remote beach for six months. He will string a hammock between two coconut trees, listen to his transistor radio and keep his eyes on the ocean.

"You can't know when you might get it," he said, staring at his beer, as if mini-bales were floating inside the bottle. "You have to wait. Wait for it to come."

Google logo tweak sends critics into orbit

2007-10-09T09:40:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON - Should the world's most-used search engine be more of a Yankee Google Dandy?

Google Inc. occasionally features light-hearted doodles on its colorful home-page logo to commemorate special occasions. But now they are drawing criticism from conservatives for not being more patriotic.

The Mountain View, Calif., company bathes its logo in stars and stripes every Independence Day, but last week's decision to honor the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch -- the second "g" in Google was replaced with a drawing of the Soviet satellite -- is being blasted by some conservatives.

Not only did Google honor an achievement by a totalitarian regime that was our Cold War enemy, they griped, but it did so without having ever altered its logo to commemorate U.S. military personnel on Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

"It's a kick to your belly," said conservative blogger Giovanni Gallucci, 39, a social media consultant from Dallas. "I understand these guys are scientists and engineers and they have their quirks and want to make sure people are recognized who might not normally be recognized . . . but why not celebrate the struggles that we've come through as a people?"

Conservatives see the Sputnik logo as particularly galling because the search giant's in-house artist has tweaked the Google logo for a variety of obscure events, including World Water Day, Persian New Year, painter Edvard Munch's birthday and China's Dragon Boat Festival.

Google regularly gives other U.S. holidays the logo treatment, including Halloween, Thanksgiving and St. Patrick's Day (but not for Columbus Day, which was Monday).

"When they ignore Veterans Day and Memorial Day, I think they're telling us something about the way they view America," said Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily.com, a conservative website that has criticized Google's logo decisions.

Conservatives have found plenty of reasons to complain about Google, which they see as a liberal enclave because of the corporate causes it champions and the political candidates its employees support.

The company, started in 1998 by two Stanford University graduate students, prides itself on progressive thinking. Google set up a $90-million foundation in 2005 to fund causes widely seen as liberal, including climate change and global public health.

What's more, the company's employees contribute overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates. While the company's new political action committee has given nearly half of its $22,100 in contributions this year to Republicans, 93% of the $141,000 donated by individual employees went to Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission data provided by CQ Moneyline.

Google's decision to self-censor its search engine in China to comply with the Communist government's online rules also has drawn condemnation from Republicans.

The company defended its decision to let Veterans Day and Memorial Day pass without a special logo, saying it was trying to be respectful.

"Google's special logos tend to be lighthearted and often scientific in nature," spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger said in an e-mailed statement. "We do not believe we can convey the appropriate somber tone through this medium to mark holidays like Memorial Day."

Google has altered its logo more than 140 times since 1999, according to a gallery on the company's website.

The choices sometimes reflect Google's corporate fascinations. For example, the company is so enthralled with space exploration that it recently agreed to sponsor a $30-million contest to land unmanned rovers on the moon.

That passion has been reflected in logos that commemorate some of America's crowning achievements in space exploration, including lunar landings and Mars missions, and the birthday of noted American astronomer Percival Lowell.

Still, outrage increases in some corners of the Web for each year Google fails to honor Memorial Day.

In May, the website www.zombietime.com started a Memorial Day logo contest to "show Google that it's not so hard" to make respectful ones. It has received about 250 entries, including ones that replace the second "o" with a Purple Heart medal and the "l" with the flagpole in the Iwo Jima flag-raising.

"I have no problem with Google commemorating obscure holidays or some of the trivial anniversaries that they note," the site's owner, who declined to give his name, said via e-mail, "just so long as they also make special logos for the more significant holidays."

Oregon teacher wants to take gun to school

2007-10-09T09:33:00.001-07:00

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - An Oregon high school English teacher is demanding the right to pack heat on the job.

Shirley Katz says she needs to take her 9 millimeter Glock pistol with her to work because she fears her ex-husband could show up and try to hurt her. She's also worried about a Columbine-style attack.

But Katz's district has barred teachers from bringing guns to school. So Katz is challenging the ban as unlawful, because Oregon is among states that allow people with a permit, which she has, to carry concealed weapons into public buildings.

School Superintendent Phil Long insists employees and students are safer without guns on campus at South Medford High School, where Katz teaches. The district plans to make that argument when the case comes before a judge on Thursday.

9/11 Is Over

2007-10-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Not long ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran a fake news story that began like this:

“At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11. ‘My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise,’ said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. ‘As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all.’ If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world’s conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.”

Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true — how much, since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.

Before 9/11, the world thought America’s slogan was: “Where anything is possible for anybody.” But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: “Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints.”

You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.

Roger Dow, president of the Travel Industry Association, told me that the United States has lost millions of overseas visitors since 9/11 — even though the dollar is weak and America is on sale. “Only the U.S. is losing traveler volume among major countries, which is unheard of in today’s world,” Mr. Dow said.

Total business arrivals to the United States fell by 10 percent over the 2004-5 period alone, while the number of business visitors to Europe grew by 8 percent in that time. The travel industry’s recent Discover America Partnership study concluded that “the U.S. entry process has created a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers and hurting America’s image abroad.” Those who don’t visit us, don’t know us.

I’d love to see us salvage something decent in Iraq that might help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive pathway. That was and is necessary to improve our security. But sometimes the necessary is impossible — and we just can’t keep chasing that rainbow this way.

Look at our infrastructure. It’s not just the bridge that fell in my hometown, Minneapolis. Fly from Zurich’s ultramodern airport to La Guardia’s dump. It is like flying from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. I still can’t get uninterrupted cellphone service between my home in Bethesda and my office in D.C. But I recently bought a pocket cellphone at the Beijing airport and immediately called my wife in Bethesda — crystal clear.

I just attended the China clean car conference, where Chinese automakers were boasting that their 2008 cars will meet “Euro 4” — European Union — emissions standards. We used to be the gold standard. We aren’t anymore. Last July, Microsoft, fed up with American restrictions on importing brain talent, opened its newest software development center in Vancouver. That’s in Canada, folks. If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?

We can’t afford to keep being this stupid! We have got to get our groove back. We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy. Al Qaeda is about 9/11. We are about 9/12, we are about the Fourth of July — which is why I hope that anyone who runs on the 9/11 platform gets trounced.

5 Myths About Sick Old Europe

2007-10-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

By Steven Hill
Sunday, October 7, 2007; Page B03

In the global economy, today's winners can become tomorrow's losers in a twinkling, and vice versa. Not so long ago, American pundits and economic analysts were snidely touting U.S. economic superiority to the "sick old man" of Europe. What a difference a few months can make. Today, with the stock market jittery over Iraq, the mortgage crisis, huge budget and trade deficits, and declining growth in productivity, investors are wringing their hands about the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, analysts point to the roaring economies of China and India as the only bright spots on the global horizon.

But what about Europe? You may be surprised to learn how our estranged transatlantic partner has been faring during these roller-coaster times -- and how successfully it has been knocking down the Europessimist myths about it.

1. The sclerotic European economy is incapable of leading the world.

Who're you calling sclerotic? The European Union's $16 trillion economy has been quietly surging for some time and has emerged as the largest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the global economy. That's more than the U.S. economy (27 percent) or Japan's (9 percent). Despite all the hype, China is still an economic dwarf, accounting for less than 6 percent of the world's economy. India is smaller still.

The European economy was never as bad as the Europessimists made it out to be. From 2000 to 2005, when the much-heralded U.S. economic recovery was being fueled by easy credit and a speculative housing market, the 15 core nations of the European Union had per capita economic growth rates equal to that of the United States. In late 2006, they surpassed us. Europe added jobs at a faster rate, had a much lower budget deficit than the United States and is now posting higher productivity gains and a $3 billion trade surplus.

2. Nobody wants to invest in European companies and economies because lack of competitiveness makes them a poor bet.

Wrong again. Between 2000 and 2005, foreign direct investment in the E.U. 15 was almost half the global total, and investment returns in Europe outperformed those in the United States. "Old Europe is an investment magnet because it is the most lucrative market in the world in which to operate," says Dan O'Brien of the Economist. In fact, corporate America is a huge investor in Europe; U.S. companies' affiliates in the E.U. 15 showed profits of $85 billion in 2005, far more than in any other region of the world and 26 times more than the $3.3 billion they made in China.

And forget that old canard about economic competitiveness. According to the World Economic Forum's measure of national competitiveness, European countries took the top four spots, seven of the top 10 spots and 12 of the top 20 spots in 2006-07. The United States ranked sixth. India ranked 43rd and mainland China 54th.

3. Europe is the land of double-digit unemployment.

Not anymore. Half of the E.U. 15 nations have experienced effective full employment during this decade, and unemployment rates have been the same as or lower than the rate in the United States. Unemployment for the entire European Union, including the still-emerging nations of Central and Eastern Europe, stands at a historic low of 6.7 percent. Even France, at 8 percent, is at its lowest rate in 25 years.

That's still higher than U.S. unemployment, which is 4.6 percent, but let's not forget that many of the jobs created here pay low wages and include no benefits. In Europe, the jobless still have access to health care, generous replacement wages, job-retraining programs, housing subsidies and other benefits. In the United States, by contrast, the unemployed can end up destitute and marginalized.

4. The European "welfare state" hamstrings businesses and hurts the economy.

Beware of stereotypes based on ideological assumptions. As Europe's economy has surged, it has maintained fairness and equality. Unlike in the United States, with its rampant inequality and lack of universal access to affordable health care and higher education, Europeans have harnessed their economic engine to create wealth that is broadly distributed.

Europeans still enjoy universal cradle-to-grave social benefits in many areas. They get quality health care, paid parental leave, affordable childcare, paid sick leave, free or nearly free higher education, generous retirement pensions and quality mass transit. They have an average of five weeks of paid vacation (compared with two for Americans) and a shorter work week. In some European countries, workers put in one full day less per week than Americans do, yet enjoy the same standard of living.

Europe is more of a "workfare state" than a welfare state. As one British political analyst said to me recently: "Europe doesn't so much have a welfare society as a comprehensive system of institutions geared toward keeping everyone healthy and working." Properly understood, Europe's economy and social system are two halves of a well-designed "social capitalism" -- an ingenious framework in which the economy finances the social system to support families and employees in an age of globalized capitalism that threatens to turn us all into internationally disposable workers. Europeans' social system contributes to their prosperity, rather than detracting from it, and even the continent's conservative political leaders agree that it is the best way.

5. Europe is likely to be held hostage to its dependence on Russia and the Middle East for most of its energy needs.

Crystal-ball gazing on this front is risky. Europe may rely on energy from Russia and the Middle East for some time, but it is also leading the world in reducing its energy dependence and in taking action to counteract global climate change. In March, the heads of all 27 E.U. nations agreed to make renewable energy sources 20 percent of the union's energy mix by 2020 and to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent.

In pursuit of these goals, the continent's landscape is slowly being transformed by high-tech windmills, massive solar arrays, tidal power stations, hydrogen fuel cells and energy-saving "green" buildings. Europe has gone high- and low-tech: It's developing not only mass public transit and fuel-efficient vehicles but also thousands of kilometers of bicycle and pedestrian paths to be used by people of all ages. Europe's ecological "footprint," the amount of the Earth's capacity that a population consumes, is about half that of the United States.

So much for the sick old man.

White House: Bush recognizes 1915 events but doesn’t rank them genocide

2007-10-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said President Bush "reiterated his opposition to the Armenian Genocide resolution, the passage of which would be harmful to U.S. relations with Turkey." Johndroe said Bush believes the Armenian episode ranks among the greatest tragedies of the 20th century, but the determination whether "the events constitute a genocide should be a matter for historical inquiry, not legislation."

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide.

At the U.S. State Department, the senior official who deals with Turkish relations said the United States position is not to deny or accept that genocide occurred. Nevertheless, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said, "We do not believe this bill would advance either the cause of historical truth or Turkish-Armenian reconciliation or the interests of the United States."

The Turkish reaction to passage of the bill would be extremely strong, Fried said. It would do "grave harm" to relations with Turkey, a NATO ally, and damage the U.S. war effort in Iraq, Turkey’s neighbor.

The resolution is largely symbolic and would not be binding on foreign policy. Similar measures have been offered before and never passed, but it appears to have a good chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled House if it is brought to a vote, The Associated Press reports.

George.W. Bush Thinks Christians Are Idiots

2007-10-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

By William H. Calhoun

David Kuo, the former deputy director of the White House office of faith-based initiatives, implies that George W. Bush is not fond of Christians. He maintains in his new book, Tempting Faith, that Bush and those around him regularly mock and make fun of Christians, especially Evangelicals. For example, he quotes Karl Rove as saying Evangelicals are "nuts." It was quite common, according to Kuo, for Bush and those around him to look upon Christians as useful idiots.

But this should be no surprise. Neoconservatives have a long history of allegedly mocking Christians. It was, after all, the pro-Israel lobby that coined the term "useful idiots" - their term to describe pro-Israel Christians. Christians, they maintain, are good for money, votes and soldiers - but that's about it. Christians are not to be taken seriously. Bush has surrounded himself with such neocons, helping them every step of the way to implement their sinister agenda. Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq, and he still utilizes the "useful idiots" (Christians) as canon fodder on the battlefields of Iraq.

Geore W Bush's covert dislike of Christians is old news. Like his neoconservative cabal, he looks upon them as useful idiots, pawns in a global agenda. And despite some empty rhetoric, Bush's domestic policies have harmed working Christian families. Two policies in particular, immigration and free trade, have been devastating.

Bush, through increased immigration, has done more harm to working Christian families than any politician in recent history. The invasion of third-world immigrants has depressed American wages to a historical low. The wages of most Christian Americans (adjusted for inflation) are lower now than they were in 1980 because of both legal and illegal immigration. And immigration has not only harmed Christian wages, but also their neighborhoods, schools, and daily lives. In parts of the Southwest, for example, crime has increased 800%, HIV 700%, and Hispanics have banned "all white authors" from the schools. Bush and his cronies want to convert the US into a third-world wasteland, and thereby have been instrumental in bringing harm to Christian Americans.

Bush's support of free trade has also harmed working Christians. Historically, liberals supported free trade, and conservatives opposed it. Conservatives should oppose it. Free trade undermines national sovereignty, and it places vital economic decisions in the hands of international bureaucrats who are accountable to no one. But many of the non-thinking GOP lapdogs have been "neoconned" on this issue, actually thinking it wise to support national suicide. Our free-trade deficit is now at a historical high. Wages are depressed, hundreds of thousands of jobs lost, and all the while Bush and his big-business buddies have made money from such suffering. The Christian "useful idiots" have been good canon fodder not only in Iraq but on the economic battlefield as well. And, all the while, the neoconservatives' bank accounts have ballooned.

George W. Bush has betrayed America. He is no Christian himself, which is why he mocks real Christians. Christians should be ashamed for supporting such a Judas.

I Drew This

2007-10-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

Do you miss Al Gore?

Typhoon kills 4 in Taiwan, China evacuates hundreds of thousands

2007-10-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- A typhoon lashed Taiwan Saturday with intense winds and rains, killing four people and cutting power to thousands of homes. But the storm weakened as it moved toward mainland China, where authorities ordered hundreds of thousands to higher ground.

Two people were still missing in Taiwan, the Disaster Relief Center said.

Typhoon Krosa was forecast to strike China's southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian provinces late Sunday, China's national flood control office said in a notice on its Web site.

On Sunday morning, the typhoon was centered at sea about 80 miles northwest of Keelung on the northern tip of Taiwan. It weakened to a tropical storm with sustained winds of 66 mph, down from 114 mph, the Central Weather Bureau said.

Two men were killed in a Taipei suburb Saturday when their house was buried by a landslide, the Disaster Relief Center said. Another man died after falling from his balcony during the storm in northern Hsinchu, and a woman was electrocuted after falling from her motorcycle in Tainan.

Two men were missing, including one who was buried in debris after a hostel was hit by a landslide in Hsinchu.

At its peak, Krosa caused a massive power cut blacking out some 2 million homes in Taiwan. But electricity has since been restored.

Cathay Pacific Airways canceled flights from Taipei to Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. Dragon Airlines also canceled flights between Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The Central Weather Bureau said Krosa could continue to dump heavy rains across Taiwan on Sunday as it moved toward eastern China.

On mainland China, more than 500,000 tourists were evacuated from China's southeast coast, the Xinhua News Agency said. Fishing boats were ordered back into port and tourist activities were canceled in Zhejiang.

Authorities in Zhejiang evacuated 837,000 people and recalled more than 32,000 vessels by late Saturday, Xinhua said. In Shanghai, where the Special Olympics is taking place, the city government canceled vacations for flood-control workers and was drafting plans to drain competition sites.

In Vietnam, the death toll from Typhoon Lekima -- which hit the country's central coast late Wednesday -- rose to 32, with another 16 people missing, disaster officials said.

Authorities said they expected the death toll to go even higher.

Nine bodies were recovered Saturday in the worst-hit central province of Nghe An, said provincial disaster official Tran Gia Danh.

"This is the worst flood to hit our province since 1988," Danh said. "We expect the death toll from flooding in the province to rise as communication with some villages remains disrupted."

Lekima, named after a local fruit, also damaged about 77,000 homes, the government

Virginia Rep. Davis dies after battling breast cancer

2007-10-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Virginia, died Saturday after battling breast cancer, her office said. She was 57.

Davis died at her home in Gloucester, Virginia.

She was first diagnosed with cancer in 2005, according to a statement from her office, and had a recurrence earlier this year.

"Davis had been receiving breast cancer treatment at Duke University and just recently had received positive reports on her condition," the statement said. "However, during the last week Davis' health took a turn for the worse."

Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming, the statement said.

President George Bush said Davis was a "fine example of a public servant" whose "common sense values will be missed on Capitol Hill."

"Laura and I are deeply saddened that Rep. Jo Ann Davis lost her courageous battle with breast cancer today. Her determination to fight the disease is an inspiration to all of us," he said in a statement.

Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Florida, chairman of the House Republican Conference, noted in a statement that when Davis was first diagnosed with cancer, instead of retiring, she "pressed on, continued to serve with distinction the people of the Commonwealth and the country she loved, and beat the disease."

After the cancer returned, he said, "she courageously took the same path."

"Jo Ann Davis was an inspiration to all of us fortunate enough to serve with her, and we are all deeply saddened by the news of her passing," Putnam said. "At this difficult hour, our thoughts and prayers are with Jo Ann's husband, Chuck, and their loved ones."

Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, said Davis was a "great woman and a great patriot."

"It was my great honor to serve in the United States House of Representatives alongside my friend, Jo Ann Davis," he said in a statement. "She fought for, and embodied, the core values of Virginia."

Blackwater crushed car with three kids, old man to avoid traffic: former US official

2007-10-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

Janessa Gans, a visiting political science professor at Principia College who served as a US official in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, opened fire on the private security contractor Blackwater in Saturday's edition of the Los Angeles Times.

"When the Iraqi government last month demanded the expulsion of Blackwater USA, the private security firm, I had one reaction: It's about time," she begins in an editorial.

Gans says she witnessed firsthand "over-the-top zeal" of the behemoth US mercenary force.

"We would careen around corners, jump road dividers, reach speeds in excess of 100 mph and often cross over to the wrong side of the street, oncoming traffic be damned," she writes. "I began to wonder whether my meetings, intended to further U.S. policy goals and improve the lives of Iraqis, were doing more harm than good. With our drivers honking at, cutting off, pelting with water bottles (a favorite tactic) and menacing with weapons anyone in their way, how many enemies were we creating?"

Gans describes a particularly "infuriating" incident where the lead Chevy Suburban in her convoy allegedly crashed into a sedan ferrying an older man, a young woman and three children.

"As we approached at typical breakneck speed, the Blackwater driver honked furiously and motioned to the side, as if they should pull over," she pens. "The kids in the back seat looked back in horror, mouths agape at the sight of the heavily armored Suburbans driven by large, armed men in dark sunglasses. The poor Iraqi driver frantically searched for a means of escape, but there was none. So the lead Blackwater vehicle smashed heedlessly into the car, pushing it into the barrier. We zoomed by too quickly to notice if anyone was hurt."

"Where do you all expect them to go?" she allegedly cried. "It was an old guy and a family, for goodness' sake. Was it necessary for them to destroy their poor old car?"

"Ma'am, we've been trained to view anyone as a potential threat," she says the driver, who she did not identify, replied. "You don't know who they might use as decoys or what the risks are. Terrorists could be disguised as anyone."

"Well, if they weren't terrorists before, they certainly are now!" she says she replied.

According to Gans, the Pentagon's rules of engagement and the private security contractor's seeming indifference created a stark contrast for local Iraqis, who saw the US military as a more responsible force. "Blackwater seemed to have no such rules, paid no compensation and, per long-standing Coalition Provisional Authority fiat, had immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law."

"As we do the work of bridge building and improving our host citizens' lives, if the people providing our transportation and security are antagonizing, angering and even killing the people we are putatively trying to help, our entire mission is undermined," she concluded.

"Flying Spaghetti Monster" Religious Group Turning Heads at MSU

2007-10-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

A group at Missouri State University is raising eyebrows with it’s not-so-mainstream take on religion.

The national "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" has a local chapter at MSU, and it's sending a strong message to students on campus.

It’s the second-largest religious group on Missouri State's campus, with more than 200 members, including MSU staff.

It's a student organization Jeffrey Markus wanted to be a part of as an MSU student.

“For the people that are not heavily into a religion it feels like a real welcome movement because here on campus there's a lot of people who are very confused on what they believe and on what they want to do."

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster began just a few years ago with only a handful of members and now its grown dramatically.

“A lot of times when you're talking about emotionally or religious charged issues its very difficult to have a reason conversation,” says the organization’s captain, J.T. Eberhard. “People on both sides, I think one side in particular have divorced themselves from reason to such a degree that is very hard to have a logical discussion with them."

The group is known for its sarcastic support of theories of intelligent design and has strong beliefs that the universe and everything in it was created by a flying spaghetti monster.

“We get a lot of support, more than you imaged,” he says. “In fact, the majority of our membership is made up of religious people. We have a Muslim member, we have several Christians that just that are in favor of a more imperially-based world view.”

Many members of the organization believe that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates since the 18-hundreds.

"Hardcore or hard-lining religious people take this movement as a very negative look,” says member John Apeine. “Most people on the street once they get to know what they are about kinda see a bit of satire in it and at the exact same time they see that there is a much stronger message. Not everyone may believe in the flying spaghetti monster in the way they believe in everything else."

Many members have turned to the internet to network, using sites like facebook for discussions, recruitment and event planning.

And although it gets a lot of support from both students and faculty, the group does get threatening letters and hate mail delivered to its members.

Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII

2007-10-06T18:51:00.001-07:00

For six decades, they held their silence.

The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.

When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

Blunt criticism of modern enemy interrogations was a common refrain at the ceremonies held beside the Potomac River near Alexandria. Across the river, President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects during an Oval Office appearance.

Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army's Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"I feel like the military is using us to say, 'We did spooky stuff then, so it's okay to do it now,' " said Arno Mayer, 81, a professor of European history at Princeton University.

When Peter Weiss, 82, went up to receive his award, he commandeered the microphone and gave his piece.

"I am deeply honored to be here, but I want to make it clear that my presence here is not in support of the current war," said Weiss, chairman of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and a human rights and trademark lawyer in New York City.

The veterans of P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret installation in Fairfax County that went only by its postal code name, were brought back to Fort Hunt by park rangers who are piecing together a portrait of what happened there during the war.

Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, a process that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions. Many of the interrogators were refugees from the Third Reich.

"We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.

The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.

"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

Exactly what went on behind the barbed-wire fences of Fort Hunt has been a mystery that has lured amateur historians and curious neighbors for decades.

During the war, nearby residents watched buses with darkened windows roar toward the fort day and night. They couldn't have imagined that groundbreaking secrets in rocketry, microwave technology and submarine tactics were being peeled apart right on the grounds that are now a popular picnic area where moonbounces mushroom every weekend.

When Vincent Santucci arrived at the National Park Service's George Washington Memorial Parkway office as chief ranger four years ago, he asked his cultural resource specialist, Brandon Bies, to do some research so they could post signs throughout the park, explaining its history and giving it a bit more dignity.

That assignment changed dramatically when ranger Dana Dierkes was leading a tour of the park one day and someone told her about a rumored Fort Hunt veteran.

It was Fred Michel, who worked in engineering in Alexandria for 65 years, never telling his neighbors that he once faced off with prisoners and pried wartime secrets from them.

Michel directed them to other vets, and they remembered others.

Bies went from being a ranger researching mountains of topics in stacks of papers to flying across the country, camera and klieg lights in tow, to document the fading memories of veterans.

He, Santucci and others have spent hours trying to sharpen the focus of gauzy memories, coaxing complex details from men who swore on their generation's honor to never speak of the work they did at P.O. Box 1142.

"The National Park Service is committed to telling your story, and now it belongs to the nation," said David Vela, superintendent of the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

There is a deadline. Each day, about 1,100 World War II veterans die, said Jean Davis, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army's Freedom Team Salute program, which recognizes veterans and the parents, spouses and employers who provide support for active-duty soldiers.

By gathering at Fort Hunt yesterday, the quiet men could be saluted for the work they did so long ago.

NationalPornSunday - Oct. 7, 2007

2007-10-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

It’s not what you think:

Over the last two years, almost 200 churches throughout the country have taken part in National PornSunday.
October 7, 2007…

… is your chance to bring hope to those who are struggling with pornography. For some, it is ludicrous to link three X’s with church. For others, it’s long overdue. The one undeniable truth that can’t be ignored is the blatant push for all things sexual in our society. PornSunday seeks to drive the conversation about pornography into our churches, families, and lives. PornSunday wants to bring healing and recovery to those struggling with pornography.

One day. One message. Your voice. Churches across the country have become the strength and hope for those struggling with this dirty little secret, and now it’s your church’s opportunity. PornSunday allows you to begin this conversation and then, be equipped to talk about pornography and be prepared for the events that follow after addressing your congregation.

XXXchurch.com has compiled some of the best resources dealing with pornography and put them all in one PornSunday kit, that equips your church to talk about pornography and prepares your church to deal with the issues after PornSunday is over.

Call me old fashioned but I think pornography ought to be kept out of church.

Two Saudi Men Sentenced to 7,000 Lashes for Being Gay

2007-10-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent declaration that there are no gay people in Iran brought attention to the fact gays in Iran who are discovered are sentenced to death, and that a pair of teenaged boys
were executed for being gay in 2005.

American conservatives, many of whom advocate re-criminalizing gay behavior, may have been able to distance themselves from the story because Iran is an enemy of the United States. But now comes word that a major U.S. ally has sentenced two men to be tortured by flogging, and that part of the sentence has already been carried out in public:

Prison authorities in Saudi Arabia have begun administering 7,000 lashes to each of two men convicted of committing “homosexual acts”, a local newspaper reported yesterday.

The Okaz newspaper says that the sentence was being meted out in “phases” and was being conducted in a public square in the southwestern city of Al-Bahah.

Neither man has been named.The floggings began on Tuesday. The men were dragged into the square, their shirts removed and they were whipped. They were then returned to prison. The process was repeated on Wednesday and will continue daily until all 7,000 lashes have been administered.

Islamic laws prohibiting gay sex are brutal:

Among the Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence (madhahib), the Hanafi school mandates a severe beating for the first offense, and the death penalty for a repeat offender. The Shafi’i school calls for 100 lashes for an unmarried homosexual, death by stoning for a married one. The Hanbali school requires stoning across the board. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, directed his followers to kill the one who sodomizes and the one who lets it be done to him”(‘Umdat al-Salik, p17.3).

U.S. Army secretary works to fix GI Bill for Minnesotans

2007-10-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

More than 1,100 Minnesota troops are being denied expanded educational benefits because they served too few days in Iraq, sometimes one day too few.

Almost half of the 2,600 Minnesota National Guard soldiers who deployed with the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 34th Infantry Division are getting shortchanged on their education benefits.
The 1,162 affected troops served just as long as their colleagues -- 22 consecutive months, the longest of any U.S. unit in Iraq -- but they are not eligible to enroll in the Chapter 30 Montgomery GI Bill because they were demobilized before serving the 730 days of active duty deployment required by the bill.

How long before? From one to 12 days.

Members of the Minnesota congressional delegation have been working with the Minnesota National Guard to correct what they consider an inequity.

The state's U.S. senators, Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar, announced Monday they had received word from Army Secretary Pete Geren that he was attempting to fix the problem.

"Many of these soldiers have put their education on hold in order to serve our nation, and awarding these benefits is the least we can do for them when they return," Coleman said.

Streamlining appeals process

Geren told the senators he was recommending that the Army Board of Corrections, which has the authority to award the benefits, expedite the review process so the soldiers could get their benefits in time to enroll for spring semester. Usually, each soldier would each have to file a personal appeal, but Geren requested the Army review them as one group.

Those who qualify for Chapter 30 Montgomery GI Benefits can receive $894 per month to be used for education, after making a $1,200 down payment. The benefits are available up to 10 years after the soldiers leave the service.

Those who don't qualify, like the 1,162 from Minnesota who are recorded as serving 729 days or less, can receive $660 per month as full-time students through the Reserved Education Assistance Program (REAP). The benefits expire once the soldier leaves the service.

"The Minnesota National Guard believes all soldiers who served 20 consecutive months on duty as part of the First Brigade Combat Team's extended mobilization should be entitled to the same set of benefits for their dedicated service to the nation," said Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a spokesman for the Minnesota Guard.

Olson said they discovered the discrepancy in July when the soldiers were preparing to return to civilian life at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.

The U.S. House unanimously approved a resolution Monday authored by Rep. Tim Walz commending Minnesota's National Guard soldiers for having the longest continuous deployment in Iraq of any U.S. military unit.

The troops mobilized in September 2005 for training and deployed to Iraq in March 2006. They were set to return home in January, but their tours were extended another 125 days as part of President Bush's troop surge.

The unit completed 137 reconstruction projects and captured about 400 detainees, according to a release from Walz's office. They also helped start Iraqi newspapers and produced documentaries on the U.S. military's work in Iraq.

How the world changes in 1 day

2007-10-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

The day before...
September 2001 - The world can change in a day. Don't miss your daily edition of in-depth news.

It's not often that a print ad literally jumps up and throttles our attention like this one - done for local newspaper brand Cape Times - did this morning.

There are four executions. This one in reference to 9/11, another (beautifully shot) for Hiroshima 1945, the JFK assassination and the '76 Soweto riots [all after the jump].

Using iconic events from history, the campaign highlights the fact that world-changing events often can¹t be predicted and that the course of history can, quite literally, change in a day.

Love the art direction and the hard-hitting message of these ads. Stunningly arresting.

Makes you think what the Virginia Tech campus looked like on Sunday morning.

National Guard Troops Denied Benefits After Longest Deployment Of Iraq War

2007-10-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush's surge.

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill.

"It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership... once again failing the soldiers."

Anderson's orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days.

Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school.

"Which would be allowing the soldiers an extra $500 to $800 a month," Anderson said.

That money would help him pay for his master's degree in public administration. It would help Anderson's fellow platoon leader, John Hobot, pay for a degree in law enforcement.

"I would assume, and I would hope, that when I get back from a deployment of 22 months, my senior leadership in Washington, the leadership that extended us in the first place, would take care of us once we got home," Hobot said.

Both Hobot and Anderson believe the Pentagon deliberately wrote orders for 729 days instead of 730. Now, six of Minnesota's members of the House of Representatives have asked the Secretary of the Army to look into it -- So have Senators Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman.

Klobuchar said the GI money "shouldn't be tied up in red tape," and Coleman said it's "simply irresponsible to deny education benefits to those soldiers who just completed the longest tour of duty of any unit in Iraq."

Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home.

"I had 23 guys under my command," Anderson said. "I promised to take care of them. And I'm not going to end taking care of them when this deployment is over, and it's not over until this is solved."

The Army did not respond questions Tuesday afternoon.

Senators Klobuchar and Coleman released a joint statement saying the Army secretary, Pete Geren, is looking into this personally, and they say Geren asked a review board to expedite its review so the matter could be solved by next semester.

Minnesota National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Olson said the soldiers are "victims of a significant injustice."

Giuliani attacks Clinton over $5,000 baby bond

2007-10-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani attacked New York Sen. Hillary Clinton Friday for entertaining the idea of giving every newborn child a $5,000 bond.

Speaking at the American's for Prosperity Foundation Summit, the Republican White House hopeful criticized Clinton’s proposal for its high cost and said such a suggestion shows the Democratic presidential candidate’s lack of executive experience.

"Do you know the first question I asked? ‘How many children are born in the United States?’ Because, I was going to multiply that by the $5,000,” Giuliani said. “Because I ran a city. I've run a business. I know how to make a payroll and I know how to reduce expenses. ‘Do you know how much money it is per year?’ Twenty billion."

“Hillary, that's real money," he added. "You and Bill can't afford that. It's got to come out of somebody's pockets. You know who it comes out of?”

Giuliani went on to criticize Clinton, as well as fellow Democratic White House hopefuls Barack Obama and John Edwards charging that they are seeking "on-the- job executive training."

"In the case of the three leading Democrats, [they] have never run a city, they've never run a state, I don't think they've ever run a business," Giuliani said. "This is why they make proposals like this."

At a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus last week, Clinton said, "I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18, if they have finished high school, they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that down-payment on their first home."

Speaking to supporters in Chicago Thursday night, Clinton said that the proposal was only an "idea" not a policy of her presidential campaign.

"I was just trying to start a conversation, which I think is an important conversion, about how we make sure children from middle class, working families, poor families, have access to all the opportunities in life that many of us try to provide for our own children," she said. "So I am looking for a conversation and that was just an idea I threw out to see what kind of reaction I'd get."

Party-on Mayor Gavin Newsom!

2007-10-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

Yo My San Francisco Residents,

I’ve been getting absolutely “hammered” in the press lately and I thought I would take this opportunity to defend myself against all these accusations from all those fugglie playa-haterz! Anyway, I went around and polled some of you to see what you thought about the following things.

1) Do you think I’ve been doing, like a good job, or a great job?

2) Do you think that it’s important that your mayor (or any public figure for that matter) take extreme care of their hair? And that they keep up to date on the most important innovations in hair care products. And that they are willing to spend as much time as needed to make sure that they have perfectly coiffed hair.

3) Do you think that a lot of the things that I’ve done have made San Francisco a better place to go to bars at?

4) Don’t you think the media has been unfair in their portrayal of me, and my recent problems, and that publications like Maxim are wrong to rank the “honeys” of San Francisco the 4th worst of any major Metropolitan area – I’m outraged for one.

Cindy, 22, Cow Hollow Resident, Bartender
1) OMG, you are doing such a really really awesome job!! You rock!!!
2) Well, I don’t know if it’s THE most important issue, but it’s definitely something that shows that you are HOT! Plus anytime you are doing research on innovations it’s, like, really important.
3) Totally, I mean, I work at one the cities premier watering holes, and I’ve noticed the difference in just the 3 short months that I’ve been doing it. I’m making a ton of money ;)
4) Totally, I mean we are one of the hottest cities on the planet! It’s probably because a lot of the people in the media are ugly.

Della, 21, Pacific Heights Resident, Server

1) You are the best and do a like really great job!
2) Yes! You’re hair is so sexy!
3) Uh huh, I’m so drunk right now!!!!!
4) What? This music is so loud, let’s go into the bathroom. What? Yeah..

Laurie, 29, Pacific Heights Resident, Philanthropist

1) I just think you’ve done more for this city than anyone. You are an inspiration not only for your dedication to the people, but all the time you’ve made for attending important social functions, without which almost all social services wouldn’t be possible.
2) Personal appearance is important sweetie; and you are the hunkiest mayor in the history of the world. I’m very familiar with the world as a philanthropist, so I can say this with 110% certainty.
3) It is important that we have more and more acceptable places for people of our social set to feel comfortable and so we can do the good work that we do. The local bar scene has been one of your most important contributions as mayor.
4) That’s why I only read the Nob Hill Gazette, and 7x7!

====================================

After all this hard work polling, I rewarded all these good citizens with a little party back at “The Mansion” – eat your heart out Hef!

SF Mayor: "You Want To Reduce Crime in This Country By 70% Overnight? End This War On Drugs."

2007-10-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaimed the nation's war on drugs a total failure and insisted the crime rate would go down if the government spent money on treatment as opposed to jailing people with drug problems.

"If you want to get serious, if you want to reduce crime by 70% in this country overnight, end this war on drugs," he told reporters at City Hall on Thursday. "You want to get serious, seriously serious about crime and violence end this war on drugs."

The mayor maintained local jails are overcrowded with people incarcerated for drug offenses, taking up room that could be used to hold more violent criminal offenders. He said violent criminals with lengthy felony records are being turned loose, too often.

San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey, who has run the county jail for 28 years, told CBS 5 that 60 to 75 percent of the 2,000 inmates currently held are there for drug crimes or have underlying substance abuse problems.

He also agreed with Newsom.

"No, the war on drugs is not working. The war on drugs is not working because we are relying on law enforcement instead of on treatment," Hennessey said.

In a ten-minute tirade about the drug war's failure, Newsom told reporters that most politicians - including those in his own party - just don't have the guts to admit the obvious.

"It's laughable that anyone could look at themselves with a straight face and say 'oh,we're really succeeding.' I mean it's comedy. And as I say, shame on my party, the democratic party, because they don't have the courage of their private thoughts, because we don't want to appear weak on this topic," Newsom said.

The mayor said the 'politicizing' of the illegal drug use issue prevents a discussion about real solutions to the drug epidemic.

"End this war on drugs. Now, that is an attack ad by any politician, what I just said, they would be desperate to find that tape of what I just said," Newsom said.

The mayor insisted, however, that he wasn't calling for the legalization of all drugs - just a recognition that the current approach isn't working.

"I'm not saying (legalization). I'm saying get real about it," he explained. "So what does that mean? Well, it means a lot of things. It means this war on drugs is an abject failure."

Local substance abuse counselors welcomed Newsom's candor, while critics rejected it.

"I think the mayor probably has the right idea as far as turning the money away from the current approach, incarceration, and hopefully he's talking about turning the money toward more prevention programs," said Meredith Charpantier, a former drug counselor.

But Gary Delagnes, who heads the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said ending the war on drugs wouldn't bring an end to crime.

"I don't think that you give in to a problem by just acquiesing. I think that there does have to be control and I don't think legalizing drugs is the answer," he said.

Delagnes pointed to three murders occuring in San Francisco on Wednesday alone, which means the city has already surpassed last year's homicide total.

"When we see the homicides in San Francisco, I mean this all centers around drugs," Delagnes continued. "This is gangs and drug violence, this is money. It's all about money all the time."

There have been 89 murders in San Francisco so far in 2007, up from 85 murders during all of 2006.

Dionne: Bush Funds War with IOUs

2007-10-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 5, 2007; Page A21

Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it?

That is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush's request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.

The proposal is a magnificent way to test the seriousness of those who claim that the Iraq war is an essential part of the "global war on terror." If the war's backers believe in it so much, it should be easy for them to ask taxpayers to put up the money for such an important endeavor.

Obey makes the case pointedly. "Some people are being asked to pay with their lives or their faces or their hands or their arms or their legs," he said in an interview this week. "If you're going to ask for that, it doesn't seem too much to ask an average taxpayer to pay 30 bucks for the cost of the war so we don't have to shove it off on our kids."

Or as Obey said in a statement, "I'm tired of seeing that only military families are asked to sacrifice in this war."

Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership ran away from this idea as fast as you can say the words "Republican majority." That, of course, is what Democrats are afraid of. "Just as I have opposed the war from the outset," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "I am opposed to a war surtax."

Obey doesn't hold this against his leadership. "They don't want to be demagogued by the White House when they have other fish to fry," he said.

But it's a shame that Democrats remain so defensive on the tax issue that they aren't willing to bring this proposal to the floor. What if the price for passing President Bush's supplemental appropriation were a tax to cover its costs? What if opponents of the war voted no because they are against Bush's policy and Republicans voted no because they think low taxes are more important than national security as they define it?

That's an aggressive way to frame any such antitax "no" votes, but it's also accurate. If a war appropriations bill with a tax included went down to overwhelming defeat, wouldn't that tell us something about the depth of commitment to this war?

The Obey surtax, co-sponsored by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and John Murtha (D-Pa.), envisions a sliding scale running from roughly 2 percent on the taxes paid by lower-income Americans to 15 percent on upper-income Americans. Since wars are waged, in principle, on behalf of the entire country, this is the rare Democratic tax proposal that does not put the entire burden on the rich.

The plan does not ask for a tax to cover the $45 billion in Bush's supplemental request to pay for the war in Afghanistan. "There are legitimate expenditures on which we don't mind sharing the costs with future generations," Obey says, noting that there is a broad consensus that the fight in Afghanistan is in the long-term interest of the country. It might be less gimmicky to pay for both wars now, but some revenue is better than none.

Ah, you say, but this is just symbolic politics. I don't think so, but let's assume it is. This idea is far more serious than the utterly empty fight Bush is about to pick with Congress over a $21 billion to $23 billion difference in spending in a federal budget that totals some $2.7 trillion.

Here is a president who signed one bloated spending bill after another -- as long as they were passed by a Republican Congress -- posing as a fiscal conservative now that Democrats are in the majority. He's so tough and determined that he's also drawn the line on . . . children's health care.

Bush has often let it be known that he hates "small ball" politics. But there is nothing smaller or more trivial than a budget fight over a difference that any responsible president could easily resolve in negotiations with Congress. War spending aside, Obey says it would take no more than a week to reach a reasonable compromise on the overall budget if the White House would just engage.

And if the president believes in this war so much and doesn't want to raise taxes, let him propose the deep spending cuts it would take to cover the costs. Then Bush would show how much of a priority he believes this war is -- and he wouldn't be playing small ball.

If you vote for Hillary Clinton, are you getting two presidents for the price of one?

2007-10-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has said his wife wants him to lead efforts to rebuild the United States' tarnished reputation abroad if she is elected to the White House next year.

The former president made the comments in interviews released Friday in Britain where he was fundraising for Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination for next year's presidential election.

Clinton was asked what his public role might be if his wife becomes president, in interviews with The Guardian newspaper and British Broadcasting Corp. television.

"What Hillary has said is that if she were elected she would ask me, and others — including former Republican presidents — to go out and immediately try to restore America's standing, go out and tell people America was open for business and cooperation again," he was quoted as telling The Guardian newspaper.

He said for the first time in his political experience, "ordinary Americans in the heartlands" were concerned about how the world sees the U.S. after years of unilateralism of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration on issues such as Iraq, climate change, and nuclear nonproliferation.

"The collective effect of that was to enrage the world at the very moment when we had more world support than we've had in recent memory because of 9/11. It was an unbelievable turnaround," Clinton was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

Clinton hails N. Korea accord
As an example of how the U.S. can win by working with others, Clinton pointed to the six-nation North Korea arms talks this week, where Pyongyang committed to disabling its main nuclear facilities by year-end.

"You can see in the recent success of the North Korean nuclear effort that when America moved from unilateralism to working through, and with, others it works pretty well," he said on the BBC.

In addition to a fundraising event for his wife, Clinton was in Britain to promote his new book about philanthropy, "Giving."

Since leaving office in 2000, he has dedicated himself into promoting global philanthropy through his foundation.

Last week, he hosted his third annual Clinton Global Initiative, a forum where world leaders from the world of politics, business, entertainment and nonprofit organizations discuss climate change, poverty, health care and education.

Participants are expected to commit time or money to the conference's big issues and those who do not fulfill their pledges are not invited back.

Bush: 'This government does not torture'

2007-10-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

President Bush on Friday defended his administration's methods of interrogating terrorism suspects, insisting, "This government does not torture people."

"When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them and you bet we're going to question them, because the American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence, so we can help them -- help protect them," Bush said.

Bush said his administration sticks to "U.S. law and our international obligations."

He said, "The techniques that we use have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress."

Bush's remarks followed a report Thursday in The New York Times that said a secret Justice Department memo in 2005 amounted to "an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency."

The 2005 legal opinion was issued after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over Justice, the Times reported, and authorized using a combination of techniques such as head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding.

The Times said the memo was strongly opposed by then-departing Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who had repeatedly clashed with the Bush White House over terror-related policies.

The Times said its investigation over three months had included interviews with more than two dozen current and former officials.

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino confirmed the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel wrote a previously undisclosed February 5, 2005 memo, but she insisted the classified document did not undercut or reverse a 2004 memo that rejected torture.

"U.S. policy is not to torture -- and we do not," Perino told reporters. "Regardless of where we are, we do not torture anybody, but getting information from them is critically important to protecting this country."

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse issued a statement declaring the December 2004 anti-torture memo remains binding on the executive branch.

"Neither Attorney General [Alberto] Gonzales nor anyone else within the department modified or withdrew that opinion," Roehrkasse said.

CIA spokesman George Little issued a statement saying all interrogations are conducted "in strict accord with U.S. law."

"The agency's terrorist detention and interrogation program has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review, including extensive discussion within the executive branch and oversight from Congress," Little said.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers sharply criticized the Bush administration.

"It appears that under Attorney General Gonzales, they reversed themselves and reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

"I suspect that former Deputy Attorney General Comey will again prove to be right in his prediction that the Department of Justice will be ashamed when we learn more about all that they have done," Leahy said.

Leahy, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned that the "ongoing scandals" at the Justice Department "now encumber" the nomination of retired federal judge Michael Mukasey, selected to replace Gonzales as attorney general.

Congressman Barrett: It was my son’s porno. No, really!

2007-10-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

State Representative Matt Barrett from Columbus, Ohio was giving a Powerpoint presentation to a group of high schoolers when porno popped up on the projector. Oops. Turns out the Congressman’s son had borrowed the flashdrive and was responsible. So I ask you, BackStreetPolitics readers, is this the truth? Or political BS?

I personally think it’s true. Stuff like this usually has a pretty reasonable explanation, and you’d think he’d be smart enough to keep his porn where it belongs: on his iPod.

Washington supreme court greenlights lies during campaigns

2007-10-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Back in 99' the Washington legislature apparently passed a law prohibiting politicians from lying about opponents during campaigns. The Washington supreme court has now overturned that law citing free speech concerns.

I suspect Washington campaigns will become a lot more interesting now.

"My opponent has a wide stance"

"Perhaps, but you have a family of gerbils packed up your ass and your jacuzzi is filled with Crisco."

"My opponent has $90,000 in graft money stashed in his freezer"

"Perhaps, but you have the severed limbs of 10 hobos stashed in yours"

Sorry about the WA/AK mixup

Al Gore Finally Debates Scientists Over Global Warming

2007-10-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Climate change skeptics around the world are painfully aware that the Global Warmingist-in-Chief, soon-to-be-Nobel Laureate Al Gore, despite his supposedly vast knowledge on the subject, has refused every invitation to debate his theories concerning man's role in making things hot for the planet.

Fearing the globe's foremost warm-monger will never step up to the challenge - why should he...the debate's over! - top scientists from everywhere you can imagine have decided to debate the former vice president the only way seemingly possible: on YouTube.

As marvelously announced at PR Newswire Thursday (debate video available here).

Since former Vice President and global warming activist Al Gore has so far refused to debate global warming skeptics, the debate has been brought to him. The public can now watch Al Gore make his case head-to-head against expert climatologists in the first episode of the new environmental education video series, "We Debate, You Decide," launched by DemandDebate.com.

How delicious. The announcement continued:

"Al Gore has refused multiple invitations to debate in-person about global warming," said Steve Milloy, executive director of DemandDebate.com. "So we've decided to let video of his previous remarks do the talking for him," Milloy explained.

In the first installment of DemandDebate's "We Debate, You Decide" series, Al Gore 'debates' expert climatologists on the central issue of whether carbon dioxide drives global warming.

Al Gore says in the video that we're witnessing an unprecedented level of atmospheric carbon dioxide that is driving global temperatures higher. But expert climatologists .- including Syun-ichi Akasofu, Tim Ball, Ian Clark, Piers Corbyn, Patrick Michaels, Nir Shaviv and Frederick Singer - say there is no evidence carbon dioxide drives global temperature change."

"We'll see what the public thinks after both sides make their case on a specific and narrow point," said Milloy. "Global warming alarmists didn't fare so well last time that happened," he added.

Last March, the prestigious New York debating society, Intelligence Squared, sponsored a debate on global warming, which may be viewed at http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/Event.aspx?Event=12. A pre-debate poll indicated that, by 2-to-1 (57 percent to 29 percent, with 14 percent undecided), the audience believed that manmade global warming was a crisis. But in the post-debate poll, the audience reversed its pre-debate views -- the ranks of the skeptics swelled to 46 percent, the believers plummeted to 42 percent and the undecided declined slightly to 12 percent.

Of course, unless you read NewsBusters, you likely didn’t hear about this debate in New York. After all, the results didn’t mesh with the media’s agenda.

That said, DemandDebate.com is to be commended for its efforts, and we sincerely hope that these videos will help the public better understand the facts that a global warming obsessed media are doing their darnedest to withhold from the citizenry.

Russia's "Father of All Bombs" Not Quite That Manly

2007-10-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

To our innocent eyes, the video of Russia's "Father of All Bombs" looked pretty impressively explosive, but US big-boom experts are now questioning Russia's hoax-y claims about the weapon's size and power. For one, it might not even be a shockwave-generating thermobaric bomb—one expert says it actually looks like a fuel-air bomb, which is just a smaller explosive device strapped to lots of fuel—not exactly a marvel of Russian military science.

Another analyst, from the Center for Defense Information, says at best its blast is just 50 percent bigger than our MOAB. The list just keeps going: It wasn't dropped from a bomber (as implied in the video, but check the cut when the bay doors open), but probably shoved out the side of a cargo plane, which is almost kind of cute in its quaintness. But regardless of its actual size or power, we still wouldn't want one dropped in our backyard.

'Dead Harry' Sculpture Heading To UK

2007-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

A sculpture portraying a dead Prince Harry in Army uniform with a vulture at his feet is coming to London.

The statue, by American artist Daniel Edwards, shows the 23-year-old clutching a locket of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Edwards says his work is intended to be seen as a memorial to honour those who are willing but unable to serve in Iraq.

In May, the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, said Harry would not be sent to Iraq because of the unacceptable risks he would face and the "number of specific threats" made against him directly.

The memorial, which features the Prince laid out before the Union Flag with pennies placed over his eyes and his head resting on a Bible, will go on show at the Trafalgar Hotel in central London next Thursday as part of the Bridge Art Fair.

Edwards, who is based in New York, said: "Prince Harry's spirit must have died the day they told him he couldn't serve.

"That's what this memorial is about."

The artwork is being amended to show the Prince's head with his ears cut off, a reference to reports that militia leaders in Iraq had said they planned to send him back to his grandmother - the Queen - "without his ears".

A bronze casting of his "severed ears" will also be on display at the hotel and will go on sale on auction website eBay at a later date.

Art fair spokesman David Kesting said: "This war memorial is dedicated to the brave at heart.

"But the brave men and women Prince Harry inspired to enlist for combat following his announcement to serve six months in Iraq are not forgotten."

He said visitors may place cards and flowers for the prince at the memorial or send their condolences through the website at PrinceHarryMemorial.com.

Sen. Craig not resigning despite judge's ruling

2007-10-05T01:30:00.000-07:00

Sen. Larry Craig on Thursday said he was not resigning from the Senate despite a Minnesota judge denying his request to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his arrest in a sex sting at an airport men's room.

"I am extremely disappointed with the ruling issued today," Craig said in a statement. "I am innocent of the charges against me. I continue to work with my legal team to explore my additional legal options."

"I will continue to serve Idaho in the United States Senate, and there are several reasons for that," the Republican said.

Craig's decision to not resign, despite promising last month to do so if the judge ruled against his motion, was not a surprise to fellow Republican senators, Senate GOP sources told CNN.

No one in the GOP leadership has talked to Craig about his decision, the sources said.

"There has been a sense around the Senate that he was going to stay," a Senate GOP leadership aide told CNN, saying there was "frustration and fatigue around the issue."

Craig, however, did get a show of support from fellow Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, who said in a statement that "Sen. Craig has the right to pursue his legal options as does any citizen, and I support his effort."

Hennepin County District Judge Charles Porter found that Craig had entered the guilty plea to to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge "accurately, voluntarily and intelligently," and that it was too late to withdraw his admission.

In a sharply worded 27-page order, the judge found that Craig had freely given his plea after extensive discussions with prosecutors and after waiving his right to an attorney.

"The defendant, a career politician with a college education, is of at least above-average intelligence," Porter wrote. "He knew what he was saying, reading and signing." Watch a report on the judge's ruling »

Craig's lawyer, Billy Martin, said that his client was weighing whether to appeal the judge's decision.

"We renew our arguments that it is manifestly unjust to deny Sen. Craig's request to withdraw his guilty plea. Sen. Craig continues his steadfast denial that any inappropriate behavior took place at the airport," Martin said in a statement.

Craig was arrested in June by Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport police, who accused him of making sexual overtures in an airport men's room to an undercover police officer. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August, entering his plea by mail and paying a $500 fine. View a timeline of the Craig scandal »

Once the guilty plea became public, Craig argued that the plea was a "mistake" and denied having engaged in any inappropriate conduct. He said he pleaded guilty without legal advice out of fear that the allegations would be made public at a time when a Boise, Idaho, newspaper was investigating long-standing rumors about his sexuality.

"This pressure was entirely perceived by the defendant and was not a result of any action by the police, the prosecutor or the court," he wrote.

Martin said last week that no judge signed off on the plea -- and, more importantly, that what Craig did in the restroom did not constitute disorderly conduct.

But Porter dismissed that argument, saying the facts police presented "provide a sufficient, supplemental, factual basis for a conviction of disorderly conduct."

The judge also said the transcript of the dialogue between Craig and the arresting police officer did not show "an improperly aggressive interrogation."

"There was no manifest injustice in the pressures to plead as perceived by the defendant," Porter wrote.

Craig had said he would resign from the Senate if he could not get the guilty plea withdrawn by the end of September -- but then said he would await Porter's ruling before deciding whether to step down.

If Craig stays in the Senate, the chamber's Ethics Committee has indicated it will investigate his conduct.

Craig, a 62-year-old, three-term senator, is up for re-election in 2008, but advisers said he had decided against running for another term before the news of his arrest was made public.

The Idaho Republican, who is married and has aligned himself with conservative groups that oppose gay rights, has denied he is a homosexual.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, who had advocated that Craig fight to withdraw his guilty plea, said he wasn't surprised by the judge's decision.

"It's a question of law," Specter said. "I thought he had a chance. No doubt it's difficult to withdraw a guilty plea."

If he does leave, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has decided on a replacement for Craig -- but won't name his choice until Craig resigns, Otter spokesman Jon Hanian said.

Hanian said the governor has not received a resignation letter from Craig and has not talked to the senator since the ruling. He denied that Otter -- a longtime friend of the senator -- is pushing Craig to go, saying the governor "just wants to be ready."

The Republican Senate leadership canceled a scheduled news conference after the judge's decision was released.

Impeach Bush or Get Rid of the Impeachment Clause

2007-10-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

What is it about impeachment that has the Democratic Party leadership so frightened?
Talking with members of Congress, one hears the same refrain: “I know Bush and Cheney have committed impeachable crimes, but impeachment is a bad idea.”

The rationales offered are many, but all are either specious or based upon flawed reasoning. Let’s consider them separately:

Excuse one, offered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is that impeachment would be a diversion from Democrats’ main goals of ending the Iraq War, and passing important legislation. The reality, of course, is that many of the administration’s impeachable acts relate directly to the war, so hearings would only build support for ending it. Meanwhile, with the slim majorities in both houses, Democrats cannot pass any significant progressive legislation that could survive a veto (or a presidential signing statement) and the record shows it.

Excuse two is that impeachment is divisive. This seems the height of absurdity. When voters handed Congress to the Democrats, they knew they were setting the stage for divided government. That was the whole point. Moreover, divisiveness in Washington has largely emanated from the White House, not from Congress. Anyhow, given administration intransigence on all the issues that matter to Democrats, they have no alternative but to take a stand.

Excuse three is a claim that the public opposes impeachment. This is simply wrong. The few straightforward scientific polls done on impeachment, such as one published by Newsweek last October, show a majority of Americans to want it. Furthermore, if Bush has committed impeachable acts, it is inappropriate for House members, all of whom swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, not to act.

Excuse four is that old canard that impeaching Bush would mean making Cheney president—a deliberately scary prospect but one which any politician in Washington knows is garbage. Firstly, if Cheney were to become president because of a Bush impeachment or resignation, it would only be for a few months, and given his stunning lack of support among the public—currently about 9 percent and falling—he would be the lamest of lame ducks, unable to do anything. But more importantly, his own party would be certain to remove him before any removal of Bush, and for exactly that reason—they would not want to be going into the 2008 election with Cheney as party leader. This is exactly what happened to Spiro Agnew, whom a Republican attorney general managed to indict and remove before the collapse of Nixon’s presidency. The same thing can be expected to happen to Cheney, who would surely face either a sudden health crisis, or an indictment for corruption.

Finally, excuse five is that the president’s crimes and abuses of power need to be proven before any impeachment bill. This is completely backwards. An impeachment bill can be filed by any member of Congress who believes the president has violated the Constitution. At that point, it is up to the House Judiciary Committee to consider the bill’s merits and decide whether to ask the full House to authorize impeachment hearings. It is at an impeachment hearing where investigations should proceed. After all, only after the Judiciary Committee votes out an impeachment article can the full House consider whether to actually impeach. Calling for investigations before an impeachment hearing is like asking for an investigation before a grand jury investigation. It’s redundant, simply a dodge.

Besides, some of this president’s high crimes are self-evident. Take the case of Bush’s ordering the National Security Agency to spy on Americans’ communications without a warrant. A federal judge has already labeled this violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act a felony. There is no denying this felony occurred, or that Bush is responsible. The only question the House needs to vote on is whether the felony is a “high crime” warranting impeachment.

The same applies Bush’s refusal to enact over 1200 laws or parts of laws duly passed by Congress. Bush doesn’t deny that he has usurped the power of the Congress, as laid down in Article I of the Constitution. Rather, he asserts—with no basis in the wording of that document—that as commander in chief in the war on terror, he has the “unitary executive” authority to ignore acts of Congress. Again, there is no need for an “investigation” to establish whether this happened. What Congress must do is decide whether this usurpation of its Constitutional role is an impeachable abuse of power.

Likewise the president’s authorization of kidnap and torture. We know the president okayed torture. We know too, that he used his “unitary executive” claim to refuse to accept a law passed overwhelmingly by the last Congress outlawing torture. Finally, we know the president did not, as required by US and international law, act to halt torture and punish those up the chain of command who oversaw systematic, widespread torture.

There are many impeachable crimes by this president (and vice president), such as obstruction of justice in the Valeria Plame outing case, conspiracy (or treason) in the Niger “yellowcake” document forgery scandal, conspiracy to engage in election fraud, lying to Congress, criminal negligence in responding to the Katrina disaster, bribery and war profiteering, etc., which would require Judiciary Committee investigations.

In the meantime, though, Democrats need to step up to their responsibility.

If this president is not to be impeached, Congress may as well amend the Constitution to remove the impeachment clause. It will, in that case, have become as much an anachronism as prohibition.